How to make sure the content you create is more effective for your organization and for your members. Talk at the 2017 Interchange Conference for state CPA societies

1. Taming the Content Beast
AICPA & CPA/SEA Interchange 2017
Create smart, sustainable strategies
for your content

2. What we’ll cover today
• How content strategy can help your association
• Delivering content to meet the needs of your
top-priority audiences
• Identifying your organization’s voice and tone
• Creating a higher “return on content”
• Developing content lifecycles

3. Your life today…
• “I want my latest video on the home page now”
• I promised the committee that we would make this
our top priority on the site
• But we are required to use the real name of the bill:
HR432B
• Why don’t our members use the resources on our
site?

4. Better content,
better results

5. What is content?
• Magazine or journal articles
• Session descriptions
• Product details
• Course listings
• Executive biographies
• Press releases
• Newsletters
• Program information
• Membership details
• Advocacy updates
• Etc., etc., etc.

6. Content takes different forms
• Web pages
• Blog posts
• Infographics
• Images
• PDFs
• Video
• Audio

7. What is content strategy?
The right content
To the right person
At the right time
For the right action

8. Put another way….
Content strategy is the practice of planning for the
creation, delivery, and governance of
useful, usable content.

9. Three faces

10. Multiple parts
• A strategic statement tying content to business
goals
• Guidelines and policies: Who, what, when, where,
why, and how of publishing content
• Defining people, roles, and processes

11. Audience-centric
Business-sensitive
Content
The ultimate vision

12. Foundational tenets
1. Content creators & SMEs have a common understanding
of what key audiences want, and how their content helps
deliver that.
2. Content creators & SMEs have a common understanding
of the org’s goals and how their content contributes to
them.
3. Content creators & SMEs share their content in a
consistent, effective way.

13. Principles
• The organization creates content that its audiences want
• The organization creates content that helps it meet its goals
• Content has success metrics and is measured against those
• Content that is no longer relevant is no longer available
• Content is promoted, surfaced, and cross-linked based on its
topic, not its source
• Content is created in the organization’s voice
• The organization manages content platforms, tools, and
channels in a way that ensures their effectiveness

14. Department
Message
Audience
Department
Message
Audience
Department
Message
Audience
Department
Message
Audience
Old thinking

15. 14
Silos

16. Different views of the audience
http://www.fastcompany.com/3019930/leadership-now/the-5-blind-men-and-other-myths-of-innovation

17. 16
http://www.amazon.com/Have-Always-Done-That-Way/dp/184728857X/

18. Difficulty prioritizing

19. Diluted
impact
18

20. Lack of
understanding
of your value

21. Opportunities
1. Be the primary source of information
2. Use your content to draw the right people
3. Get people to take the action you want them to take
• Must be a win-win
• Without a strategy, it’s just content

22. Organiza4on: Programs, offerings
Audience
Messages
Audience Audience Audience
New thinking

23. Working
together
for member
satisfaction

25. Connect with your
audience

26. Who are you talking to?
Write for the people who read and use your content

27. It’s never “everyone”*
* and it’s not your leadership, either

28. What’s going on for them?
What do they want?

29. Novice Nancy
• Accounting clerk in a
medium-size public
firm
• 26 years old, 3 years’
experience
• Learn, connect,
network

30. Student Steve
• College junior, age 20
• Interest in math and
business, member of the
state association
• “Doesn’t know what he
doesn’t know:” career
options, CPA
requirements,
volunteering, free stuff

31. B&I Barbara
• 42 years old, 15 years’
experience
• Plant controller; worked in
public accounting before
• Busy work-life schedule
• Stay up-to-date on news &
profession, maintain CPA,
network

32. What do you know about them?
• What are they already experts in?
• What don’t they know now?
• What keeps them up at night?
• How tech-savvy are they?
• What do they read?
• What do they do outside of work?

33. What are their content needs?
Exercise 1 (see your workbook)

34. What audiences want
1. Give me benefits, not just information
(What’s in it for me?)
2. Approach me as a person, understanding my life stage and
struggles
3. Give me the freedom to use the site as I want
4. Make it peer-centric
5. Simplify! Shorten! Avoid jargon!
6. Don’t waste my time when I’m trying to find what I need
Source: American Medical Association member study

35. “So what?”

36. WIIFM?

37. “Mom
test”
https://bellegardens.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/a-love-note-to-my-mom-concerning-aprons/

38. What does it mean to be
business sensitive?
• Is created to meet an explicit business goal
• Written in the organization’s voice
• Crafted in partnership between subject matter
experts and web presentation experts

39. Identify
your
voice
and tone

40. Voice
• Your unique personality
• Values
• “Sounds like you”
• Doesn’t change

41. Tone
• Emotional attitude
• How you sound in different
situations/contexts/settings

42. voiceandtone.com – Mailchimp’s guide

43. US Government’s style guide
https://content-guide.18f.gov/voice-and-tone/

44. You can try this at home
Exercise 2 (see p. 5 of your workbook)

45. Set measurable goals

46. Organizations publish
a LOT of content

47. What don’t we publish??
• Product data
• Reports
• Press releases
• News stories
• Customer success stories
• Executive bios
• Event information
• Course details
• Policies
• FAQs
• Mission statement
• Job listings

48. 47https://preservingdtharchives2011.wordpress.com/2011/10

49. Content is the way our work is
manifested in the world

51. 50

52. Just because…..

53. Because the boss said so
Because the committee asked us to
Because the committee told us to
Because we have this program
Because we do this thing
Because we created the information
Because we have no way to say “no” to the
request
Because we think we have to
Because everyone else is

54. If you don’t know what you’re
going for, how will you know
whether you’re succeeding?

55. 54
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

57. Return
on
Content

58. 3 pieces of information
1. Goal
2. KPI
3. Measuring & learning

59. Identifying the Goal
Why are we publishing this?
58

60. Effective content has a goal
• It’s published
• Lots of people look at it

61. What is a true goal?
• Meets a business goal
• Satisfies a user need
• Ideally, both

62. 61
Users meet
their needs
Organization
meets its goals
Balancing
Goals &
Needs

63. 62
Audience
focus
Organization
focus

64. Audience
focus
Organization
focus

65. Content goals
Each piece of content needs a clear, explicit reason to
exist

66. Content goals
Examples:
– Bring in non-dues revenue
– Encourage joining or renewing membership
– Raise awareness and perception of the profession
– Help practitioners care for clients
– Inspire more people to register for an event
– Educate lawmakers about an issue important to the
profession

70. Introducing: the “we we” score
To convert a larger
share of your visitors,
you must focus more
on the visitors than
on your organization.
http://www.customerfocuscalculator.com/

72. Wrong
time to ask
“why”
The
reason is
clear here

73. How will you know it’s successful?
• Reached the audience in the channel that matched their
expectations
• The audience took the action you wanted them to take
• They were more satisfied with your organization
• They called customer service less
• They bought more stuff from you
• They talked you up to their colleagues

74. Turning goals into KPIs
1. Benchmark where you are now
– Content performance
– Pain points
– Tie back to business
2. What will constitute success?
– Envision the desired goal
– Make it measurable!

76. Next steps
1. Learn what works
2. Use that information to develop goals
3. Create an editorial calendar and templates
for review time, roles, and processes
4. Share all with staff
5. Track/measure and evolve

77. Define
your
content
lifecycles

78. Why define?
• Ensure that only current, relevant content
remains online
• Improve findability
• Clearer promotion rules and paths
• Easier governance

80. Start with general rules
defining what should stay online:
• Current: Published within the last year
• Relevant: More than XX unique page views
• Evergreen
• Legally required to keep

81. Adapt from there
• Should news releases go away sooner?
• When should course announcements go
away?
• How long should we keep conference
session descriptions?

82. When it’s time to go…
• Sunset à aka, retire/delete/unpublish
• Archive
– online
– offline
• Technology is your friend here

83. Internal communications is a key
piece of the workflow
• Keep everyone informed when you remove
content, to ensure that you’re not breaking
links
• Partnerships

84. Thank you!
• Hilary Marsh
• hilary@contentcompany.biz
• @hilarymarsh
• 312-806-7854