In this podcast, Alan Pringle, Sarah O’Keefe, and Bill Swallow discuss ways of measuring the return on investment in a content strategy implementation. A content strategy is tied to specific business goals; it’s designed to either solve a business problem with content or better position your company to meet current and future business goals. Like any business strategy, it needs to be measured over time to determine its effectiveness in achieving those goals.
Here in the United States, the summer is now officially over and students are back to school. For many, this means a change in routine and a fresh outlook on the remainder of the year. This is an excellent time to direct that fresh outlook to your content by measuring your content strategy ROI.
$0.21 per word.
That’s the average cost in the US to translate content into another language according to Slator, a translation news and analytics site. That number is not speculative; they analyzed the costs per word from over 80 actual proposals gathered by the US General Services Administration (GSA). You can view the source proposals here.
One common roadblock to content strategy is a lack of funding. This post describes how to get budget, even in lean years (and recently, they have all been lean years!).
“What CCMS should we buy?”
It’s a common question with no easy answer. This article provides a roadmap for CCMS evaluation and selection.
First, a few definitions. A CCMS (component content management system) is different from a CMS (content management system). You need a CCMS to manage chunks of information, such as reusable warnings, topics, or other small bits of information that are then assembled into larger documents. A CMS is for managing the results, like white papers, user manuals, and other documents.
Content strategy requires you to connect information with business results. The key to getting a content strategy approved? Return on investment (ROI). Once you show that your content strategy is beneficial to the business, you are on your way.
Given the choice between an inexpensive writer with a limited skill set and a professional technical communicator, which should you choose?
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides an XML architecture for technical communication. Although implementing DITA is likely to be faster and easier than building your own XML architecture from the ground up, DITA is not suitable for everyone.
