Introduction to Content Strategy
Content strategy is a practice that helps ensure an organization’s website, mobile apps, and other digital products are easy to use and provide value to customers. At its core, content strategy is about planning for and managing all of the content an organization produces—with the goal of maximizing usability and business results. Effective content strategy aims to make content more useful, usable, and consistent across platforms in a cost-effective way.
Setting Direction with a Content Strategy Framework
The first step in developing an effective content strategy is establishing a framework. This provides direction and ensures content plans are aligned with business goals. Key elements of a content strategy framework typically include:
Research: Gathering insights into target audiences, their needs and preferences, as well as competitive analysis. This helps content strategists understand how to best serve different user groups.
Information Architecture: Mapping how content will be organized and labeled to ensure it’s logically structured and easy for users to navigate. This establishes a common framework for content production.
Content Guidelines: Style guides that maintain brand voice/tone and ensure consistency across channels in areas like formatting, word choice, images and more. This boosts usability.
Content Models: Defining different types of content pieces (like blog posts, product pages, help articles etc.) along with the necessary structure and metadata for each. This standardizes content creation.
Change Management: Detailing processes for updating, approving, retiring content as well as roles and responsibilities. This keeps content fresh and compliant.
Guidelines help establish consistency and efficiency while research and information architecture help create a customer-centric strategy aligned with business objectives. Regular reviews and changes ensure continuous improvement.
Mapping Needs with an Content Inventory & Audit
To understand current content strengths/gaps, it’s important to conduct an inventory and audit. This involves:
Cataloguing all existing content across websites, apps and other channels to get a full picture of what’s available now. This identifies duplications and gaps.
Conducting a content audit that assesses each piece of content based on criteria like user needs fulfillment, readability, mobile friendliness, technical issues and more.
Analyzing metrics like pageviews, bounce rates, goal completions to see what content is most/least effective. User research can also provide insights.
Noting content processes, owners and areas ripe for improvement. Outdated or irrelevant content is identified for archiving/removal.
Documenting this existing content landscape highlights what’s working well and what needs reworking or adding based on business/user needs. It establishes a baseline for the strategy.
Prioritizing Content Needs
With research insights and content assessment in hand, the next step is prioritizing new or improved content. This involves:
Mapping user journeys and pain points to identify priority topics.
Benchmarking competitors to see opportunities.
Evaluating business goals/KPIs to understand priorities.
Analyzing metrics and user feedback to find most requested/searched topics.
Considering development/maintenance required when planning projects.
Discussing priorities with stakeholders to gain consensus.
Prioritization ensures limited resources are focused where they’ll provide the most value. It sets expectations and timelines for content initiatives. Regular reviews keep priorities aligned with changing dynamics.
Planning Content Projects
Armed with research, assessments and priorities, content strategists then plan specific projects and workstreams. Key elements typically included at this stage are:
Detailed project briefs outlining goals, topics, audiences and success metrics
Content outlines or “maps” showing piece structure and relationship
Production timelines with deadlines, dependencies and owner assignments
Style guidelines and templates for consistent output
Information architecture plans for optimized navigation/findability
Technical requirements, integrations and developer specifications
Content models standardized output
Promotional and launch plans to drive awareness and engagement
Governance processes for maintenance/improvements long-term
Detailed planning ensures projects stay on track, meet business objectives and get maximum visibility/usage after launch. It creates efficiencies through standardized, scalable processes.
Execution, Measurement and Ongoing Improvement
The core of the content strategy is then realized through implementation. This involves:
Content creation/updates by teams or agencies as per plans and style guides.
Quality control and approval processes to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Content deployment and promotion across channels per launch plan.
Usage tracking with analytics to monitor engagement metrics.
User testing and feedback gathering to identify enhancements.
Regular content and strategy reviews to address learnings.
Archival or removal of outdated material to optimize findability.
Tracking analytics and user experience helps evaluate strategy impact over time. Reviews incorporate refinements to continuously improve relevancy, effectiveness and ROI. An iterative, data-driven approach optimizes content over the long run.
Conclusion
An effective content strategy provides structure and direction for content creation, governance and enhancement. With research, assessment, prioritization and detailed planning, content efforts can be focused where they deliver the most value. Rigorous execution coupled with ongoing measurement ensures success and further improves content over time. When done comprehensively, content strategy maximizes usability, engagement and business results across platforms.
Andrew Stroud