digital content strategy workshop series >>> · how important is your website . to the...

DIGITAL CONTENT STRATEGY WORKSHOP SERIESCarrie Hawthorne ConsultingFair Trade Federation Conference

>>>

PART 1 UNDERSTANDING & GATHERING

C A R R I E H A W T H O R N E C O N S U L T I N G Digital marketing + communications consulting A few clients: Peace Coffee, Emerson Collective, DFS Lab, Forterra,The Brewing Lair, KEXP

E D U C A T I O NMaster of Communication in Digital Media, University of Washington, 2018. UX Design Certification, Nielsen Norman Group, 2016.

P A S T E X P E R I E N C EForterra, Global Mamas, Partners for Just Trade, Green America, Fair Trade Federation, Peace Corps Guatemala

ABOUT ME >>>

@ S E A H A W T H O R N E # F T F W E S T M I N S T E R

H O W I M P O R T A N T I S Y O U R W E B S I T E T O T H E S U C C E S S O F Y O U R B U S I N E S S ?

ABOUT YOU >>>

A few times a year

A few times a month

A few times a week

A few times a day

Extremely important

Very important

Moderately important

Low importance

H O W O F T E N D O Y O U U P D A T E Y O U R W E B S I T E ?


USER EXPERIENCE (UX)DESIGN

Source: factionmedia.com/digital-desire-paths-and-user-experience-how-to-create-websites-that-work-the-way-people-want-them-to/

http://factionmedia.com/digital-desire-paths-and-user-experience-how-to-create-websites-that-work-the-way-people-want-them-to/

CONTENT STRATEGY

Source: Brain Traffic @ S E A H A W T H O R N E # F T F W E S T M I N S T E R

Sources: medium.muz.li/ux-design-will-never-be-a-solo-job-6a1a5c53b903, www.businessnewsdaily.com/4629-business-ideas-women.html

T H E I R T E A M S Y O U R T E A M


https://medium.muz.li/ux-design-will-never-be-a-solo-job-6a1a5c53b903

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4629-business-ideas-women.html

CONTENT STRATEGY FRAMEWORK >>>1. Analyze

+ Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


ANALYZE + RESEARCH >>>1. Analyze

+ Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage

• Competitive analysis

• Content audit

• Web analytics

• Stakeholder interviews

• Customer data

• Social media insights

• Customer service insights

A N A L Y S I S T O O L S


GOOD DESIGNERS COPY. GREAT DESIGNERS STEAL .

― Pablo Picasso

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS? >>>

• Identify best practices and trends across the industry

• Idea generation

• Comparing your performance to your competitors – understand what they’re

doing and offering, and your competitive advantage

• Allows you to think like your users

W H Y D O A C O M P E T I T I V E A N A L Y S I S ?


COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS >>>

• Overview of what the company does and the goals of their website or platform

you’re reviewing

• Up to 5 different companies

• What they do well and what can you use from it

• Screenshots

• Recommendations or takeaways do you have for improving your own platforms

W H A T T O I N C L U D E




• Company name

• Screenshots

• Elements found on page

• Comments

W E B S I T E E X A M P L E

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS >>>E L E M E N T S O F A N A N L Y S I S


• Value propositions

• How they speak to their audiences

• Labeling and taxonomies – how are they using language?

• Content placement, key messaging and messaging hierarchy

• How do they use images and video?

• What are the calls to action?



P R O D U C T P A G E E X A M P L E



E M A I L M A R K E T I N G E X A M P L E

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS >>>T O O L S


• Rival IQ – social media focused

• How to Craft the Best Damn E-commerce Page on the Web, Moz

• How to Do Website Competitive Analysis to Beat Your Competitors Online,

Intechnic

• Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context, Boxes and Arrows

F U R T H E R L E A R N I N G

http://www.rivaliq.com/

https://moz.com/blog/how-to-craft-the-best-damn-ecommerce-page-on-the-web-whiteboard-friday

http://www.intechnic.com/blog/how-to-beat-your-competition-online-with-website-competitive-analysis/

http://boxesandarrows.com/competitive-analysis-understanding-the-market-context/

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage

• Competitive analysis

• Content audit

• Web analytics


• Customer data

• Social media insights

• Customer service insights

A N A L Y S I S T O O L S

ANALYZE + RESEARCH >>>

CONTENT AUDIT >>>W H Y P E R F O R M A C O N T E N T A U D I T ?


• Start tracking exactly what content you have and where it livest

• Defines scope for a content project

• Ranks and evaluates the content

• Begin thinking about the gaps – what information is missing and what isn’t covered

CONTENT AUDIT >>>W H A T A R E Y O U E V A L U A T I N G ?


• Is your content useful, relevant and up-to-date?

• Which of your target audiences does it address?

• Does your content fulfill your business goals?

• Is it descriptive, clear and accurate?

• Are voice, tone, look and feel strong and consistent?

• Do links work?

CONTENT AUDIT >>>H O W T O R U N A C O N T E N T A U D I T


1. Set goals for audit

Think about what you want to learn, what you need to prove, and how long you have

to do the audit.



2. Set audit framework

Export a list of URLs from a site-scraping tool like Screaming Frog and use this as a base

for your inventory. Remove irrelevant columns and consider adding in the following

items into the spreadsheet. This list can be expanded upon to best fit your needs.

From Screaming Frog• URL• Page Title

Qualitative Data to add• Page Type/Category (article, product page,

producer page)• Target audience• Quality of content• Value toward business goals

CONTENT AUDIT >>>S A M P L E S C R E A M I N G F R O G R E P O R T + A U D I T T E M P L A T E

@ S E A H A W T H O R N E # F T F W E S T M I N S T E RLink to template: carriehawthorne.com/resources

http://www.carriehawthorne.com/resources

WEB ANALYTICS >>>


• Traffic and pageviews

• Engagement

• Landing pages and entrances

• Return visits

• Bounce rate

• Page value

• Conversion Rate

M E T R I C S

WEB ANALYTICS >>>

@ S E A H A W T H O R N E # F T F W E S T M I N S T E RLink to template: carriehawthorne.com/resources

http://www.carriehawthorne.com/resources



3. Evaluate results

Tabulate results and look for patterns.

Answer questions like: how much content

do we have? Do we have more in some

categories than others? How much content

is out of date or inaccurate?

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage

• Web + social analytics

• Surveys

• Card sorting

• Usability tests

• Guerrilla testing

R E S E A R C H T O O L S



USER RESEARCHThe process of understanding the

impact of content and design on an audience

>>>USER RESEARCH

• Build empathy and map user pain

points

• Start defining your audience

• Challenge assumptions – less

opinions, more facts

U S E R R E S E A R C H + U X D E S I G N


1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


• Surveys

• Card sorting

• Usability tests





WEB + SOCIAL ANALYTICS >>>


• Age

• Gender

• Geography: city, state or country

• Device: mobile, laptop or tablet

• Browser type

U S E R D A T A I N G O O G L E A N A L Y T I C S



C A N I N F L U E N C E

• Social channel strategy

• Advertising platforms and parameters

• Voice and tone

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


• Surveys

• Card sorting

• Usability tests





• To learn more about your users and

their preferences

• When you need quick feedback

W H E N T O U S E S U R V E Y S

SURVEYS >>>

• Google forms – free

• Survey monkey

S U R V E Y T O O L S


• 10 Tips for Building Effective Surveys,

Qualtrics

• 10 tips to improve your online surveys,

Survey Monkey


https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/10-tips-for-building-effective-surveys/

https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/10-online-survey-tips/

SURVEYS >>>


Responses from this survey about

influence coffee factors now guides

decision making about content –

messaging hierarchy, prioritization, etc –

on all marketing channels.

E X A M P L E

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


• Surveys

• Field studies

• Usability tests


• User groups

• Personas

• Journey Maps




USER RESEARCH >>>


• When to use: Meet your study participants in their natural environment

• Examples: Observe wholesale customers place orders at their place of work or

customer behaviors in your store – what do they focus on, pick up, get frustrated with?

F I E L D S T U D I E S

• When to use: Learn where people struggle on your website

• Examples: Ask users to complete as task on your website (ex. find our hours of

operation, find an item on sale to purchase)

U S A B I L I T Y T E S T S

USER RESEARCH >>>


• When to use: Anytime you need quick feedback

• Example: Get scrappy! Use friends, family or students as test subjects but try to use

people that represent your target audience

G U E R R I L L A T E S T I N G

U S E R R E S E A R C H T I P S

• Always have a goal before getting started and don’t forget to compile and evaluate results

• Take advantage of free trials for platforms!

• Survey questions about future behavior don't yield reliable results (example what would

you do if...)

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


• Surveys

• Field studies

• Usability tests


• User groups

• Personas

• Journey Maps




USER GROUPS >>>


• Take the data you’ve collected and define up to 5 different user groups

• They’ll be based on your target audiences and you should start adding attributes

according to the research you’ve collected

• Examples of user groups:

• Wholesale customer: Small Shop, Pop-Up, Seasonal

• Online retail: Current Customer, Prospective Customer, Subscriber

• Shop/cafe goer: by location

• Volunteer

D E F I N E


For each user group, begin a

list of everything you know

about them. This can be pulled

from any of your research like

analytics or surveys.

S A M P L E U S E R G R O U P A T T R I B U T E S

USER GROUPS >>>D E F I N E

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


• Surveys

• Field studies

• Usability tests


• User groups

• Personas

• Journey Maps




PERSONAS >>>


• A reliable and realistic representation of your key audience segments for reference

based on user research.

• Helps people focus on a real world scenario when making decisions. Use when

making content prioritization or feature decisions.

• Personas, Usability.gov

W H A T A R E T H E Y ?

W H Y U S E I T ?


https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html

PERSONAS >>>


E X A M P L E S

1. Analyze +

Research

2. Plan

3. Create4. Measure

5. Manage


• Surveys

• Field studies

• Usability tests


• User groups

• Personas

• Journey Maps




JOURNEY MAPS >>>


• Documenting the user’s entire experience from beginning to end. Can represent

either current state or desired state.

• Helps define and align on the context of the user at every touchpoint and across all

channels. Focuses stakeholders on user’s emotions through the lifecycle.

• When and how to create journey maps, Nielsen Norman Group

W H A T I S I T ?

W H Y U S E I T ?


JOURNEY MAPS >>>

@ S E A H A W T H O R N E # F T F W E S T M I N S T E RTemplate source: nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping

E X A M P L E

• Look for opportunities to

improve the customer

experience.

• Enables you to look at your

business through a new lens

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping/

JOURNEY MAPS >>>

@ S E A H A W T H O R N E # F T F W E S T M I N S T E RTemplate source: nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping

S I M P L I F I E D

1. Write a persona

2. Map the process

3. Think, feel, do for each process

4. Define the opportunity!

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping/

QUESTIONS?

NEED HELP?I know a pretty cool consultant who loves to support kickass companies like yours.

>>>Carrie [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

digital content strategy workshop series >>> · how important is your website . to the...

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