implementing a content strategy during a brand refresh: teach for america case study
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Implementing a Content Strategy During a Brand Refresh:
Teach For America Case Study
MIMA Summit, October 12, 2011
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About Teach For America
2011201120112011----2012 School Year2012 School Year2012 School Year2012 School Year
• 48,000 applicants to the corps
• 9,000 corps members
• 2,600 schools
• 600,000 students reached
Since 1990Since 1990Since 1990Since 1990
• 3 million students taught
• 24,000 alumni
By the NumbersBy the NumbersBy the NumbersBy the Numbers
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Teach For America – Twin Cities: Local Impact
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Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
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Web Presence: 2010
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Wake Up Call
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Our Homework
Preparing to redesign the website involved a lot of research and thought partnership, and required establishing a clear vision.
* The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools, McKinsey & Company Social sector Office, 2009
• Evaluating the current site and thinking about its limitations
• Stakeholder interviews with ~50 people across the organization
• “Insights” market research work
• Further usability testing
• Identifying peer websites we admired, connecting with those teams
Assessing the Website’s “Achievement Gap”
Three Guiding Principles
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Three Guiding Principles
Community
& Conversation
Warmth
& Emotion
Balanced
Content Mix
• The site should showcase the diversity and vibrancy of the community focused on solving educational inequity
• Foreground the multiple voices and perspectives of people whomake up that community
• Encourage and enable communication among community members
• The site should lead the way in refocusing and repositioning thebrand, projecting more personality, authenticity, and passion
• Use people’s stories to “show” rather than “tell”
• Streamline the site and strike the right balance between text,images, graphics, and multimedia
• Go beyond an online TFA brochure
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Timeline
The web team was focused on the website redesign, but other events and discussions in the organization could not be ignored.
Website Website Website Website RedesignRedesignRedesignRedesign
Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing BrandBrandBrandBrand
DiscussionsDiscussionsDiscussionsDiscussions
InternalInternalInternalInternalEventsEventsEventsEvents
Q4 (July)Q4 (July)Q4 (July)Q4 (July)Q3 (AprQ3 (AprQ3 (AprQ3 (Apr----Jun)Jun)Jun)Jun)Q2 (JanQ2 (JanQ2 (JanQ2 (Jan----Mar)Mar)Mar)Mar)Q1 (OctQ1 (OctQ1 (OctQ1 (Oct----Dec)Dec)Dec)Dec)
Kickoff, Research, Strategy
Sitemap, Wireframes
Defining key messages
Writingand asset creation
New core values
announced
VoiceVoiceVoiceVoice
Brand PersonalityBrand PersonalityBrand PersonalityBrand Personality
Visual SignalVisual SignalVisual SignalVisual Signal
New book by CEO, Founder
TFA marks 20 years
Marketing team re-org
begins
CMS entry Launch
New CMO begins
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Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
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Our New Voice
With all that was in flux – core values, visual signal, brand personality – and all that we wanted to accomplish – more inspiration, warmth, and emotion –establishing a new voice was critical.
Working with the many writers on this project, I focused our attention in two areas:
• Inspiring
• Engaging
• Warm and welcoming
• Humble
• Focused on our mission
Tone and SubstanceTone and SubstanceTone and SubstanceTone and Substance
• Writing for the Web
• Clear, direct
• Plainspoken
• Conversational
MechanicsMechanicsMechanicsMechanics
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Before and After
OriginalOriginalOriginalOriginal
The prevailing notion is that children growing up in low-income communities cannot overcome the massive obstacles they face, and therefore the investments in solving these problems are futile. These beliefs prevent us from addressing the challenges of poverty and discrimination, and from building the capacity of our schools and school systems.
RevisedRevisedRevisedRevised
“This is the hardest work on the planet. It’s also the most important. We can never forget that the unit of change for an individual kid’s life is school. It starts in pre-K and goes straight through college. We need the broader systemic changes and then we need as many committed, talented, and revolutionary teachers as this nation can produce.” –Dave Levin
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Balanced Content Mix
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Balanced Content Mix: Why Teach For America?
March – Defining communication
objectives page by page
May – Displaying near-final content in a WF like layout
July – Site content staged for launch
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Brand Personality
…If a brand personality is a set of human characteristics
associated with a brand,
and ours is “TBD,”
why don’t we put some of our real humans on display?
Our brand personality is a set of human characteristics associated with the Teach For America brand.
If Teach For America were a person, what would s/he be like?
It is the driver of emotional associations that people create with Teach For America.
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Profile Collection
We collected over 400 profiles from corps members, alumni, and supporters
back – it was a treasure trove – well
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Evolving Visual Signal
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Website Design
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Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
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The Qualitative/Fuzzy Math Wins
• Streamlined site, with fewer pages
• Reduction in word count by approximately 45%
• Defined messaging architecture for the site
• Simplified language
• Infusion of inspiration
• A platform that allows for frequent site updates and a distributed publishing model
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Quantitative Wins
• Our engagement metrics show we are encouraging quality time on site
• Engagement metrics look even better when we isolate the time right before an application deadline
• Over the coming year, we have grand plans to iterate
-35%Bounce Rate
83%Time on Site
56%Pages/Visit
20%Visits/Visitor
Change Change Change Change –––– YOYYOYYOYYOYMetricMetricMetricMetric
We set out to create a website that inspires and engages, and metrics confirm we’ve gone a long way toward that goal.
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Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
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Content Strategy in 2010-2011
Community
& Conversation
Warmth
& Emotion
Balanced
Content Mix
• The site should showcase the diversity and vibrancy of the community focused on solving educational inequity
• Foreground the multiple voices and perspectives of people whomake up that community
• Encourage and enable communication among community members
• The site should lead the way in refocusing and repositioning thebrand, projecting more personality, authenticity, and passion
• Use people’s stories to “show” rather than “tell”
• Streamline the site and strike the right balance between text,images, graphics, and multimedia
• Go beyond an online TFA brochure
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Authenticity: The Value of the Moment
Source: New York Times, 9/9/11
“Authenticity seems to be the
value of the moment, rolling off the tongues of
politicians, celebrities, Web gurus, college admissions
advisers, reality television stars.”
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Storytelling as Buzzword
Source: A List Apart, 8/23/11
“Storytelling is a buzzword with lots of different interpretations. Either the internet is killing
stories, or it’s the best thing to happen to them since the printing
press.”
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Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. “The Digital Decade”
IV. What We Achieved
V. Questions?