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Tag: content strategy

Podcast Podcast transcript

Content strategy pitfalls: planning (podcast, part 1)

In episode 61 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Bill Swallow return to our content strategy pitfalls series with a discussion about planning.

“Another thing that is really helpful is doing a pilot project or proof of concept, because that can help you look at a small but essential piece of your strategy and see how that works, and what goes wrong or what goes in an unexpected direction during that pilot.”

— Gretyl Kinsey

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Smart content

Smarter marcom content

Smarter marcom content has advantages, but marketers are used to writing and formatting content at the same time. Smart content separates writing and formatting. Although getting used to this separation may take some effort, the benefits are well worth it.

Most content has an implicit structure. For example, a white paper usually starts by stating a problem, then describes a possible solution, and then mentions a product that can help you with that approach.  A good marketing writer understands the implicit structure of a typical document, but the structure may not be clearly stated or outlined anywhere. With smart content, you take a document’s implicit structure and spell it out explicitly.

The tags in smart content capture the structure explicitly. Once you have your tagged document, you can process the information in lots of interesting ways (reuse, multichannel publishing, and much more). 

Smart content separates formatting and content.  In tools like InDesign or Word, you write and format  at the same time. In a smart content tool, you typically focus only on the content sequence and not on the formatting. As a marketing writer, I can tell you this is a big adjustment.  But there are huge benefits. Once you create smart content, the separation of content and formatting makes it much easier for you and others to reuse content. Reuse improves the consistency of your messaging across the company. Smart marcom content also allows you to spend more time creating the text, videos, and other promotional content rather than spending time focusing on the organizational structure.  

As you get started, there will be a learning curve. Having smart, structured marcom content can save your business time and money. Benefits such as simplifying rebranding, search engine optimization, time, and reuse make the switch worth it. 

 

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Podcast Podcast transcript

Unifying content after a merger (podcast)

In episode 58 of the Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Elizabeth Patterson and Sarah O’Keefe discuss how to unify content after a merger.

In terms of pushback or in terms of change management, what we have to do is ask, “What does this other team do really well that potentially is going to be asked to change tools? How do you do this well?” And position the change as an opportunity.

— Sarah O’Keefe

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Content strategy

ROI for content strategy: getting around roadblocks

When you want to put new content development processes in place, proving the return on investment (ROI) of your strategy is one of the most effective ways to get buy-in from managers or executives. 

You can calculate ROI by showing how much money you’re currently spending creating content, and comparing it to how much money you will save over time with a more efficient workflow. But what if there are roadblocks preventing you from gathering the metrics you need to get those numbers?

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White papers

The Scriptorium approach to content strategy

Executive summary

The Scriptorium approach to content strategy is based on management consulting principles. First, we identify business goals that are connected to content problems. We then do a needs analysis and gap analysis, and develop requirements. That work provides the foundation for a recommendation. From that recommendation, we build out the solution.

The key to success is the balance between content and strategy. It’s easy to reduce the cost of the content lifecycle if you don’t care about the quality of the content. If you focus only on the quality of the end result and not on the content creation process, you can end up with beautifully crafted content that’s only usable in a single format, that’s impossible to translate, or that takes entirely too long to create.

When you invest in content strategy, you are committing to a major digital transformation effort. The challenges are significant, but so is the opportunity.

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White papers

Understanding content strategy as a specialized form of management consulting

First published in Technical Communication Volume 66, Number 2 (May 2019) by the Society for Technical Communication.
Coauthored by Sarah O’Keefe, Alan Pringle, and Bill Swallow.

Abstract

Purpose: The goal of this article is to position content strategy as a specialized subdiscipline of management consulting. Standard management consulting practices, such as gap analysis and needs analysis, are the foundation of content strategy practices.

Method: This article draws from the theory on management consulting and shows how management consulting principles work in the context of content strategy projects.

Results: Practitioners in the burgeoning field of content strategy will develop a better sense of how their work aligns with overall management consulting practices.

Conclusion: Management consulting already has best practices and methodologies. Content strategy builds upon that foundation to establish a professional discipline.

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