From Brand to Back-End Content & Experience Strategy
From Branding to Brief
It starts with understanding where you are...
We can inventory and audit the current state of your content and experience to identify opportunities that will lead to actionable recommendations. We identify specific areas of improvement that can be made to enhance the future-state experience and how content can best support it. We assess the current state of your content qualitatively, using best practices as a benchmark, and quantitatively, using site analytics and SEO performance as key inputs.
These recommendations range from how users interact and perceive the overall experience down to the voice and tone as a digital extension of your overall brand and to appropriate messaging hierarchies. Any actionable recommendations are based on what we've observed and what have learned from any research.
A description of key deliverables can be found below.
Key Activities & Deliverables
Content inventory & audit
Creating a detailed listing of all current assets and content on the side enables the identification of existing content that can be used in the new experience and pinpoint areas where new content needs to be developed. The audit will be focused on assessing content as it currently exists (scored based on pre-defined criteria) and what content should and should not be leveraged from the existing site.
Competitive assessment
A review of competitive and best-of-breed sites will benchmark where your experience sits in the digital landscape. The choice of competitive sites may be based on similar domains, similar functionality, or similar style depending on project needs. Note that this will be an input of a larger deliverable for the Discover Phase Content Strategy Brief.
Content strategy brief & messaging framework
The Content Strategy Brief will articulate a strategic approach to content, including current state, needs, user and business goals, gap analysis, and recommended content, and it will describe key messages for each audience that maps back to the brand values and experience principles. This includes a view to where the ecosystem of your digital landscape should evolve.
Voice, tone & editorial guidelines
The Content Strategy Brief will articulate a strategic approach to content, including current state, needs, user and business goals, gap analysis, and recommended content, and it will describe key messages for each audience that maps back to the brand values and experience principles. This can include a detailed guide to the voice and tone required, as well as specific usage guidelines to inform content creation.
Content strategy playbook & page-level content strategies
Future-state page-level content strategies articulate tactical approaches to content flow for each specific page templates or types, including storytelling needs, user and business goals, recommended content, and appropriate next steps. These are then compiled in a Content Strategy Playbook that provides actionable guidance on how to build and maintain pages in such as way that they maintain the integrity of the overall experience.
Content mapping & gap analysis
The Content Mapping and Gap Analysis (or Content Matrix) documents the future state of the content experience. Think of it as an incredibly detailed site map the includes every page that will be present in the future state, as well as what content lives on each page, the source of the said content, and whether any action needs to be taken to update or refresh the content.