Content strategy for tech comm and beyond

Having trouble with your technical content process? Need a strategy that can help you improve and scale? Before you make a change, talk to the other content-producing groups in your company—marketing, training, sales, support—to develop a content strategy that works across the entire organization.

Work together to create a better strategy.
flickr: CiRC

The purpose of content strategy is to support your business goals. A good content strategy will save your company money by increasing efficiency in your department. A better content strategy will increase efficiency in all departments, as well as unify your organization’s content to provide a positive customer experience and strengthen your brand.

Silos form when different departments create content in a vacuum without collaborating with each other. This is a common problem at many organizations and can lead to content issues, including:

• Two or more groups creating slightly different versions of the same content
• A lack of branding or design consistency across company content
• Varying levels of content quality from one group to another

Bad or inconsistent content can hurt your business. Customers drive your business’ bottom line, so focusing on the way they consume your content can help point you in the right direction as you develop a content strategy. Some ways that you can do this include:

• Remembering that customers don’t know or care about silos—when they’re using your content, they just want answers
• Testing your company’s content (technical, marketing, and more) as if you are a customer
• Using other companies’ content from a customer point of view as examples for how you can improve
• Going above and beyond delivering content that customers need and delivering content that customers want

By working together with the content-producing groups outside of tech comm, you can create a global, company-wide content strategy that improves your customer experience and helps your business grow.

For a more in-depth look at extending your content strategy beyond tech comm, check out the recording of my webcast for the Content Wrangler Virtual Summit.