Content for Education & Exploration

Business Needs

Clients are beginning to understand the power of content marketing - educating prospects for long-term brand loyalty and satisfaction. I've worked on a number of projects presenting online education to further the customer's knowledge base, speed up the sales cycle, and encourage repeat visits. 

The challenge?

• Develop user-friendly knowledge hubs that accommodate a wide range of learner types
• Balance search optimized taxonomy with usability for greatest content performance
• Plan for growth, flexibility, and easy site management

Strategy & Process

Up-front research is critical for the success of any content marketing initiative. I begin by reviewing existing business goals and/or facilitating workshops to develop achievable goals for a site. For content marketing sites, it's important to set proper expectations for long-term marketing gains. A successful learner site must also integrate with the brand's marketing ecosystem and support the sales cycle, so I spend time auditing marketing assets and interviewing the sales team if necessary. 

Next I look at existing audience research or conduct persona work to define users. Motivations, challenges, knowledge level, and technology use are important to document, compare, and contrast between user types. 

Using audience insights, I then tag existing content or describe potential content to be created for each learner.  I also use SEO keyword research to define topics that will resonate with target audiences and help the site get found.

All content strategy findings are documented and presented to the client for approval and discussion. 

Sample Content Strategy Documentation

Working with UX design, I help define layouts that will accommodate learners, encourage exploration, and promote repeat visits.

Keys to success:

• Ease in navigation across devices
• Personalized experiences based on prior consumption
• Content length appropriate for learner-types
• Flexible templates for multimedia assets
• Ability to share and/or save

Sample Learner Site Screens

Results

Site KPIs should be defined during the content strategy phase and regular monitoring should occur post-site launch.

Potential KPIs include:

• Traffic sent to primary website from content marketing site (or pages)
• Registration/profile creations
• Email captures
• Decrease in customer service inquiries 
• Marketing asset downloads
• Video views
• Return visits
• Contact form submissions
• Improved brand sentiment (assessed via survey pre- and post- launch)

Individual content performance should also be regularly assessed to inform future content production.

It's important to remind the client that content marketing works best over long time frames and that content marketing hubs cannot live in a silo. Proper site promotion and integration with email marketing campaigns, social media, SEM, and other initiatives can encourage quicker results.