Has a new project or role ever made you feel like you’ve been carried off by a twister? Are you searching for the Great and Powerful Content Strategy Oz to get you back to better content? These three intrepid travelers fought off witches and flying monkeys on their content strategy journeys. They brought back tools and techniques to help you get to Emerald City with a little less drama. Message architectures, customer journey maps, mental models, oh my!
This presentation was given at Content Strategy Applied USA on November 17-18, 2014
7. The Problem
We had a big findability problem and
wanted to do a redesign. But we didn’t
know what customers were looking to find.
8.
9. “I could while away the hours,
conferrin’ with the flowers,
consultin’ with the rain,
And my head I’d be scratchin’,
while my thoughts were busy hatchin’,
if I only had a brain.”
Scarecrow
The Wizard of Oz, 1939
10. Mental Models by Indi Young
The Solution
Mental models. A way to
map your content to customer’s
needs and questions.
13. Our Mental ModelSENIOR DESIGN
Why should I
use NI tools for
my senior
design project?
How can I use
NI tools for my
senior design
project?
Lab/VIEW Student
Community-Project
Library
(https://decibel.ni.com/co
ntent/groups/loop?view=
documents#/?tagSet=10
43)
14. Tasks came from:
• Employees
• Product Marketing
• Sales
• User Experience
• Customer Support
• User Research
• Usability
• Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Market Research
• Analytics, particularly search
Then define user tasks
16. What we learned
• We had gaps
• We de-prioritized key tasks in favor of
Marketing offers.
• We weren’t reusing content.
• We had some good content
17. 2Results are from a single product line. Contacts numbers are from web only.
70%Increase in contacts
51%Increase in online revenue
2
Results from first project
18.
19. Before
• Time: 4 months
• Method: Analog
• Included: Everything
• Categories: Yes/No
• Summary: Whole
mental model
After
• Time: 2 weeks
• Method: Mural.ly
• Included: Research
• Categories: Colors,
Detail
• Summary: Bullet points
in a deck
Making Mental Models lean
20. “...Once I had brains, and a heart also;
so, having tried them both, I should much
rather have a heart.” -The Woodman
The Wizard of Oz,
Frank L Baum
24. CUSTOMER
Jim M.
Age: 33
IT professional
CUSTOMER
GOALS
CUSTOMER
PROBLEM
STATEMENT
HOW PAYPAL
CAN HELP
Jim knows he could
get a better credit deal,
but he is time-poor and
finds new applications
arduous… so he sticks
with what he’s got.
PAIN POINTS
• Existing PayPal
Customer
• Regular internet user
• Makes occasional
big-ticket purchases
NEEDS
• How does it work?
• Where can I use my
credit?
• What offers are
available?
• How quick is the
application?
PRIMARY
• Get the best credit
deal available
• Make his purchase
• Comprehension of
product
• Finds application
forms confusing
• Personal & financial
questions
• Understanding of
offers
• Application time
• Making that final
commitment to open
• Explanation of key
value props (Video
and microsite)
• Support on hand if
customer needs it
(FAQs, Help Center,
CS)
• Clean and simple
design of app flow
• Clear content and
supportive tone
• Next steps (offers
and places to buy)
26. KPI
Reduce drop-offs in the
application process
Hypothesis
Address concerns at key points in the
user journey and we can mitigate
these potential drop-offs.
28. What we learned
• The first rule of Content Strategy club
• Involve your partners at the earliest
possible stage
• Prove that you can deliver
• Build from the customer up, not the
business down
29. “Hearts will never be practical until they
can be made unbreakable….”
-The Wizard of Oz to the Tin Man
35. The Problem
End-to-end content for my product is
owned by many teams – we come from
different disciplines and different countries.
We all need to speak the same language.
36. Content Strategy at Work by Margot Bloomstein
The Solution
The message framework.
A way to start
the conversation and
find a common language
37. The Method
• Get the stakeholders in a room
• Give them 100 cards to sort
• Keep the conversation going
• Take copious notes (or record it)
38.
39.
40. PRODUCT
AREA
KEY
ATTRIBUTES
KEY
MESSAGE
REASONS TO
BELIEVE
ACQUISITION
ONBOARDING
SERVICING
• Easy to use
• Trusted and safe
• There when you
need us
• The application process is
simple –get an answer in seconds.
• PayPal = Secure financial information
• Available at most places PayPal is
accepted
With PayPal Credit, you
get a secure & flexible
line of credit that makes
it easier to buy the
things you love.
• We help you get started with educational
email & easy-to-use servicing experience.
• When you see PayPal Credit on a
merchant site, you know eligible BML
purchases are covered by PayPal
Purchase Protection & zero fraud liability.
• We give you lots of ways to pay –
online, by mail, one-time & repeat
payment options.
PayPal is there every
step of the way to help
you get the most out of
your PayPal Credit
account.
• Welcoming
• Trusted and safe
• Customer-oriented
• Welcoming
• Trusted and safe
• Customer-oriented
PayPal Credit is built into
your PayPal account so
you can track your
purchases & pay your bill
all in one place.
• The interface is clean and simple.
• We send you friendly reminders to help
you avoid fees or late charges.
• You can set up repeat payments so you
don’t have to worry about the bill at all.
46. “Going so soon? I wouldn’t hear of it.
Why my little party’s just beginning.”
-The Wicked Witch of the West
Editor's Notes
TITLE SLIDE
Hear me?
‘Welcome to our Wizard-of-Oz themed presentation.’ ‘My name’s Dorothy and I’m from Kansas.’
Real name. Long way from home.Return to spiritual home.
Why are we here? Discuss 3 content journeys. A journey of discovery if you like.
Is Content Strategy the great and powerful Oz… or just a little old man behind the curtain?
We’ll discuss our journey.But there were a number of twisters. Our own personal storms we had to overcome.
Journey. PayPal has been interesting journey.
So what will you get?
Well, we’ve had to cut this down in the essence of time, but you’ll hear from:
Lauren (brain) ‘mental models’ to solve findabilityJessica (courage) ‘messaging architecture’ to ensure global consistency
TITLE SLIDE
Content slide
Dana – You had the Scarecrow quote here. Do you prefer the image or the quote?
Because we couldn’t readily answer the question of what customers were looking to find, we ended up an awful lot like the scarecrow. Although we had the best of intentions, we would while away the hours in a conference room, speculating amongst ourselves what people were looking for.
Content slide
Content slide
Content slide
Content slide
Content slide
Do you mean for the lower part of this page to appear at this point in the preso? Seems like something is off on the animation.
Content slide
Content slide
Full page image slide
Dana – Do you have a mural.ly board you can show?
Content slide
TITLE SLIDE
Define what we mean by ‘heart’: empathy, understanding, the ability to form and build relationships, understanding your customers
Here was the problem.
On product called PayPal Credit
We used a technique called CDI.
Essentially building products ‘based on customers, not numbers’Broad-based and then narrow the focus. Iterative.
Define this problem statement
Plotted user to the journey. Sketched.This is an application form that user can click out of.
Empathy with business. Re-translate into a language they can understand.
“Put it in a language the business can understand”
Time-management.
Kate Kenyon
Content slide
Don’t lose faith. It’s not easy trying to win hearts and minds.
Hi, I’m Jessica Pease and I’m going to talk about how courage pertains to my CS journey.
I actually have a pretty bad case of stage fright, so that’s one thing, but at work, I border on overconfident.
Tech Writer for years. Bored. Joined design team so that I could influence experiences directly. Summer camp.
Then on my first big project at PayPal, my boss said “I need you to be the lead content strategist for this global product.”
Strategist. Hmm. All of sudden, I get weak in the knees. And why is that?
Well, obviously, it’s because I’m not in Kansas anymore.
I’m completely out of my comfort zone and despite wanting new challenges, I sincerely considered clicking my heels together and heading back to my old boring job.
I’m serious. I was lost. Sadly, Google maps failed me this time.
So I decided I needed a plan. First I have to figure out what it means to be a Content Strategist at PayPal. I asked around and it seemed like it was still being defined. Great. I was so hoping for a template or a checklist. In the words of my 5th grade teacher in Boston, “Jessica needs structcha.”
So, I gave myself a definition.
As a content strategist, I would have this as my North Star. Seems simple enough, right?
When I tried to find all of the people and the content, it looked like this.
These people are ALL touching content. Many of them are experts in their fields – comms, marketing, servicing credit. They’re not really all talking to each other. And, I’m the new kid on the block. I hear gossip that some of these people are territorial and no into newbies.
What’s that sound? Oh, that’s just me hyperventilating.
And I need a way in.
Content slide
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Would be cool to show attributes moving into columns?
Full page image slide
Content slide
Content slide
We then used the conversations that came out of that exercise to build a message framework. This is something any content creator can use to guide how they write about PayPal Credit.
Sure, this is qualitative feedback, but this quote came from the toughest nut to crack – the product owner who scared people. And it wasn’t even true – they’d had value props and other things to work with in the past to keep people on the same page – but the awareness pf our interconnectedness and the explicit desire to work together to provide a consistent and engaging experience wasn’t there.
By facing my personal twister, I found out I that I actually really enjoy facilitating workshops. I want to find more opportunities to work with cross-functional groups this way. And I lost that fear that I’d made a grave mistake in leaving my comfort zone – I’m psyched to learn more an more about design and I realized being a content strategist was not really something new for me – it was just a different way of looking at my job and my purpose in the org.
Recap – we talked about solving big information architecture problems with mental models, conquering dry subject matter by connecting with the hearts of our customers, and facing tough organizational challenges by finding the nerve to listen and collaborate.
At the end of the movie, the Wizard of Oz leaves and names Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion as the new stewards of the Emerald City. The things they thought they lacked, they now fully possess and you get the sense that they’ll do a great job.
That’s really the lesson in the journey to Oz. If you are facing your own personal twister or flying monkey, remember that you have what it takes to conquer it. Content Strategy might turn out not to be a magical and all-powerful wizard, but it might help you get where you want to go after all.
We have __ minutes for Q&A. If you want to keep the conversation going, you can contact us this way. We’d love to hear about your twisters and how you made it through the storm.
Q&A. This would be the final slide of the whole presentation