Forbes.com image galleries lack basic navigation and functionality, and is riddled with unappealing advertising…

-Justin Davis, UX/IA Expert at Madera Labs

Interface Usability, You’re Doing it Wrong

The Forbes Website

First, let me get this off of my chest – I love the Forbes website, but have been bothered by their galleries for some time now, so in an effort to examine why some of the UX problems that are commonly pointed out are not so unique to Forbes, but are in fact a common problem with many ‘print gone digital’ publications, I’ve chosen them as the unfortunate target this month. At first look, you’d think that printed publications were continually raising the bar on bad user experience…

Unfortunately it might not be so simple. Most large publications have historically sold their advertising and positioned against competition based on the antiquated model of measuring “impressions”, or how many times an ad is likely to be viewed.  This makes sense when you are printing a newspaper or magazine, and sending it out to a defined customer base, but what about taking it online?

I’ll be breaking down what the perceived reasoning is behind the poor usability of their image galleries to help you understand what you or your clients may be expecting to hear the next time you explain why impressions don’t mean much. First, let’s run through the Forbes site…

The Good Things: The Main Forbes.com website is actually a great example of where a brand can get a few things right.

• Beautiful layouts, and use of CSS for responsiveness and adaptation to browser size
• Nice use of Mega Nav Menus and good Navigational structure
• Great basic use of Gigya’s platform for creating a relatively seamless experience. (I’m sure this one was a challenge for Gigya to integrate with)

Problems we noted:

• Poorly designed galleries
• Strange ad placements
• No responsive design or effective mobile layout on gallery pages
• Poor load times and design/brand disconnect from main website (overall sense of “is this left over from Geocities?”)
• Author pages are not leveraging Google’s “Rich Snippets”, or connected to G+ (we’re not fanboys, but understand the need very clearly)
• Site is lacking some basic (and important) microdata such as Facebook Open Graph tag altho

UX/IA and ‘Traditional’ Advertising:

Unfortunately for publications that are transitioning thier ‘offline’ sales model to the online world, even subscriber numbers are not an accurate measure of how many actual, targeted customers will see an online ad, and marketers are become savoy enough to know that. The solution has been introduced in the way of “demand-side” ad platforms, which publications are slow to adopt due to the lower cost for the advertiser (At least Forbes is getting smarter about this as you can see above). Not wanting to lose ad revenue,  the obvious solution is to put page views ahead of usability and continue to let your ad space be valued as it always has been, right? Wrong.

How it will Hurt Them

Inadvertently, the entire publishing industry has applied basic “google manipulation” techniques aimed at lowering bounce rates and inflating page views by making the site harder to use. This affects a website negatively in more ways than I can explain in a short UX article, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Google is continually pushing to serve the best USABLE content in their search results, and these technics will have an increasingly negative affect on the sites that continue to use them. Apparently, frustrating users everywhere seems to not matter as much as hanging onto a KPI like page views for many traditional publishers (or media buyers for that matter).

Usability isn’t the Only Thing that Counts

Fortunately for Forbes, they employ great writers and search engines are looking closely at social indicators as powerful ranking factors, making all of those likes, tweets, and +1′s count for something. As I mentioned before, I don’t think this will last forever, and as algorithms become more sophisticated, publications not following basic principles of usability will start to lose market share to those that do – it’s only a matter of time. We have faith that as they realize the benefit of increasing click conversions over impression numbers, they’ll all come around.

So congratulations, Forbes.com – you are this month’s poster child for print publications in the category of  ”Online Publishing: You Might be Doing it Wrong“.

“Everybody’s Talking! Are You Listening? How Social Media Technology Brings Online Conversations to You” by Jeffrey Cohen

Jeffrey Cohen's B2B Social Media Book

Question: Is it true that everyone is in sales?

Answer: Yes, and if they know what’s good for them, they better be!

Incentivizing Sales Across Your Entire Organization

Relying exclusively on traditional sales processes driven by “salespeople” is inhibiting your company’s growth potential. Your technicians, the subject matter experts in their respective disciplines, are an untapped source of sales revenue with a much better close rate than your typical 1099. Why? Because customers trust the doer more than the seller.

More and more companies have started empowering technicians to sell by harnessing the power of social media. Incentivizing sales across your organization will encourage team members to productize and share their knowledge online and off in hopes of generating commissions. Social media sites, trade shows, trips to the bar, etc. all become an opportunity for technicians to sell their capabilities.

Within three to six months, people you previously slotted as technicians will have grown equity in themselves by advertising their expertise through sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The result? Increased sales for you and an extra paycheck for them.

Over time, the published and productized knowledge your technicians share online will perpetually generate sales from customers sourcing subject matter experts – not salesmen. As a strategic marketing solutions executive, I’ve seen firsthand how opening up a “social sales enterprise” can significantly increase business opportunities.

Social DNA

Initial returns from socially integrated sales organizations are showing promise; however, the tools of the trade have yet to catch up with companies seeking to make social networking part of their corporate DNA. The old workhorses, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, have especially fallen behind the development curve.

Enterprise level CRM systems from SugarCRM to Salesforce.com recently began to awkwardly integrate social into customer lists and at the contact detail level.  However, CRM software disregards the fact that many prospective customers do not engage brands through the traditional sales funnel. Customers are more likely to initiate an equitable exchange with a person, on there terms, versus responding to artificial engagements driven by a faceless corporate entity.

Companies Don’t Do Business with Companies

Social media is literally redefining how we sell. To prognosticate, the role of the salesman will evolve such that the people responsible for closing sales MUST truly becoming active, contributing social professionals in their respective trade or area of expertise.  A salesperson’s vested stake in social groups, industry associations, forums, blogs and other media will directly impact their ability to find and convert leads in the social network ecosystem.

Companies must wrestle with the fact that no one wants to speak with a salesperson when they can network and connect with a professional. As social media adoption grows among buyers, sellers will be forced to adapt company culture to promote buyer/technician relationships.

People Must be the Value Proposition

Social media works best in business when there is an equitable exchange.  We “like” and “follow” content because we see value, interest or amusement in what was delivered.  Businesses of all sizes must ensure EVERY team member understands your company’s value proposition, elevator pitch and the marketable value of their respective role when connecting with clients – both online and off.

Sales professionals who do not “pay the price” to learn their trade, sharpen their saw and dive into their most relevant social and online networks will be challenged to be considered an expert.  We very simply cannot afford to live outside of social networks and expect to sell as efficiently as we used to.

Technology to the Rescue

Emerging software like Nimble is giving SMBs scalable, low-cost options to connect every employee and potential customer into the sales communication process. How? By using the one strategy that absolutely cements social’s inevitable penetration into even the most stubborn enterprises; unifying social media and traditional email into one inbox.

Communications efficiency will ultimately demand that all inbound direct communications be consolidated into one interface. Everyone from the sales team to technicians will have an opportunity to directly respond to social media-generated inquiries. Your entire organization becomes your customer service department, customer retention department and sales department, all without adding overhead. 

It Works, We Proved It

My organization has an initiative called “Operation 3X” where each employee is given a PERSONAL (yet company-owned) social CRM account.  All employees are encouraged to actively participate in online communities that involve their respective disciplines. Content strategists and other specialists live, learn and network on the company dime in exchange for one expectation; they learn the company playbook and share their brand aligned knowledge with peers and clients.

We schedule monthly meetings to give team members the opportunity to share experiences, knowledge and leads gained through social communities. The 3X stands for a goal where each employee triples their network of peer and client contacts each year. The ultimate strategic goal of these efforts is for each employee to generate three times their income in sales each year.

Our results have been amazing. Every team member has a percentage stake in generated business and receives a guaranteed raise when they hit their 3X mark. In less than one year, this program has grown to account for more than 10% of our annual new account sales and double digit increases in bookings from existing customers.

Overall, social media has a place in an enterprise and certainly in a sales organization.  The technology to fully integrate social into companies of all sizes is literally months away and the rules are changing such that everyone can and should be a driver of business.  It can be and should be in our personal and corporate DNA.

Unfortunately, many technical clients are far too busy with R&D to spend time talking to some pushy content marketer about source content and value propositions. Well, fellow content marketer, follow these simple steps and clients will be BEGGING you to provide content because you’re such a damn pleasure to work with. But first, you may have to…

Sell Clients on Content

78% of people believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them

Some clients understand the importance of content so many of you can skip this step. For the rest of us, we need to explain to clients that content = customers. Customers LOVE content and will happily provide contact information (and eventually money) in exchange for valuable content. You may want to remind clients of these interesting 2011 content facts, courtesy of the Custom Content Council:

• 90% of consumers find custom content useful
• 78% of people believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them
• 61% of people feel better about a company that delivers custom content and are more likely to buy from that company
• 77% of people understand that an organization’s goal for custom content is to sell them something, but are OK with it as long as it provides value

Clients need to understand you’re on their side, actively trying to make them money and help them look good. It also helps to establish a little industry street cred; in order to accomplish this you need to…

Do Background Research

Nothing annoys clients/ruins credibility more than making them explain the basics of their industry. It’s your job to be semi-knowledgeable on their industry prior to scheduling your first client meeting. I’m not saying you have to become an expert overnight, but you should AT LEAST do the following:

• Read the client’s website (if you don’t do anything else, do this)
• Research at least 2 competitors and read their websites
• Thumb through at least one print or online industry publication
• Understand the client’s business and marketing objectives
• Know at least one industry-related joke or trending topic

My go-to chemistry joke

Clients, especially the really smart ones, love voicing opinions on controversial industry topics. If you casually mention a recent industry-related trend, clients will involuntarily engage the reptilian complex of their Triune Brain (wiki on Triune Brain) and try to educate you on said trend. You instantly made a new friend and have a basis that will help you…

Build a Client Questionnaire

For the purposes of this example, I’ve outlined my questionnaire process for authoring individual web pages for a company site. I typically repeat these steps until I’ve completed a questionnaire for every page. However, these steps can be applied to any content asset (or life in general, really).

Protip: Before I create a questionnaire, I generally have an understanding of the client’s products/services, business objectives and user types (this is a process in and of itself. Contact me at ismcontent@marketstrong.net for help with this).

Ok, so our pretend client manufactures widgets and has asked you to create content for a new website. At a bare minimum, you’ll need to create the following: home page, product overview page, product detail page, contact us page, about us/company page.

Let’s start with the product overview page. The purpose of this page is to provide a basic value proposition, a few supporting details and a path to the product detail page to give the reader a chance to buy something. To create a compelling product overview page, you’ll need to pick your client’s brain a bit using our trusty source content questionnaire:

1. Who is the audience for this page?
2. What are the value propositions/competitive advantages?
3. What problem does this product solve?
4. Where have customers typically gone to find more information on this product?
5. Why should customer do business with your client?
6. How do customers of this product typically measure success?
7. Where are the majority of your customers located?

Now I’m not saying you should solely rely on these questions; this is just a STARTING POINT. Your research should allow you to ask more product-specific questions such as, “What are the specifications/tolerances for this widget,” “What is your process for manufacturing widgets,” etc.

I like to send questionnaires to cover at least four web pages at a time. I’ve found that four pages per week is the magic number that doesn’t overwhelm clients, yet still allows for steady progress. Adjust frequency accordingly based on your client’s schedule. Speaking of schedules, make sure you…

Schedule Weekly Meetings

Even the busiest client can devote 30-45 minutes to marketing if you plan a reoccurring weekly meeting around their schedule. The trick is to make the meeting go as smoothly as possible so the client doesn’t feel like their time was wasted. A butter smooth meeting requires you to do the following at least two days PRIOR to the meeting:

• Send a meeting agenda
• Send the questionnaire
• Provide a conference call-in number if multiple parties are involved
• Invite client to a meeting using an Outlook calendar or whatever your client uses

It’s unrealistic to think all your questions will be answered during these weekly meetings, so be sure to set the expectation to the client that you’ll be following up on unanswered/additional questions in subsequent emails. Ok, so now…

Let’s Recap

Some of these steps may seem obvious but I can’t tell you how much clients appreciate the professionalism. Repeat the questionnaire/weekly meeting process until you’re happy with the quantity/quality of the collected content. You’ll be doing yourself and your client a huge favor.

If you need additional help, contact our content department at ismcontent@marketstrong.net or visit our Content Strategy page on www.marketstrong.net/contentmarketing.

The Social Imperative: Why Online Businesses Must Adapt — Presentation Transcript

• 1. The following slideshow was presented by Gigya’s CEO Patrick Salyer at Murmuration 2012 Learn More About The Industry Collective: Like the Industry Collective on Facebook Follow Industry Collective on Twitter Check out the Industry Collective Website for all the latest news
• 2. Trend 1: Social is “The Next Search” Referral Traffic Social Networks vs. Google 26% 15% 21% 6% 21% 17% 19% 16% 18% 5% 16% 7% 15% 6% Social Networks 14% Google 5% 13% 10% 13% 9% 11% 8% 9% 5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
• 3. Trend 2: Lifestreaming
• 4. Trend 3: People are bringing their “real” identity online
• 5. Trend 4: It’s all about the influencers
• 6. Trend 5: Users want personalized social experiences
• 7. Trend 6: Users want to interact with friends
• 8. Trend 7: Social game mechanics drive engagement
• 9. Sites need to reconfigure for social to be successful Leverage Social APIs Facebook Connect Twitter for Websites LinkedIn Connect Google + Leverage Social Plugins
• 10. Connect to the Social APIs &Gain Access to Social Identity
• 11. Social Login – Gateway to Rich Social Data
• 12. Social Login – Authorization – Permission Based
• 13. Social Login – Access Rich Social Identity Data
• 14. Social Identity Data – Profile, Friends, Interests & Activities
• 15. The Connected Experience:Leverage Social Plugins to DriveOn-Site Engagement
• 16. Social Activity Feed
• 17. Social Content Creation
• 18. Social Interaction
• 19. Social Gamification
• 20. Snapshot of a users social data Profile Information Name: John Smith Email: email@gmail.com Gender: Male Birthday: 08/18/83 Location: New York, NY Education: Stanford Graduate Marital Status: Single Interest Graph Interests: Marathons, Surf Trips, Web Design, Music Festivals, NY Sports, World Cup Activities: running, surfing, soccer, camping, kayaking Music: 50 Cent, Run DMC, Black Eyed Peas, Foo Fighters, U2, Kanye West Movies: Inception, The Shining, Jaws, Caddyshack, Seven, Forrest Gump TV Shows: Parks and Recreation, The League, The Soup, The Colbert Report Books: Steve Jobs, Hunger Games, Outliers Games: Farmville, Medal of Honor, Assassins Creed, Madden, Angry Birds, Gears of War Social Graph # of Friends: 222 # of Followers: 4,256 # of Connections: 500+
• 21. Email Marketing Integration Profile Information Name: John Smith Email: email@gmail.com Gender: Male Birthday: 08/18/83 Location:New York, NY Education: Stanford Graduate Marital Status: Single Interest Graph Interests: Marathons , Surf Trips, Web Design, Music Festivals, NY Sports, World Cup running, surfing, soccer, camping, kayaking Activities: Music: 50 Cent, Run DMC, Black Eyed Peas, Foo Fighters, U2, Kanye West Movies: Inception, The Shining, Jaws, Caddyshack, Seven, Forrest Gump TV Shows: Parks and Recreation, The League, The Soup, The Colbert Report Books: Steve Jobs, Hunger Games, Outliers Games: Farmville, Medal of Honor, Assassins Creed, Madden, Angry Birds, Gears of War Social Graph # of Friends: 222 # of Followers: 4,256 # of Connections: 500+
• 22. Product Recommendation EngineProfile InformationName: John SmithEmail: email@gmail.comGender: MaleBirthday: 08/18/83Location: New York, NYEducation: Stanford GraduateMarital Status: SingleInterest GraphInterests: Marathons, Surf Trips, Web Design, MusicFestivals, NY Sports, World CupActivities:running, surfing, soccer, camping, kayakingMusic: 50 Cent, Run DMC, Black Eyed Peas, FooFighters, U2, Kanye WestMovies: Inception, TheShining, Jaws, Caddyshack, Seven, Forrest GumpTV Shows: Parks and Recreation, The League, TheSoup, The Colbert ReportBooks: Steve Jobs, Hunger Games, OutliersGames: Farmville, Medal of Honor, AssassinsCreed, Madden, Angry Birds, Gears of War, FIFA 2011Social Graph# of Friends: 222# of Followers: 4,256# of Connections: 500+
• 23. Results?
• 24. Social Login and Engagement Metrics On average, sites see an 23% overall increase in registrations by 23% after implementing Social Login. On average, users who 52% login with a social identity spend 52% more time on site than a traditional site user. On average, users who 179% interact with social applications view 179% more pages on site than users who do not interact.Source: *Gigya Analysis; December 2011
• 25. Gigya’s integrated, end-to-end social infrastructure
• 26. Gigya’s Super Social API • One implementation • Automatic updates in the cloud • Support for new providers • Support for account linking +22 more providers • Multiple SDKs (REST, JS, AS, Mobile)
• 27. Gigya supports 1 billion unique users across 500+ clients
• 28. Thank You Patrick Salyer Email: patrick@gigya.com Twitter: @patricksalyer Call us at: 650.353.7230 or email: sales@gigya.com

But painful, it was. The processes of identifying, documenting and melding the assortment of styles, philosophies and techniques was a massive undertaking. There are a thousand steps that occur from the first steps of scoping out a project to the last QA/QC steps before a site launches, ad goes out or social campaign gets going. Striking the balance between strategist’s approach and the technician’s mentality was perhaps the most crucial part of this. Too much of a focus on the elements that the strategist considers critical (high-level concepts) and not enough of the technician’s traits (the devil’s in the details) or visa versa would leave the work incomplete.

That’s why we defined everything. Not only to provide a smoother workflow, but to formalize the new ideas that allow us to fully flesh out our clients’ messages and key differentiators. The newly redefined discovery process arms us up front with the elements that used to be on our “if we’d only known this when we started” wish list. The restructured development process means we truly understand the end user and can build everything (aesthetic, functionality, messaging, interaction) with those personas always in focus.

As it we entered 2011, it was a year of process. Now well into 2012, we are clearly embarking on a year of progress. The growing pains of 2011 were necessary to build the foundation. Now it’s time to start building.

Co-Written by J.Camp and C.Brown

We gathered. We shared knowledge. All in all, the Industry Collective was strong at Murmuration 2012, and we couldn’t have done it without all of the participation from our panelists and the Nashville community. The event generated more measurable Social Media buzz than any marketing event in our history, and was wildly successful in leading to cash donations to the NTC Scholarship Fund and to Nashville’s chapter of the Intern’l Social Media Club.

We brought together the top leaders of the social media and technology world to speak at the historic Franklin Theatre. Attendees flocked to hear panelists Jeff Cohen (Radian6, @jeffreylcohen), Dawn Devirgilio (ExactTarget, @dawndevirgilio), Patrick Salyer (Gigya, @patricksalyer), Marcus Whitney (Moontoast, @marcuswhitney), special unannounced speaker Robert Brown (Nissan, @jrobertb),and James Soto (ISM, @jamessotoism) share insights, technologies, and strategies on the rapidly developing landscape in social marketing.

The panels covered a wide spectrum of hot topics – from the challenges and risks that today’s business leaders face to the opportunities as social media becomes integral to campaign and relationship-based marketing.

Now, it’s time to dig a bit deeper and recap … i.e. the “Murmuration Effect”, and how we went about accomplishing our goals.

Our Goals for Murmuration 2012

Murmuration was geared toward supporting enterprise teams and marketing executives who wanted to explore the most effective, creative and advanced ways that social media could make a measurable difference for their business, their clients, or their employers.

When we set out, it was our goal to reach the following members of the community at large. This was accomplished by creating a “map” of everywhere on and offline that these targets spend time. A few of the groups include:

Speakers we pursued: Gigya, MoonToast, ExactTarget, Facebook, Linkedin

Result: Received immediate confirmation from Gigya, ExactTarget, and MoonToast. Facebook made a soft commitment (now we see that the IPO announcement was keeping them a bit busy). Linkedin expressed interest too close to the date of the event to participate. 

Marketing Associations and Groups: PRSA, NAMA, IABC, Nashville Technology Council, The 615, SMC Nashville, AAF

Result: Every association on-board as advocates or sponsors, and all were in attendance

Local Corporations: Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Catepillar, Genesco, Griffin, Eventful, Magazines.com, Emma Email Marketing, Raven Tools, Gaylord, Vanderbilt, Nissan Americas, Infiniti, Kirklands, SESAC, Xerox, CMT and approx. 100 other local companies

Result: 100% Awareness, 80% of the targeted companies were in attendance (100% of those listed above), 2 became sponsors, and Nissan joined us on stage.

Local Marketing and PR firms: As Industry Collective is all about the community, we also sought attendance from local PR and Marketing agencies as we have long felt they are groups that stand to gain the most from a solid enterprise social media education.

Result: Estimated 100% Awareness, 73% of the targeted companies were in attendance. The companies included Gamma Blast, [meta]marketer, Birdsong Creative, Powell Creative, Sheridan PR, Fletcher Rowley, Journal Communications, Deane Smith & Partners, Caddis, LexisNexis, Red Pepper, Athens-South, ACS, iostudio, Marshall and Bruce, Phase 3, Nashville Business Journal, DVL, Meredith Group, and dozens more. 

A quick profile of Murmuration attendees:

Overwhelmingly, our main advocates on Twitter were the drivers of over 84% of all online communications.  90% were between the ages of 25-44 (equally split between 25-34 and 35-44) and 62% of those that mentioned us online were women.

How we marketed the event without “breaking the bank”:

Like all good things, we started with a plan. A brief “Playbook” was written and distributed to speakers, sponsors, and association partners and we simply encouraged their participation. This was made manageable  as we provided everything from a well-written editorial calendar, to pre-crafted press releases and emails for easy distribution. Even the emails were created from the start with branding for those that were to distribute.

We based our communications strategy on key milestones that were mapped out in the Marketstrong platform, and triggered social updates and reminders to everyone ahead of each communication milestone. In order to track the event, we included the hashtag #murmuration in all communications. (For better tracking we tagged “negative keywords” like “starlings” and “birds+flock” – the hashtag previously had 1 to 2 daily mentions)

The Influencer Formula

Throughout this campaign, we also tagged influencers online and tracked their activity. This activity tracked in the context of a campaign allows us to identify influencers in a much different way than a site like Klout. Rather than simply looking at a general class of retweets and reach, it allows us to measure entity relationships and as people engage with our campaigns, allows us to track activity across the web as it relates to future campaigns – thus allowing intelligent identification of new potential advocates. Using this methodology, we were able to minimize our efforts and still see great success.

Results – By the Numbers

Note: Our tracking was meant to cover a range of items, including speakers, companies, associations, and sponsors. In an effort to truly track the effect of the event on our partners, we included generic keywords as well as company and speaker twitter handles.

Key Stats (click on images to enlarge):

• Keynote Tickets Sold: 247/240
• Birdbath Tickets Sold: 122/120
• Industry Collective (#murmuration) had a total of 2826 (32.4%) mentions between Jan 1st and Feb 10th.
• Radian6 recorded 250  mentions alone with the #radian6 hashtag on the day of the event.
• #Murmuration was the most popular keyword used from the start of the year
• The event was mentioned over 1200 times on the day of the event alone
• Out of the 2826 posts that were recorded, 84.6% came from Twitter.

If you attended Murmuration, thank you for your  enthusiastic participation & we look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Do you currently employ content writers, copywriters or a content team? If not, who manages and develops content for marketing efforts? Internal communications?

The term “content strategy” elicits a rather wide range of responses, both from the technician/creative side as well as marketing.

Sure, it’s a term of endearment these days, often more hype than substance. But brought into the fold early in the process – and given the opportunity to add actual value – it can be pure magic.

Plan for content strategy – Now, not later

Too often, content is the very last item on the priority list, a “to be checked off” instead of the key cog in the marketing process it should be. ”Early” is where project stakes are at their highest, and where most people stumble.

So I’ve included a few necessary steps (from my experience) to plan for content, to ensure that the “how” and “when” you communicate with customers is aligned with the message, before the foundation is set and the marketing is turned to 11.

But first – why?

Before we dive into the what and how, it’s important to understand why content strategy should be introduced early in the process.

So why early?

Because everything along the marketing spectrum will depend on a solid plan for writing and delivering relevant communication. Your sales staff will need it in the field. Your marketing campaigns will need it. Your customers will definitely need it.

The nuts and bolts of content strategy

I’d need a few books (and then some) to really dig down deep into the methodology for planning and executing effective content strategy.  Even armed with an empty canvas, much of the specific tactical recommendations largely depend on a wide variety of factors (industry, resources, in-house expertise, conversions, etc.), so I’m focusing on a few foundational elements that you can attack right away.

Audit what you have

You have more than a few ways to approach a content audit, but since you’re actively building a business case for later recommendations, don’t get hung out to dry without at least cursory audit of what you have to work with.

Note - It absolutely should be a precursor to a more in-depth audit before content requirements are delivered, but it doesn’t have to go that deep just yet. This is about getting a feel for the quality and relevancy of your content so that you understand the playing field.

Open a text doc and scan your website, page by page, recording general observations on the messaging – is it useful, outdated, extraneous, lacking a clear call to action, match current business objectives?

This will serve as starting point A for a more in-depth audit by your newly appointed content strategist (yes, you should have one of those).

Identify roles and responsibilities

I ask the same two questions on every project. Though not an exact phrasing, the questions generally look like:

Do you currently employ content writers, copywriters or a content team? If not, who manages and develops content for marketing efforts? Internal communications?

Identifying roles and responsibilites is an absolute. It’s ownership and accountability for the crucial steps in content development. It’s putting the ducks in a row, keeping them in row and ensuring the row evolves with your business.

Without clearly defined roles in content, you get a lot of balls dropped and inconsistencies in communication strategy.

Ask LOTS of questions

Curiousity never killed anything (well, except for that proverbial cat), so use this process as fuel for your discovery process. You should gain just enough knowledge from key departments to build an initial business case.

A few examples of the right customer-facing questions that a) doesn’t invite a bloated pre-sales process because of content and b)  limiting yes and no answers:

1. Do we have printed sales tools available for our sales reps? What about interactive tools for the field? Who creates/manages the content that goes into these tools?
2. Do we have documented, standard verbiage — whether on external printed materials or internal documents — that employees are expected to adhere to?
3. Who will serve as primary approver for all communication – offline and online?

Sell the foundation

Before campaigns are conquered, get the messaging foundation down. Do everything above and then some. I don’t mean this metaphorically either. Do the leg work, then write it down and share with everyone in the company. Get alignment!

Literally, the process might look something like:

1. Get all departments involved, early
2. Audit
3. Customer/competitive research and analysis
4. Present findings/give recommendations
5. Map key messaging priorities to appropriate products and services
6. Write value props, features, calls to action for product/service category
7. Repeat above for each product service, value adds, company processes, etc.
8. Write company elevator pitch – lose the bland, please
9. Consider these first steps in setting communication standards
10. Set a meeting to review with all departments, designate leads to ensure these standards are met.

Building the foundation for effective communication starts today, not tomorrow. I’m well aware that this is only the beginning, a surface scratch on what is a massive universe of methodologies, processes, philosophies, etc.

So, how do you envision content strategy should be leveraged, and what is your ideal scenario for incorporating content into your existing processes?