What's your focus in user experience—design, information architecture, SEO, project management? No matter your role, bringing a content strategist on to your team can help you better understand your client's needs, articulate your approach, and align your tactical decisions with an overall brand-driven, user-centered message architecture. And it doesn't have to bloat the budget! Here's how to make the case for content strategy. Presented by Margot Bloomstein (@mbloomstein) at Atlanta Content Strategy, January 21, 2010.

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Content strategy:
what’s in it for you?
Margot Bloomstein
Atlanta Content Strategy
January 21, 2010
#ATLCS

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Now, let’s talk
about you!

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©Skillset.org

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©Skillset.org
Deliver
on time
Stay in
budget
Give users what
they need
Please our clients
(and ourselves)

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©Skillset.org
Deliver
on time
Stay in
budget
Give users what
they need
Please our clients
(and ourselves)
Minimize revisions
Rally everyone
around a vision
Build a cohesive experience

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Planning for the creation,
aggregation, delivery, and
governance of useful,
usable, and appropriate
content in an experience.
What is content strategy?

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Anticipating and taking care
of the core of most projects
that you know—you know—
would just bog things down
like normal, and you know
you’ll benefit from it anyhow.
What is content strategy?

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Yes, you want this.

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Empathizing with designers
How do you visualize
abstract concepts without
concrete terms?

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Empathizing with designers
How do you visualize
abstract concepts without
concrete terms?
Make us look hip!

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Empathizing with designers
How do you visualize
abstract concepts without
concrete terms?
We need to look
traditional…
not conservative.
Make us look hip!

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Empathizing with designers
How do you visualize
abstract concepts without
concrete terms?
We need to look
traditional…
not conservative.
Make us look hip!
More. Like. Apple.

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More. Like. Apple.

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More. Like. Apple.

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More. Like. Apple.

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More. Like. Apple.
Confident but approachable;
an accessible market leader
Simple
Minimal detail with
streamlined, unfussy ID
Inviting, friendly, supportive
but not fawning

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Brand-oriented
content strategy can save
time and the design budget

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Brand-oriented
content strategy can save
time and the design budget
• Prioritize key messages
• Rally around concrete
terms

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Brand-oriented
content strategy can save
time and the design budget
• Use real copy for more
unified concepts
• Get it right in fewer
rounds of revision

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Budget?
Fewer rounds of creative
revision more than pay for
content strategy-driven
concepting—especially if
your client communicates
in words, not images.

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FACT!
Words (and Word) are
cheaper than Photoshop
comps

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Content strategy
helps designers offer their
clients predictability.

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Content strategy
means they can budget and
prepare for exact content
specifications—by content
type, keywords, and
character count.

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…and real content
lets designers create more
thoughtful, interesting
templates.

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Empathizing with IAs & PMs
How do you plan for the
future if you don’t know
what you currently have—
or what you need?

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What do we have?
©http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojaipatrick/142901730/

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Is it still good?

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Do we even need it?

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How will we get more?

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Do folks even like it?

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Empathizing with IAs & PMs
How do you budget by page
count if you don’t know
how many pages you need
to fully express your key
points or complete key
interactions?

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Thorough strategy
demands a quantitative and
qualitative content audit

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Thorough strategy
demands a quantitative and
qualitative content audit
• Conduct a head count
• Check for parity in length
and consistency in
structure

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Is the content
 relevant,
 current, &
 accurate?

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Content strategy
informs a more thorough,
comprehensive sitemap and
wireframes and more brand-
appropriate nomenclature
and calls to action.

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Content strategy
drives a more useful gap
analysis against the new
message architecture.

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Is the content
 relevant,
 current, &
 accurate?

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Content strategy
drives opportunity:
identify new content types
and help your client prepare
for them, research case
studies, gather testimonials,
interview customers, etc.

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Budget?
Sell your client on not
wasting their money.
They invested in a new look
because they needed to say
something new, right?

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But wait!
They already have
writers in the marketing
department!

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Writing is only one tactical
part of content strategy.
It doesn’t raise the big
strategic questions.
Internal resources also
don’t offer a neutral, outside
perspective.

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Empathizing with SEO folks
How do you write meta and
ad copy when the copy for
fulfillment and landing
pages keeps changing?

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And where should the
user experience begin?

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Content strategy
can help SEO specialists
deliver higher conversions.

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Content strategy
can help SEO specialists
deliver higher conversions.
• Map ad copy to evolving
communication goals in
the message architecture

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Content strategy
can help SEO specialists
deliver higher conversions.
• Translate page titles and
descriptions for tone, not
just keywords, to better
fulfill brand promise

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Empathizing with SM strategists
How do you get your client
to stop talking about
themselves and genuinely
engage?
And what’s an editorial
calendar anyway?

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Most organizations are determined
to talk about themselves instead of
interacting with audiences or
creating two-way content.
—Jeff Cutler

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Content strategy
can help social media
strategists prioritize
the tenets of a message
architecture to ensure
consistency, even in tweets.

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Content strategy
can inform editorial style
guidelines to support writers
with a consistent voice and
professional multi-channel
presence.

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Content strategy
can help you develop an
editorial calendar with
workflow to plan, create, and
expire content.

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Why do this?

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Bribery? Baked goods?

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Why should they care?
• More air-tight solutions
• Save time, budget, and
energy on iteration
• More comprehensive,
cohesive user experiences
• Higher conversions

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Why do this?
• Get to “yes” more quickly
• Happier communication,
happier clients,
happier teams,
and happier users!

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Additional resources
• Twitter: #contentstrategy
• SXSW Content Strategy workshop track
• LinkedIn Content Strategy group (600+)
• ContentStrategy.com  Google Group
• Content Strategy knol

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Margot Bloomstein
Twitter: @mbloomstein
mbloomstein@yahoo.com
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© 2010 Margot Bloomstein.
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