goals, guidelines, and governance: how one association created a smart, sustainable content strategy

Goals, Guidelines, and Governance How one association created a smart, sustainable content strategy

Kristy McGreal Hilary Marsh

Our Agenda

1.  Where we started 2.  What we did 3.  What we found 4.  Top 10 lessons we learned

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Where we started

Before we started, we had a LOT of content

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Lots of links

Event information

FAQs

Policies

Course details

Mission statement

Job listings

Scientific statements

Press releases

News stories

Comment letters

Executive bios

Reports

History

Awards

Process to help us to learn about our content IFT is content rich, but…

•  How is it being used? •  How is it organized? •  What do members want? All of these questions were tackled through this project

Our Goal

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Just because…..

Because the board wanted it Because the committee told us to Because we have this program Because we do this thing Because we created the information Because we have no way to say “no” to the request Because we think we have to Because everyone else is Because this is how we have always done it Because…….

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What we did

Content strategy process

Discovery ++ Compare current state with best practices and organizational

strategy, dream together

Create guidelines

Paint the picture of the “better

way”

Make it sustainable

Create new ways of working

1. Discovery ++

•  Review of existing documents •  Stakeholder interviews •  Member survey •  Comparative content analysis •  Content audit/assessment •  Empathy-based audience personas

Stakeholder interviews

Findings • Content is lacking cohesiveness, relationships, and context • Content is not created with users in mind •  Lack of effective organization is creating confusion and lost

revenue • No shared core audience •  Inconsistent content promotion • Everyone knew there was an issue but didn’t see their role in it • No clear, consistent definition of content

Stakeholder interviews Recommendations • Collect content into clear categories defined and validated by

users, and ensure that it is findable, cross-referenced, and has context.

•  Incorporate user knowledge and data into decisions about content. • Create a clear, flexible taxonomy for the ORGANIZATION (not

department). •  Identify the organization’s top-priority audiences, and use this

prioritization to drive content decisions. • Create an organization-wide editorial calendar and promotion

guidelines.

Member survey Recommendations: •  Improve the website’s usability • Offer members the ability to opt in

to specific email campaigns • Better communicate the value of

online and short courses •  Incorporate metrics into all future

content decisions •  Tag content so it can be cross-

linked more easily

Competitive audit recommendations •  Give people a reason to visit more often: Update content more

frequently, feature current content more prominently, highlight for top-priority audiences

•  Encourage on-site commenting and conversation •  Incorporate breadcrumbs and consistent sidebars to help navigation

•  Use more creative presentations: organize videos into a stream -- promote regularly, feature a book of the week, add live chat

•  Incorporate sponsored/underwritten content selectively (careful not to raise concern about the organization’s objectivity)

•  Use section landing pages to highlight the full range of content in the section, rather than relying only on mega-nav

Content audit

Content audit

The Game Changer! • Detailed outside perspective of every page of the website and e-

newsletters •  Topic, content type, audience, usage, date created/modified •  Look for content ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial/unused) • Recommended actions: Keep, revise, archive, delete •  Typical proportion: delete/archive 50%, revise 30%, keep as-is 20% • Presented to content owners for their feedback

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Empathy-based personas

Empathy-based personas

§ How do we bring focus? § Define our customer § Understand them as individuals,

with real needs, concerns, motivations, and attitudes

Empathy-based personas Instead of discounting emotions, we use empathy as a filter, a lens Empathy roots us. It gives us context to distinguish meaning

from information

VS.

Empathy-based personas The journey our personas take with the organization

•  How do they become aware of our organization, develop a need for it?

•  How does the organization satisfy their needs, engender loyalty?

Empathy-based personas When we see the whole picture

•  We understand their pressures − At work and in life

•  We approach things differently − Programs − New processes − Answering questions

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Meet our personas…

Henry Nancy Sarah Ken

Validated with member focus groups

2. Develop guidelines •  Voice and tone •  Editorial style •  Taxonomy •  Content lifecycle •  Topic lifecycle

Identify the organization’s voice and tone

Best practices in digital writing

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Taxonomy

New taxonomy

• Two levels of tagging • 11 topics

• High level content buckets • Remain evergreen

• 55 subtopics • Change with the industry • Emerge, become popular,

and eventually sunset • Subtopics are flexible

New taxonomy

• Topical structure carries through the organization • Website • Sponsorship buckets • Scientific sessions

• Speaking the same language, using the same terms

•  Increases revenue potential • Alleviates confusion • Aligns various functions within the organization

Think through lifecycles

3. Make it sustainable •  Roles •  Staffing •  Workflow •  Educate/train staff •  Build into people’s job descriptions •  Include training in on-boarding


What we found

Staff knew what members wanted • Content presented more holistically • Eliminate content that is no longer relevant, timely, or accurate • Content that reflects who they are and what they need (not

department) • An easy way to show what else exists on a given topic

Get people talking & collaborating • Hearing information as a

group • Having a hand in creating

the solution – together • Bringing realization that

content owners own a piece of this

Create content with a goal • Understand and articulate

the purpose of each piece of content

• How will we know it’s successful

•  Takes a partnership

Create content for an audience • What do they need from our

organization? • We don’t have to be Google • Through which channels do

they want to get the information?

• What other considerations?

Department

Audience

Department

Audience

Department

Audience

Department

Audience

Old thinking Committee Committee Committee Committee

Message Message Message Message

Organization: Programs, offerings

Audience

Messages

Audience Audience Audience

New thinking


What we learned

Get buy-in early and often with colleagues whose process & work will change

#1

#2 Make sure content owners play a role in crafting the solution

#3 Show them how to do things differently

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#4 Over communicate

#5 Remind people about the context for the project

#6

http://unityinmarin.org/events/spiritual-campfire/

Use the consultant strategically to

share stories, create tools, and

provide instruction

#7 Be visual

#8 Learn from examples – good work in your organization, competitors, other orgs outside the association world

#9 Foster internal champions and honor their expertise

#10 Operationalize and socialize – make it stick

Thank you!

Hilary Marsh President & Chief Strategist Content Company, Inc. [email protected] @hilarymarsh

Kristy McGreal Executive Director Moraine Valley Community College Foundation [email protected]

goals, guidelines, and governance: how one association created a smart, sustainable content strategy

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