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How To Select The Tools and Technologies for Delivering A Unified Customer Experience

[WEBINAR] Key Elements for Building A Content Strategy

Mat ZuckerPartner Prophet@matzucker

Omar AkhtarManaging Editor/Analyst Altimeter, a Prophet Company@obakhtar

What is A Content Strategy?

“You basically want to know what content you should produce, and

where and when you should use it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a marketing

program, or a website, that premise still holds true. You have to see what

your goals are, and how you can dovetail them with your audience needs.” - Mina Seetharaman,

Global Director of Content Strategy at The Economist

• A plan for serving a customer need through the use of content, which also delivers on business requirements

• It needs to be repeatable, governable and scalable

• It applies to an organization, not a department

• Content Strategy is executed by content marketing and content development

Content Strategy vs. Content Marketing

• It is the plan for content

• Strategy applies to the multiple teams and departments

• Set by executive leadership

• Measured year-over-year

• It is the execution of the plan for content

• Marketing plan applies to marketing department

• Plan set by head of the department

• Measured month-over-month

Content Strategy Content Marketing

“It’s not about creating only marketing content, it’s about having a strategy for everything you do which cannot be manifested in the world in a form other than content.” – Hilary Marsh, CEO of Content Company

Challenges of Implementing A Content Strategy

Focus on tactics instead of strategy

Multiple teams, competing objectives

Lack of executive leadership

Disparate audience data

Key Steps for Building A Content Strategy

Step 1: Start With The Customer

Customer Journey

DataWho is my customer?

What are their biggest pain points?

Where do they go to

resolve those pain points? What is their

preferred content format?

Who is influencing

them?

“I don’t need 17 different personas with hyper-granularity on what coffee they drink and what

music they listen to, instead I just need to know the things that keep them up at night.” – Rich Schwerin,

Digital Content Strategist, VMware

Step 2: Know Your Stakeholders

Conduct a content audit

Where is all the content developed, distributed and stored?

Socialize customer dataCreate empathy based personas for entire organization to agree on

Evaluate needs and goals of each teamWhat do they want to achieve? What is their best performing

content? How do they measure success?

Engage every unit that has a stake in contentThis include e-commerce, web, PR, service and product teams

Step 3: Pick A Content Strategy Archetype

Content as Presence

Content as a Window

Content as Currency

Content as Community

Content as Support

• Identify a single, target audience

• What is their biggest need? (that your company can solve)

• Choose the archetype that you are best positioned to deliver on, and will solve the customer need

• Choose only one primary archetype, and possibly a secondary

Archetype 1: Content as Presence

Customer need: “I need to be informed and entertained in order to consider this brand”

Content Types: Engaging, entertaining content delivered on a large scale to create brand awareness or relevance.

Content Formats: Social media posts, advertising, contests, sponsorships.

What it’s good for: Companies trying to stay relevant in digital conversations, maintaining brand health, or creating awareness for new or transforming brands.

Brand examples: Red Bull, Coca-Cola, Taco Bell

What Red Bull stands for is that it "gives you wings…," which means

that it provides skills, abilities, power etc. to achieve whatever you want to. It is an invitation as well as a

request to be active, performance-oriented, alert, and to take

challenges. When you work or study, do your very best. When you do sports, go for your limits. When

you have fun or just relax, be aware of it and appreciate it. – Dietrich

Metschitz, CEO Red Bull

Archetype 2: Content as a Window

Customer need: “I need to trust this company and its products/practices”

Content Types: Inward, transparency focused content including customer/employee stories, case studies and explanations.

Content Formats: Behind-the-scenes videos, images, interviews with leadership.

What it’s good for: Companies that sell services or products considered risky, or brands that need to rebuild trust and loyalty.

Brand examples: Piedmont Health, Novartis, McDonald’s

“Instead of doing what advertising tends to do - which is tell people what’s great about you, I felt that it was important that we should show people what’s great about us. We had to figure out, ‘How do we use our stories to create and build loyalty, or activate preference in a customer?” – Matt Gove, Chief Consumer Officer Piedmont Healthcare.

Archetype 3: Content as Currency

Customer need: “I need high value information to help make better decisions”

Content Types: High-value content that contains unique, proprietary information that helps customer in making personal or professional decisions.

Content Formats: Research reports, webinars, whitepapers, niche blogs.

What it’s good for: Service companies, agencies, companies trying to establish subject matter expertise for consideration.

Brand examples: Charles Schwab, Dun & Bradstreet

“To create something trulyvaluable, it should be high

quality and scarce.”- Steve Rubel, Chief Content

Strategist, Edelman

Archetype 4: Content as Community

Customer need: “I need peer support and knowledge to pursue my passion/hobby/lifestyle”

Content Types: Content that serves the community, promotes discussion and encourages user-generated activity on owned platforms.

Content Formats: Tips and tricks, community websites and forums, niche publications

What it’s good for: Brands with niche audiences that want to establish credibility within a community.

Brand examples: REI, Playstation, AMEX

“We’re not just thinking about associating ourselves with the content people put out in the world, we’re asking people to create content with us in a collaborative way,” – Paolo Mottola, Content Marketing Manager, REI

Archetype 5: Content as Support

Customer need: “I need fast, accurate information that helps me use and make decisions about the product”

Content Types: Consistent, accurate product and support focused material that helps customers to make pre and post purchase decisions.

Content Formats: How-to/Demo videos, FAQs, user manuals, spec sheets

What it’s good for: Brands with high-end, luxury products, or products that require technical knowledge, investment and service in order to be used optimally.

Brand examples: General Motors, Comcast

“Our overall strategy focuses on making our content as easyto access and as consistent and accurate as possible,” - Michael McCormack, Customer and Dealer Experience Lead, GM

Step 4: Set The Content Criteria

• Create guidelines/tests for whether content gets produced or not.

• Must take into consideration factors such as customer need, value, timeliness, relevance.

• De-prioritize or eliminate content that does not meet criteria.

• Enables multiple teams to independently produce content, with common guidelines.

• Examples from REI below:

Step 5: Map Content Along The Customer Journey

• What does the customer journey look like?

• What is the end of the journey? Awareness? Consideration?

• Identify points along journey where content plays a part in moving customer

• Identify which stakeholders will be involved at each point

Step 6: Create Content Initiatives

• Identify gaps in content development, content delivery and content governance

• Establish what is needed to fill those gaps. People? Process? Technology?

• Create content initiatives

• Prioritize initiatives by placing them along a time vs. difficulty chart

Step 7: Define How To Measure Success

• Base success measure on chosen archetype

• Strategy is measured year-over-year, marketing is measured month-over-month

• Regular check in with content stakeholders to see if plan is working

Step 8: Finalize A Content Vision

Omar AkhtarManaging Editor, Altimeter@obakhtaroakhtar@prophet.com

Thank you!Download the report for free at http://www2.prophet.com/buildingacontentstrategy

Altimeter, a Prophet company, provides research and advisory for companies challenged by business disruptions, enabling them to pursue new opportunities and business models

www.altimetergroup.comwww.prophet.com

Mat ZuckerPartner, Prophet@matzuckermzucker@prophet.com