Content strategy success: from technical to tangible
A content strategy implementation requires you to address multiple technical facets: tool and process integration, specifications for how content is delivered, and so on. These technical details, however, are of little interest to the executives who control funding. They are much more interested in seeing results to justify continued spending.
Therefore, you must show how the technical translates into the tangible:
- We are implementing multiple reuse mechanisms. ► We cut translation costs. Executives do not care about how many clever reuse techniques you have integrated into your new content development process. They will care, however, when you demonstrate lower translation costs because of those reuse techniques.
- Web content adheres to the HTML5 specification and uses responsive design techniques. ► Web visitors have a great experience on any size screen. Spec compliance and responsive stylesheets are just the means to an end—not the end goal. Show those holding project purse strings how web content renders beautifully on screens of different sizes.
- We added metadata to classify source content. ► Users get customized content. Adding metadata to identify product features by model, user level, and so on, is not going to generate project buzz outside the content creation team (and it might not even excite them, either). Showing how that metadata enables content targeted to a particular type of user of a certain model, however, will grab attention.
Implementing complex technical details is crucial to content strategy success. Don’t get so hung up in those details that you forget to show tangible results.
Joseph Campo
Thanks Alan. It would be great if you could write a deeper article on this subject, which is critically important to Doc group managers.
How about an article about the types of metrics to collect and how to leverage that data to show tangible results to execs, or at least the importance of your group’s work to customers. tks.
Alan Pringle
In our Content Strategy 101 book, we compiled a list of possible success criteria/metrics. Each company’s goals affect which particular metrics you want to collect, but that list is a good starting point. Hope that helps!