Does Your Content Work for People? Essentials for Evaluating Your Client's Content

transcript

DOES YOUR CONTENT WORK FOR PEOPLE? essentials for evaluating your client’s content

Colleen Jones

About Me   Author of Clout and Does Your Content

Work? (2014)

  Principal of Content Science, a digital content consultancy for clients such as

  Occasional partner with leading consultancies and agencies

  Owner of ContentWRX™

  Proud parent of an adorable mutt… 2

Quick Poll: 1 thing you want to get out of our session?

COMMON VOCABULARY +

VISION

OVERVIEW OF CONTENT

EVALUATION

START EVALUATING

Our Goals

1.  WHAT IS CONTENT EVALUATION?

2.  WHY DO IT (despite the challenges)?

3.  WHEN DO IT?

4.  HOW DO WE START DOING IT?

5.  HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE IT?

Agenda

ANSWER ?s in polls

ASK ?s in chat

Participating Pays Off!

WHAT IS CONTENT EVALUATION?

Quick Poll: Rate your expertise with content evaluation.

Content is…

IMAGES, PHOTOS,

INFOGRAPHICS

TEXT VIDEOS PODCASTS, AUDIO

* Inventory

* Heuristics

* Lifecycle

* Personas

Content evaluation is…

a constant assessment of whether your content meets your goals.

* Inventory

* Heuristics

* Lifecycle

* Personas

Content evaluation is NOT…

• A one-time thing.

• A clinical trial.

• A data dump thing.

•  The same for every organization or set of content.

• A content audit.

CONTENT AUDIT CONTENT EVALUATION

FREQUENCY + DEPTH

•  A single deep dive for a migration, redesign, or other big change

•  A constant high-level assessment

FOCUS •  A project or initiative •  Ongoing strategy aligned with organizational goals

SCOPE •  Content inventory and quality assessment

•  Content effectiveness or impact

TIMING •  Discovery or analysis phase before launch

•  If not established, starts after launch

What’s the difference?

* Inventory

* Heuristics

* Lifecycle

* Personas

Content evaluation also is…

NOT very easy right now…

CLIENT SENIOR MANAGER

I see opportunity to make our content have more impact

on sales lead generataion.

Based on what data? Our general

satisfaction survey says content is fine.

EXECUTIVES + STAKEHOLDERS

Does this sound familiar?

Help! I need more data about our lead gen content for the

past 2 quarters.

Help! I need more data about our lead gen content for the

past 2 quarters.

CLIENT ANALYST I can pull some numbers, but it will take a few

weeks.

TOO FRAGMENTED TO GATHER EFFICIENTLY Insights must be pieced together from satisfaction survey, web analytics, + social analytics tools.

TOO GENERAL TO ACT Satisfaction surveys say content is important but provide little content-specific feedback.

TOO CUSTOM + HAPHAZARD TO AFFORD OR COMPARE Deep-dive qualitative studies are slow and expensive. Occasional custom surveys don’t allow you to compare over time, to your industry.

Right now, content data is often…

WHY EVALUATE CONTENT ANYWAY?

Businesses invested nearly

$17 billion in content marketing in 2012.

Custom Content Council

Dell, The Coca-Cola Company, Equifax, IHG, Cerner Corporation

and other leading companies are implementing

content strategy for B2B and B2C marketing, service, and support content.

Content investments by B2B + B2C companies now

account for

1/3 MARKETING BUDGETS Content Marketing Institute

CONTENT IS THE

even over social media, email, and other trends.

eMarketer

PRIORITY OF CLIENT-SIDE MARKETERS

Today, content supports every business purpose –

MARKETING / POSITIONING CONTENT,

SALES CONTENT, CUSTOMER SERVICE CONTENT, SUPPORT CONTENT

Business today is digital, so content is critical.

MISSING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE because content decisions are slow or misguided.

WASTING MONEY ON CONTENT EFFORTS because decisions aren’t informed with complete, reliable feedback.

DIFFICULTY GETTING BUY-IN TO CONTENT CHANGES from executives because content isn’t connected to results.

If your clients don’t evaluate, they risk…

WHEN SHOULD YOU EVALUATE CONTENT?

ALWAYS! Content never ends.

Neither should evaluating it.

Evaluation evolves content strategy

The content strategy lifecycle

The content strategy lifespiral

HOW TO START EVALUATING CONTENT

How NOT to start

Drowning yourself in the data…

How to start: Ask the right questions

Where do the right questions come from?

•  The right questions come from your goals and objectives.

•  Your goals and objectives come from your content strategy.

•  Your content strategy comes from your business goals and objectives.

BUSINESS GOALS

CONTENT STRATEGY

CONTENT EVALUATION QUESTIONS

The better you define your content strategy, the easier starting evaluation will be.

Framework for content evaluation questions

MARKETING Positioning

SALES Guided Selling

SUPPORT Help or Education

REACH COMPREHENSION EFFICIENCY

ENGAGEMENT PERCEPTION COMPREHENSION

PERCEPTION CONVERSION ENGAGEMENT

Goals drive dimension priority

Dimensions help identify specific questions

MARKETING: Positioning Digital Magazine

Goal is to raise awareness and position with midsize businesses

REACH Did our content attract midsize businesses?

ENGAGEMENT What did midsize businesses do with our content?

PERCEPTION Did our content change how midsize businesses view our expertise?

Did our new digital magazine increase our

sales this quarter?

Oh, #$#@!

MARKETING MANAGER / DIRECTOR

Goal-aligned dimensions ward off the wrong questions

Did our new digital magazine increase our

sales this quarter?

Our immediate goal is positioning, not sales. We’re

tracking our reach and impact on the market’s perceptions. And,

we’re succeeding at both.

MARKETING MANAGER / DIRECTOR

Goal-aligned dimensions ward off the wrong questions

The content evaluation process

Analyze 3

4 Interpret

Collect 2

2 Collect: Gathering content data for evaluation

•  Focus on data that informs answers to your questions.

•  Strive for a systematic approach.

• Rely on quantitative methodologies and tools.

Collection

Analytics

Surveys Sentiment

Other Data

For many goals, behavior data is NOT ENOUGH to understand

content impact.

2 Collect: Examples of quantitative tool types

USER BEHAVIOR USER PERCEPTION, INTENT, + CHARACTERISTICS

ANALYTICS SURVEY SENTIMENT

CLASSIC •  Adobe SiteCatalyst

•  Google Analytics

•  ForeSee

•  iPerceptions

•  Salesforce Marketing Cloud (Radian6)

•  IBM Social Media Analytics

NEW •  Content Creation + Hosting Platforms (Skyword, Invodo)

•  Chartbeat

•  IBM Content Analytics

•  ContentWRX

•  UserZoom (survey component)

•  SparkScore

•  Clarabridge

•  OpinionLab (open feedback component)

NOTEWORTHYFOR CONTENT

Some tools trending toward

•  More content specifics

•  More real-time data

•  More integration with other data

•  More help with interpretation

•  More accurate and faster analysis

3 Analyze: What are the answers to my questions?

Don’t do the ONE-OFF approach….

If you do, consider it a temporary bridge to building an analysis competency.

MANAGER / DIRECTOR

I’m being asked for proof that our content is making an

impact. We need a report. Find a way to make it happen

in your down time.

But, I have no down time…

CONTENT STRATEGIST

3 Analyze: Develop an analysis competency

Quick Poll: What is your organization’s approach to analysis?

EMBEDDED Analyst is part of your team

CENTRALIZED Separate team analyzes

4 Interpret: So what do these answers mean?

Turn your content data into content intelligence.

CONTENT INTELLIGENCE

CONTENT DATA + ANSWERS

INTERPRETATION

4 Interpret: So what do these answers mean?

A match made in insight heaven

DATA ANALYSTS CONTENT STRATEGISTS

DATA CONTEXT

If you don’t do something with your content intelligence, you

might as well not have it.

5 Act: So what do we do about it?

Do at least one of the following.

CONFIRM + CONTINUE ADJUST STUDY

FURTHER

Track and communicate to build your content intelligence over time and across silos.

The content evaluation process

Analyze 3

4 Interpret

Collect 2

HOW TO COMMUNICATE CONTENT EVALUATION

How NOT to communicate it

Throwing detailed reports over the fence…

Follow basic communication best practices.

Educate executives beyond satisfaction

•  Focus on telling a story of content impact on goals. •  Progress

•  Success

•  Opportunity to improve

•  Include enough details to support the story but no more.

•  Note the benefits of having more details (vs satisfaction).

•  Report regularly.

•  Invite questions and feedback.

Our web satisfaction survey says content

is just fine…

THANK YOU

Colleen Jones @leenjones

use with attribution

DOES YOUR CONTENT WORK? (New Riders)

Q1 2014 Updates at content-science.com/books/