Chris Flood, content strategy lead, Cancer Research UK Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do: www.charitycomms.org.uk

1. Is content agile?
Chris Flood
Cancer Research UK
@FloodMeUp
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/chrisflood1
(and what the hell does agile even mean?)

2. A little bit of
scene setting…
2

3. How we do digital at
Cancer Research UK

4. Hub & Spoke
4
Business Owner
+
Proposition
Manager
Business Owner
+
Proposition
Manager
Business
Owner
+
Proposition
Manager
Payments
eCommerce
Communities
Internal
Search
Content
Online FR
Event Mmgt
Mktg
Platforms
Content
Mmgt
The Hub
Spokes
Digital products
Practice areas
Producer, UXer
Business owner
colleagues
Developer, Tester,
Producer
Production
Solution
Arch.
Search
UX
Testing
Dev.
Agile

5. Waterfall vs. agile
Agile
– Iterative (test and learn)
– Self managing teams
– Customer feedback
– Test a working product on the
user, early
5
Waterfall
– Step by step process (‘stage gates’)
– Up-front decision making by senior sponsors
– Planning done by activity rather than by
feature
– Customer not asked for feedback until the
end

6. So how does that
work with
content?
6

7. Content people are
natural mavericks.

8. A lot of us started off
in print.

9. LOVE ME!

10. So how do we
make content fit
our digital
processes?
10

11. Content isn’t king…

12. It’s the kingdom.

13. Great content is just
great content.

14. Understand other
disciplines.

15. Content isn’t first…

16. It’s always.

17. Lorem ipsum is the
devil.

18. Develop a content
MVP…

19. …and keep testing it.

20. Cloze test
– Replace every 6th word with a space
– Ask users to fill in the spaces
– Aim for about 60% of correct words
– What do you think it suggests if people can’t
complete it?
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21. Cloze test - Facebook privacy policy
Site activity information. We keep {1}______ of some of the actions {2}______ take on
Facebook, such as {3}______ connections (including joining a group {4}______ adding a
friend), creating a {5}______ album, sending a gift, poking {6}______ user, indicating you
“like” a {7}______, attending an event, or connecting {8}______ an application. In some
cases {9}______ are also taking an action {10}______ you provide information or content
{11}______ us. For example, if you {12}______ a video, in addition to {13}______ the
actual content you uploaded, {14}______ might log the fact that {15}______ shared it.
21
track you
adding or
photo another
post with
you when
to share storing
we you

22. The GOV.UK content test-y thinggy
– You’ll need: 1 green highlighter, 1 red highlighter and a couple of users
– Print out your test page and give it your users
– Ask them to highlight in green content that makes them feel <confident, excited, happy
etc> and ask them to highlight in red content that makes them feel <not confident,
bored, sad etc>
– Once they’ve finished print out a fresh copy and replicate the highlights
– Take a breath and look at your page – you’ve got a lo-fi heat map of your content
22

23. The Flat White Content Challenge
[1st flat white]
– Test your content
[2nd flat white]
– Re-write the content
[3rd flat white]
– Re-test your content
23

24. Recognise your content
is only done when it’s
left the website.

25. So what does this
look like?
25

26. Content goes through a bunch of stages…
Plan
Create
Review
Approve
Publish
26
Maintain
Retire

27. …and is worked on by a bunch of people
27
Owner Writer SME Reviewer Proofer Publisher

28. Perform Heuristic
review
Audit existing content
Identify content
needed to fulfil goals &
metrics
Map content to each
stage of the journey
Create content model
Tech review
Proof read content
Author content,
metadata & tags
Publish contentApprove (tech)
Approve (best practice)
Review analytics of
existing content
Identify content
lifespan & ROT
“checklist”
Review content
performance@ 3
months
Review content for
ROT at end of lifespan
User test content
against metrics
Send SEO redirect
request
Takes links down from
site
Demonstrate
user/business need
Writer
Writer
Owner
Writer
Owner
Owner Owner
Writer
SEM
Proofer
Writer
PublisherSEM
Reviewer
Owner
Owner
Reviewer
Owner
Publisher
So figure out who should do what…
28
Plan Create Review Approve Publish Maintain Retire

29. …and remember, ‘maintain’ really means:
Audit
Test
Evaluate
Update

30. Content is agile if you…
• Help content people understand other disciplines
• Accept the idea of a content MVP
• Accept that your content is only done when it’s left the website
• Never, ever, ever (ever, ever, ever) accept loreum ipson

31. People who are smarter than me…
– Meghan Casey – The Content Strategy Toolkit
– Kristina Halvorson & Melissa Rach – Content Strategy for the web
31

33. Visit the CharityComms website to view
slides from past events, see what
events we have coming up and to
check out what else we do:
www.charitycomms.org.uk

34. Digital tools and channels: make
the most of your digital presence
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19 October 2017
London
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