Free eBook: Six Circles – An Experience Design Framework

ARTICLE NO. 792    February 23, 2012

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by UX Magazine Staff

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As technology has advanced, the importance of how humans interact with systems, machines, and each other, have also advanced into a fusion of disciplines, coalescing under the banner of "user experience." And though "experience" is a vast and abstract notion that is highly contingent on the user, successful experiences in either service or product design are ultimately based upon solid design principles.

James Kelway started the eBook Six Circles – An Experience Design Framework as an enquiry into how different design principles can be applied to the field of digital product design. This led him to identify six core themes—the “Six Circles”:

• Persuasion
• Behavior
• Visual design
• Usability
• Interaction
• Content

Good products and services combine these themes into better experiences; they induce or entice users into engaging, and guide and assist them as they work through the experiences to reach their goals. Creating these experiences requires a holistic mindset and a multi-disciplinary approach.
The Six Circles framework is a way of judging the effectiveness of digital products in the marketplace, and also of putting any given design problem into a structured context to help examine and solve the problem.

The Six Circles – An Experience Design Framework eBook is available as a free download from UX Magazine’s resource section in two formats:

• as a PDF file
• as an eBook file (an eBook reader device or software is required)

Identifying Conversion Problems from the Product Page

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February 21, 2012 · by Pamela Hazelton

 

When vying to increase conversion rates, many storeowners mistakenly put primary focus on the checkout process. While a simplified checkout with ideal options — i.e. various payment and non-inflated shipping choices — will definitely help increase the percentage of visitors who complete a purchase, the shopper first needs to add items to his cart.

The bridge that connects the product or category page to the checkout process is often overlooked. Directing visitors to a particular item — whether via search engines, social media or site navigation or search — is actually a simple process compared to enticing them to take further action.

First, Identify the Conversion Problem

Analytics will explain where shoppers are dropping out, whether it's on a particular page or during a specific process. For example, a simple, visual funnel will tell us how many shoppers take action on the product page.
Enlarge This Image
With Google Analytics we can see that only 1.86 percent of this store’s shoppers actually added an item to the cart, indicating that the problem initially lies with something on the product page.

For this store, customers are taken to an editable shopping cart that resides on the checkout page itself. This is why we see 100 percent of those who added items to the cart continue to checkout.
A low percentage of action tells us that visitors aren’t enticed to purchase products from the pages being tracked — in our case, from the product page. While the excuses could be plentiful, there are five primary reasons shoppers leave action pages without buying:

1. Lack of trust. The shopper doesn’t feel comfortable purchasing from you. This is usually due to lack of contact information, security & privacy seals/info, or policies that raise red flags.
2. Poorly described products. The product description must be detailed and simple to understand. Text, supported by stellar images is a must. Supporting content, like video, audio and customer reviews, is a plus.
3. Prices are too high. New shoppers who are not recommended by others are less forgiving about higher price points.
4. Poor page/site layout. Design matters, as does a logical layout. Shoppers need to be guided to take action.
5. Unexpected results. Shoppers should never have to guess what to do after clicking the “add to cart” button. The most common complaint about "add to cart" functionality? No apparent message that the action was successful.

User testing will explain shoppers’ lack of action in more detail, as will visitor comments. We addressed inexpensive user testing previously, at "Using Real People to Test a Website."

Keep in mind that the majority of visitors will never take the time to contact you. This means a single visitor asking a question about an item might actually represent scores of others who wound up shopping elsewhere.

Why Are Retailers Shutting Their Facebook Stores?

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5 days ago by Lauren Indvik 

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Share on Tumblr    Eager to monetize the large followings they had built on Facebook, many large brands set up shop on the social network for the first time last year. 

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Now many of those Facebook stores are closing.

A Bloomberg report this weekend pointed out that Gap, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and GameStop have all opened and closed shops on Facebook within the past year — undermining expectations that the social network will become a major revenue driver for retailers over the next decade.

“We just didn’t get the return on investment we needed from the Facebook market, so we shut it down pretty quickly,” Ashley Sheetz, VP of marketing and strategy at GameStop, told Bloomberg. “For us, it’s been a way we communicate with customers on deals, not a place to sell.”
GameStop opened a store on Facebook in April 2011, and closed it six months later.

“There was a lot of anticipation that Facebook would turn into a new destination, a store, a place where people would shop,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research, added. “But it was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”

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The End of F-commerce?

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Still, none of this proves that social networks don’t have potential as sales channels. It may be that retailers simply haven’t harnessed the power of these platforms in the right way.

In most cases, retailers have entered the f-commerce market by importing their online catalogs and making them available for purchase in a Facebook app. The experience is nearly identical to shopping on their websites, with two major differences: 1) Shoppers can complete their entire browsing and checkout experience without leaving facebook.com; and 2) the Facebook apps tend to work more slowly.

In other words, consumers have little to no incentive to shop via these Facebook apps.
Others simply have not dealt in enough volume — offering, say, just one item for purchase each month, or discounting one or two items for a short period.

Although these efforts have generated a fair amount of PR buzz, most of these companies are losing money on these efforts because development costs are so high, says Maureen Mullen, director of research and advisory services at luxury research and consulting firm L2.

Or the problem may be Facebook’s infrastructure. As Mulpuru says above, spending time on Facebook is akin to spending time with your friends at a bar. Pinterest, on the other hand, is more like heading to a craft fair, Forbes‘s Jeff Bercovici points out — you’re there to browse, and to shop, and brands are finding the platform worth investing in.

Facebook, at present, isn’t built for that kind of shopping experience. But it could certainly build Pinterest-like tools to make it that way.

At the very least, Facebook has become an important traffic driver to retailers’ websites. For instance, 1.9% of traffic to Burberry’s website in September 2010 came from Facebook; a year later, 29.1% of site traffic was from the social network, Mullen wrote in an email to Mashable.
“[Burberry is] using the platform to drive traffic at a fraction of the cost of what it would have to pay on Google and other search engines. In addition a significant portion of that traffic and resulting sales is likely incremental,” she added.

Mullen also pointed out that half of shoppers are logged in to Facebook while they shop on third-party ecommerce sites, which lets retailers “capture the massive amount of user data Facebook has,” she says. Brands such as Smashbox and MAC are also incorporating friend recommendations within their ecommerce pages.

In other words, it’s too soon to lament the demise of F-commerce. What we do know is that replicating retailers’ ecommerce sites is not the way to go about generating revenue via Facebook, at least for now.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, -Oxford-

Skunkworks, Reorganization, And Other Tactics To Excel In The Digital Age

FC Expert Blog

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BY FC Expert Blogger Aaron ShapiroWed Feb 22, 2012

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

Outside of the technology sector, most of the large companies that I encounter are startlingly similar.
They're massively successful, indisputably recognized as world-class leaders by consumers and the business community. Their executives are all quite smart and good at what they do. They acknowledge the world is going through a technological revolution and that digital technologies are transforming their businesses. They know that to stay up to par, they have to lead in the Internet space, too. But for some reason they just can't get it done.

Here’s why: traditional organizational structures are ill-equipped to meet the challenges of the digital age. While they can execute like a fine-tuned machine against core business goals, they generally consist of a series of silos--and digital is inherently integrated. Management of what I call the Software Layer, a layer of technology that surrounds the core business and serves as the focal point of interaction with the outside world, requires a more unified approach.

I’ll demonstrate the mismatch through GlobalCorp, a hypothetical company. GlobalCorp has a division for each country in which it operates, and within each country, it maintains a different business unit for each kind of product it sells. Then it has separate organizations for its internal operational departments like sales, marketing, customer service, and so forth. Each group is set up to accomplish those specific tasks, and pre-Internet, this worked pretty well. Now enter the digital era. GlobalCorp needs to be able to interact with individuals through the Web, but no one has the authority to create a company-wide Web experience. As a result, each group goes it alone, implementing its own solutions. They mean well, but their efforts are often tailored to the sole interests of their own group. The needs of the broader organization are not considered.

Flip to the experience of Internet users. They go online to interact with GlobalCorp, one task of many that they’re trying to accomplish in their busy day. But the company’s digital footprint is so fragmented and disjointed, they’re unable to figure out where they need to click to get where they need to go, and they have an inconsistent brand experience. Neglecting user needs is the fastest way for companies to lose potential and existing customers, business partners, press calls, job candidates, and various other valuable interactions and relationships.

Two main types of unusable digital experiences result from management by traditional organizational structures. At the digital marketing agency I run, some clients come to us with more than 1,000 discrete websites for a single company. That’s a big problem. Another issue is when the company has one site, but presents the content in a way that matches its internal organization--even though most users aren’t familiar with a company’s internal structure and lingo. In both cases, users become confused and even stymied, unable to complete their intended digital interactions with the company. These problems become exponentially more deleterious as they surface in mobile, social, and other digital touchpoints.

The transition to an organizational structure that supports long-term leadership in digital can come to life in three phases, all of which can eventually run concurrently.

Step One: Launch a Skunkworks Project.
This step requires the least amount of heavy lifting and political strife, yet it can produce tremendous results. A skunkworks project is an undertaking where a new, small, and nimble division is placed outside of the existing organizational structure, reports directly to a C-level executive, and is tasked with creating groundbreaking products and solutions that support user and business needs. Even companies structured to excel at digital, like Google, lean on skunkworks projects to nurture great leaps ahead. For non-technology companies, it can produce the big bang needed to fuel great momentum toward digital leadership.

Step Two: Implement Concentric Organization.
Concentric organization requires that a small group of digital experts, perhaps some of the same individuals from the skunkworks team, develops and implements a company-wide digital infrastructure that, again, is designed to meet both user and business needs. This team must be a full-fledged, accountable business unit with its own P&L and performance goals, and it must have the authority to influence company-wide operations. Without these attributes, it often becomes a powerless internal agency responding to the whims of various departments. Its end product should be a system that allows large numbers of nontechnical employees to use digital tools to advance their specific business goals, which protects the external user’s experience by standardizing the output. Once developed, key digital team members should be exported to relevant departments throughout the company to aid in integration.

Step Three: Reorganize Comprehensively.
The final step is to combine the online and offline functions of a particular area. For example, a single customer-service group should handle issues via telephone, email, and social media, and a retail merchandizing group should manage products in both the offline and online stores. The result is an organization structured around each stage of the relationship between customer and business.

When all three elements are working together, the company is unified by a strong foundation of clear digital business goals and tools, and can maintain a consistent and wholly usable experience for users, while producing cutting-edge digital products. But this machine, the Software Layer, won’t work for long without adequate leadership. One person acutely aware of user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility must remain in charge of the company’s entire digital footprint. Everyone “owning digital” is almost as destructive as no one owning it--it’s all too easy for factions to fracture from the whole, for the infrastructure to deteriorate, for top-level business goals to lose their weight, and for the user experience to degenerate. A company is a truly digital organization only when management maintains a keen focus on meeting user needs.

Author Aaron Shapiro is CEO of Huge and author of Users Not Customers.
[Image: Flickr user Dan Dzurisin]

A Content Strategy For Your Career

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By Bernie Borges | Published: February 15, 2012

Yes, you need it no matter how secure you think your job is.

A career content strategy offers a way to strengthen your position and personal brand
Have you ever been fired or laid off? Do you aspire to a role that still seems a distance away? A career content strategy offers a way to strengthen your position and personal brand. Using content marketing as a personal branding strategy, you can meet influential people in your field, prove your intellectual mettle to colleagues and develop yourself as a key player in a particular niche.
In fact, I believe a self-focused content strategy can make the difference between a fine-but-unexceptional “B” career path, and fast-paced, self-directed “A+” journey.

Envision (and behave like) your future self.
A career content strategy begins with goal setting (no different than in business). Once you have long-term and short-term goals defined, consider the types of content that will support your goals. For example, if your goal is to be a CEO, what are the short-term stepping stones to brand you as a future CEO? I suggest you behave as a CEO today through your content strategy.

Identify the topics in your industry that people care about and develop your content plan around them. If you don’t have a thought-leadership blog, create one. Even if you only blog two or three times per month (because you’re busy), it’s more important that you create quality content, rather than quantity.

Commit to two content assets.
Sticking with  the “I want to be a CEO” example, identify the qualifications of the CEO you aspire to become and commit to two content assets that can help you hone those skills. It’s well known that blogging is a powerful content asset, but you should choose one additional publishing tactic to diversify your digital brand. For example, you may seek out speaking engagements or guest article contributions (such as this one). Consider writing a book or e-book. Don’t focus on monetary gain, rather focus on personal branding through your content. You may even consider a dedicated website (yourname.com) or a newsletter such as Paul Dunay’s Buzz Marketing for Technology to aggregate and leverage your portfolio of content.

Identify risks and rewards.
There are risks to your career content strategy. Your content must be unique, otherwise you won’t stand out. Your content must be consistent, otherwise you won’t get noticed. You may encounter criticism from industry colleagues. Criticism may not be all bad, depending on how you handle it. Be respectful, genuine and engaging in criticism. Criticism can provide an opportunity to engage in a more visible conversation around a topic, which can fuel your personal brand–as long as you handle it gracefully.

Build your network.
I’m amazed by how many professionals overlook the importance of building a strong network. It’s proven that having a strong online network even when you don’t need it is far more effective than building your online network when you need it. A strong online network can support you in your content strategy by spreading  your content and engaging with a wider audience. LinkedIn in particular–with its status-update feed that includes embedded links–offers the chance to promote your ideas among your network and share other relevant content.

Offline content plays a role.
So far, this article has focused mostly on creating an online (digital) content strategy in your career journey. Your offline content is also very important – and too often overlooked. The content you deliver through internal and external presentations, your email communication, how you conduct meetings, how you follow up with people, how you manage people and even how you criticize people are all part of your content. Yes, I’m referring to reputation management. The key is congruency. Your published content must be congruent with your offline content in order to be perceived as authentic and trustworthy.

A content plan benefits your career.
The benefits to having a content plan in your career journey should be obvious. Unless you’re planning your retirement party next week your content is a form of currency in your career journey and should be managed with the same diligence you use to manage your money. At a minimum it requires consideration. In the best case, it calls for a committed plan that brands you so effectively that doors open that would not have otherwise opened were it not for your content strategy.

No excuses.
We live in a hypercompetitive world. No job is secure. I hope you believe that. Overlooking the strategic importance of a content plan in your career journey is very risky in the long run. It requires commitment, dedication and passion. So what’s holding you back?

I already work 14 hours per day. How do I make time for a content strategy?
I’ve studied the mindset of triathletes to gain insight into how they do what they do. The average triathlete is 34 years. And, 75 percent of triathletes are amateurs. In other words, most triathletes have normal lives with jobs and family duties. So, how do triathletes train to compete in triathlon events? You won’t like the answer. Most commit to grueling schedules that have them waking up a 4 a.m. to run, bike or swim before going to work. Most devote substantial time on the weekends to training. And, most hang out with other triathletes for inspiration and tips. If amateur triathletes can train for grueling competitive events, you can make the time for your content strategy. It requires a mindset and commitment that stretch us outside our comfort zone.

Retailers: What's Your Pinterest Strategy?

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We have a fresh niche social site to talk about, and its making a huge splash. Last week, we saw reports that Pinterest has hit 10 million unique monthly U.S. visits. Reports for the week of January 16, 2012 monitored the site traffic as high as 17 million unique monthly U.S. visits. It’s addicting, it’s social, and it’s driving tons of site traffic. So what is Pinterest?

What is Pinterest?
The millions of people using and visiting Pinterest everyday are there to do one of two things: users can share their favorite things, people, thoughts, or ideas from all over the web on virtual “boards”; and a person can monitor their board’s activity or “repin” from the people or brands that they follow. Thanks to a beautiful, constantly refreshing interface, each visit to Pinterest can be equally memorable as it is unique.

What does this mean for retailers?
I was still figuring out the proper pronunciation while I started to create boards dedicated to my favorite things.  It’s drawing users in with its simple, yet stunning web design – all empowered with beautiful products and impactful imagery. And, most importantly, it’s the talk of the digital world. CNN and Mashable have given the online pinboard a ton of coverage and praise already. As new data continues to emerge showing who is using it and how, Pinterest has quickly developed into the latest-darling of our online world.

For retailers, it’s time to watch what users are doing - especially if you are a home improvement, bridal, or high fashion apparel retailer – and then create your first boards. How do Pinterest users want and expect brands to share with them? The power behind Pinterest is the ability to share merchandise with the simple power of visual imagery. I believe that a presence on Pinterest is not about having a particular strategy, but rather all about how we effectively listen and engage with all of our consumers across all kinds of social platforms – from Facebook to niche social bookmarking, such as wish list or web discovery sites like Pinterest, Discoveredd, Svpply, and Nuji.

Pinterest itself has identified a number of “best practices” that brands should follow, including pinning on their boards from various sources. Think of complimentary products or design inspiration, repinning from other boards and brand followers, and create multiple boards to cover different topics, interests, products, and inspirations. To jump start your efforts, check out Mashable’s list of five ways brands can use Pinterest to boost consumer engagement.

Which retailers already have a presence on Pinterest?

Take a peek at how these 13 retailers are using the platform in unique ways for their brands:
American Eagle
Etsy
Gilt Groupe (Gilt Home)
Gap
ideeli
Lowe’s
Nordstrom
Rue La La
Threadless
Urban Outfitters
West Elm
Williams-Sonoma
World Market

How will sites like Pinterest impact e-commerce specifically?
According to Experian Hitwise data shown in an infographic from Shop.org member Monetate, this social “pinning” website is driving more traffic to U.S. e-commerce sites than Google+. And earlier this month, Mashable posted a study which said total referral traffic from Pinterest now beats YouTube, Reddit, Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace – combined. Pretty impressive for a website that launched and closed beta less than 11 months ago.

For niche markets of curators, bakers, brides, home decorators and designers and fashionistas, Pinterest is all the rage. I believe we will continue to see a blending of social sharing and e-commerce sites all over the world – which will push marketers to think beyond the walls of of their website to engage consumers and bring our brands to life. Retailers should be asking:

• Are we selling products worth sharing? Do we make it easy to share products on sites like Pinterest?
• Do we have complimentary content like design or decorating tips, fashion inspiration, and/or recipes if we sell products that compliment those products categories?
• Do we know what our customers like to share online?
• And most importantly, are we listening - and eventually responding – to customers who post about our products?

The nearly instant (and for now, consistent) growth of a site like Pinterest is another reason for retailers to have their social engagement and e-commerce brand messaging in sync. It’s only a matter of time before a retailer creates a dynamic and engaging online pinboard - and the next social sharing darling helps reinvent the way we think about engaging customers. And lastly, retailers should consider taking risks to be where your community is even if those new, niche communities don’t become the next Facebook or Twitter. Take risks and make the investment as a part of the cost of doing business in this social, crowdsourcing world we live in.

Alignment: The Secret to a Successful Content Strategy

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by Melissa Rach on February 16th, 2012

Pssst. Here’s a trade secret. At Brain Traffic, we can usually predict how successful a content strategy will be after the first few weeks with a client. No, we’re not clairvoyant. We don’t even have a fancy algorithm or success scorecard.

Here’s the trick: We simply look at how receptive the project sponsors are to collaborating with others within their organization. It’s our experience that people who are open to input and opinions succeed far more often than those who try to keep their projects under wraps.
Why? Because content strategy requires outreach and alignment.

Content touches just about every area of the organization. When you introduce a new content strategy, you’re asking all of those people to change their habits, opinions, and accountabilities. As a result, your strategy is only going to work if people get on board. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone has to agree on everything—that can be impossible. Alignment isn’t necessarily about creating consensus. It’s about creating a common understanding.

Getting alignment isn’t as hard as you might think. You can start by ensuring your project stakeholders:

Know the basics about your project

Your first alignment priority is to make sure everyone has access to the same information—so they can participate in conversations and make educated decisions. You need to make sure they know (at a high level):

• What content strategy is, how it could benefit the organization, and how it could benefit them
• What content exists today
• What internal and external factors impact your content—highlighting user research, competitive research, and an overview of the content workflow process

Know each other

You also need to help stakeholders learn about each other. In large organizations, it’s not uncommon for people to meet each other for the first time on a content project. Even in small companies, people see each other in a new light during the content strategy process. Helping people understand and engage with each other is critical. So take time to explain:

• How everyone fits into the content strategy puzzle
• What role each person is playing on the project
• How needs and perspectives differ, and why

Know what’s next

Lastly, you need to set the stage for the rest of the project. People always want to know:

• What are the immediate next steps?
• What is their role in the process?
• How much and how often can they/will they need to participate?

The more stakeholders know, the more they’ll feel some ownership in your content projects from day one. Remember, stakeholders are your allies—or, if they’re not initially, it’s your job to find that common ground. The success of your content strategy depends on it.

Hoo-ah: How the US Army Has Become a Social Media Leader

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By David Strom / February 19, 2012 2:05 PM 

in

Over the past several years, the US Army has developed an exemplary program in exploiting numerous social media methods, and done so without a lot of flash, expense, or personnel. They have an engaged audience, numerous followers, and maintained a multi-pronged campaign into all of the major social media networks, including recent beach-heads in Pinterest and Google+. All this, and with a five-person team based in the Pentagon and without spending much in the way of budget too. They are a worthy case study for organizations that are trying to make their own assaults on social media and haven't been as effective.

Just look at this slide showing the numbers. Granted, with a potential audience of millions, it shouldn't be all that unusual that they have the number of Facebook and Twitter followers that they do. But the number of engaged users is what is interesting here.


Let's take a tour of the Army social media landscape and show you what they are doing right. Regardless of your politics, I think you will agree that they are leading by example when it comes to social media.
They are a content machine. Each week they coordinate the posts on their various social media properties and there is plenty of fresh content. Any social media strategy needs to be based on terrific content, and regular infusions of it. They have this one covered, in spades. Just look at the two dozen pinboards they have already created on Pinterest, where our soldier on a camo couch lead image was taken from (you didn't see him at first, admit it).

Leadership is essential.The Army's efforts are led by Major Juanita Chang who is the Director, Online and Social Media Division for the past two years in the Army's Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. Chang is a career soldier who has been in active duty since 1996 and served at one point as a chemical weapons officer before she got into PR. Having someone who came up through the ranks is key, because they can emphasize with the boots on the ground and know the entire Army ecosystem too. When you pick your social media team leader, keep this in mind.

They have solid guidelines for usage. The Army has a 50-page social media manual (which incidentally is a Slideshare link, kudos for that) that walks everyone through what is and isn't appropriate for posting to particular sites. There are guidelines specific to security, including turning off the GPS or geotagging features of your smartphone and cameras, asking the soldier what could the wrong person do with the information that is posted online, and recommending that photos don't reveal sensitive information. Also, a soldier should talk to their family members about operational security and be sure everyone knows what can and can't be posted. Here is just a snippet from their manual:














They aren't heavy-handed about it either.
The guidelines are all common sense and not what you would expect from an organization that believes in the chain of command. "If we can trust our soldiers with guns and grenades, why can't we trust them with Facebook?" Major Chang asks. That doesn't mean they are completely hands-off. A Twitter post from a random civilian that wanted to make note of the recent Medal of Honor winner Salvatore Giunta, was unauthorized, and the Army asked that the relationship be clarified.

Despite such a broad footprint, they pick their targets and have solid engagement goals. Just like you might expect from them. "We don't have to be everywhere all the time. We have our goals and want to pick and choose our platforms to establish our presence," Major Chang told me.

Humor counts, too. Again, somewhat unexpectedly, the Army has a great sense of humor, at least how it is displayed across its social media empire. Humor is a very important engagement mechanism and a great way to break the social media ice for social media noobs. Take a look at the photo that topped last week's list of most frequently-shared pics from their Facebook site:
This was shared more than 375 times and Liked by more than 2,000 Facebook users. Granted, pet pics do well but still. Of course, it helps to have more than a million Facebook followers too.

Know your audience. "We know the audience that we want to reach," says Major Chang. "We want to connect America with its army. People don't always know what we do for the everyday Joe Taxpayer in Idaho." Look at this post on Google+ about a new Army concept vehicle at the Chicago Auto Show. This exposes their comment stream to non-Army Internet users and potentially widens their reach.

Blogs matter and could be the center that holds everything together. I know in our rush to embrace all that is new we tend to forget about the old, but blogging is still important and can cement the other social media pieces. The Army has one blog destination: the ArmyLive blog which has stories about its soldiers, methods, and values. Six stories were posted in Februrary, making it a vibrant and active place to come read about its doings. Can you say the same thing about your bloggers? And it isn't all cheerleading either: an article by the Sergeant Major of the Army, Raymond F. Chandler on new uniforms is enlightening. These and other blogs complement its main corporate website.

Be cost-conscious and leverage free resources. Unlike those stories of thousand-dollar toilet seats and other cost overruns, when it comes to social media the Army is very thrifty. Major Chang was proud that what she has accomplished has been on the cheap: she hasn't paid for any ad campaigns and mostly relied on word-of-mouth to grow her various properties. "Experts are doing it all for less money. We use the free versions of every platform and do everything in house," she says. For example, there is the Army's YouTube channel here that has more than 2600 subscribers and posted five new videos last week (see content point above). Yes, they could have set up an extensive and expensive video streaming site, but why bother when you could it for free?

If you have a captive audience and focus, you can do this too. Remember, the traffic that you quickly gain can quickly leave to other memes-of-the-moment: organic growth is best.

Agencies Show Their Age On Mobile

mobile

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David Hewitt

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Editor’s note: David Hewitt is VP, global mobile practice lead at digital agency SapientNitro.

Mobile strategy is about more than just phones.

Mobile platforms and engagement strategies in our digitally enabled world need to support all marketing initiatives, both offline and online, and be truly multi-channel. Mobile maturity is one area, however, where brands and agencies are playing catch-up with consumer demand.

A siloed approach to mobile has been commonplace over the past couple of years. Many agencies have supplemented traditional creative with mobile ads that lack a larger strategy, subbing out app development that offers no real value and failing to thoughtfully consider the best platforms and devices for mobile campaigns.

For example, Shazam recently made a splash by enabling second screen synchronization with the Super Bowl broadcast, and the company says it saw record engagement during the game.

Unfortunately, problems arose because not all hub pages were optimized and users had to complete Bud Light’s age verification screen on a screen that was not touch-friendly. Considering the large number of iPhones participating, it should have also linked straight to the promoted song on iTunes, instead of emailing it a day later. It’s likely that there was a lot of user drop-off, especially given the three-step process.

Missed opportunities like this will become less common over the next year as brands and agencies fight to stay ahead of the curve, proving 2012 will be a game-changer for mobile.

This shift to a more optimized mobile experience is not merely because the industry is a year older, but because enough agency and brand leadership are seeing a critical mass of mobile and multi-channel initiatives bear fruit. Marketers are realizing the growing risk of doing nothing.

This year, the market demands a more entrepreneurial mindset. Mobile is not just the hot topic of the moment — it’s the future. Embracing this reality requires a shift in thinking and many brands still do not have a mobile or encompassing digital strategy in place. Moreover, many agencies are still growing a set of basic mobile capabilities. Creating both smartphone and tablet-optimized experiences, along with the increasing need to pick platforms and develop apps, is becoming the norm.

Last but not least, 2012 is begging for brands to truly integrate mobile with commerce and CRM programs, and create new integrated experiences for in-store, at home and on-the-go.
While 2012 brings a new confidence to place bigger investment bets in mobile, here are some tips and trends to consider:

• Look at all of the touch points and device considerations that surround a mobile campaign. Consider environmental conditions like in-store Wi-Fi, device detection and fallback tactics such as developing SMS or mobile web alternatives to more specialized mobile tactics.
•  
• As mobile becomes more integrated with other touch points, the need to get store Ops and IT involved becomes a critical success factor. Pick an agency that knows how to work intimately with all facets of your organization.
•  
• On the flip side, some agencies and platform providers are so bent on serving every device that the entire experience gets ‘dumbed down’ so far that it doesn’t engage anyone effectively, especially the smartphone crowd that is more likely to participate. Know what devices to optimize for and how far to take it. Remember not to just look at today’s device penetration for a market, but also the consumer behavior that goes with it and where the trend lines point.
•  
• As the promise of enterprise mobile solutions and point of sales integration continues to heat up, plan for concepts and pilots that set a bigger stage for follow-on investment.
•  
• 2012 will be the year of getting websites and relevant marketing assets optimized for tablets, not just smartphones — especially as tablets continue to heat up for mobile commerce and chip away at market share for everyday PC tasks.
•  
• ‘Big Data’ is back as a buzzword and unsurprisingly so; the more multiple channels are connected, the more we need data to serve up the right experience to the right prospect and customer. There is a lot of opportunity here with location-based service integration and better behavioral and preference-based targeting. However, most of the real benefits won’t be realized until 2013-2014.
•  
• As most direct consumer brands have a mobile app of some sort, expect to see enhancements that bring context aware features, embedded loyalty, and in some cases pre-paid and mobile wallet capabilities.
•  
• Much of 2011′s mobile marketing budgets were still made up of slush fund ad budgets. Expect to see more purposeful campaigns and sizable budgets set aside for mobile.
•  
• Look to work with agencies and partners that don’t just put a person in the room that ‘gets mobile’ but has shown they can deliver it across channels and touch points.

Various agencies and brands sit in very different places across the mobile and multi-channel maturity curve. In 2012, those that don’t figure out mobile will really start to show their declining relevancy to today’s consumer.

It’s about the brand, not about the store

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By Bruce Dybvad

In 2011, boundaries continued to blur as resurgent retail inspired the industry with creativity and challenged traditional ways of doing business. As the store evolves into a fluid idea that serves the mobile, global customer in search of new experiences to share, the degree of complexity escalates for retail businesses. Brands are evaluating the role that their stores play and keeping their eyes on digital opportunities.

A coming crisis of relevance?
Is the concept of “store” obsolete? Now that consumers can shop the world anytime from anywhere, the expectation of having every need instantly satisfied is sky-high. Product searches begin “in the cloud,” largely unattached to a physical store of any kind. Shopping is not an isolated event. Like our lives, it now streams simultaneously online, with our thoughts and decisions publicly shared and reviewed by our personal networks. 

This new flow of life has led to a different idea of what constitutes a store. People no longer distinguish between physical and virtual channels. Today, a retailer must think of itself as a moveable feast—an engaging entity with values, moods, and emotions, as well as commercial, social, and educational aspects.

For that reason, the idea of leading by brand—the values and meaning that define how a retailer does business—is a highly relevant business model that is stable yet adaptable to these fast-paced times.
Take, for example, the growing trend in online shopping for routine purchases. It challenges the monotonous chore of shopping the “center” of a store and questions the viability of millions of square feet in the grocery category alone. Retailers that fail to understand how this impacts shelves and categories may find their mall-based stores abandoned. In the same way, stores that fail to provide engaging experiences or easier-to-shop layouts may fall out of favor. No company can survive today without a burning desire to engage the customer—nor can it thrive without a strong point of view and passion. Without imagination and innovation, many stores are in danger of becoming rusty relics of the past.

Rethinking size
Last year, big-box vacancies shook retail real estate. Although these retailers won’t be disappearing entirely, consumers’ desire for easier shopping, inviting environments, and closer locations—not to mention the impact of multichannel shopping—is changing the shape of the store. In the U.S., Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Gap, among others, have small concepts in the works or are adapting existing formats. Similarly, in Europe, brands like Carrefour continue to move beyond hypermarkets to alternate formats like Carrefour City. However, a smaller footprint is no magic bullet for retail. Stores need to be simultaneously optimized across the dimensions of brand, space, and finance.

Backlash and balance
Last year, the frenzy for apps, augmented realities, and the pressure to jump into social media had retailers madly assembling patchworks of digital tactics while the ground was still shifting. Now that brands have a greater understanding of the landscape through trial, error, and observation, they’ve gotten past the novelty of digital—such as Macy’s short-lived magic fitting-room mirrors—and are concentrating on what’s relevant. Many brands now have the self-awareness and confidence to say, “Maybe we don’t need to be on Facebook.” Surveys suggest that 70% of retailers use social networks for branding and marketing, but only 38% feel they add value and 56% feel it’s too early to gauge impact. Of the 30% of retailers that do not use social networking sites, 63% do not plan to start.
Apps have garnered a lot of attention, but despite all their promotion, few retailers have succeeded in developing truly useful offerings that engage consumers on an ongoing basis. Vitamin store GNC created a special feature for its app that reminds customers to take their supplements. Its barcode scanner, regimen reminder, and deal promotions keep customers interacting with the brand. To make the most of the mobile investment, promotion and functionality are key.

Just when you think you have retail all figured out, a wave of change rolls through the industry, upending paradigms and shaking up sleepy companies. According to Gary Hoover, entrepreneur and retail history buff, the single most important thing a retailer can do, even in the era of global retailing, is focus on the people and the merchandise. The basic premise of “right time, right price, and right customer” is timeless. The twist is that today, in the age of omni-channel retailing, it’s that much tougher with all the paths available to retailers for delivering value. Great retail brands will activate consumer engagement opportunities to fit customers’ wants and needs -- any way and anywhere they like. 

For more retail insights, read our complete State of the Industry Report on www.interbranddesignforum.com.

Interbrand Releases 2012 Best Retail Brands Report

We're number 2 of US retail brands!

The article on "omnichannel" strategy is very good. Growth with Hints of Channel Integration was also good--there's a Target mention. Try From Selling Products to Selling Experiences, too. Lastly, you may want to skim the Methodology section at the end to find out what qualities of the brand they've basing their rankings on. We support many of those qualities.

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February 21, 2012

 
Walmart tops the U.S. list; Amazon.com biggest riser overall; Global retailers focus on becoming omnichannel


New York, NY  (21 FEBRUARY 2012) – Interbrand, the world’s leading brand consultancy has released its 2nd annual global report dedicated to the retail sector.


The Best Retail Brands report ranks the top 50 U.S. retail brands by brand value, as well as the top retail brands from the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and the Asia Pacific region.


The U.S. brands are valued for the fourth time in collaboration with Interbrand Design Forum, Interbrand’s retail experience group. Findings show that U.S. retailers are continuing on a path of steady growth, with online retail spending making up to almost 9 percent of all U.S. retail sales, a jump from 7 percent from 2011.


Looking beyond the U.S. list, Tesco (UK), Carrefour (France), Aldi (Germany), Zara (Spain), and Woolworths (Asia Pacific) are ranked as the number one retailer in their respective markets—all holding their top spots from 2011. Across Europe, leading retailers are gaining a competitive edge and winning customers by investing in new omnichannel strategies and in the overall in-store brand experience. In Asia, retailers are placing a renewed focus on quality, personalization, and after-sales services in an effort to rebuild and bolster consumer confidence following the natural disasters and economic turmoil that plagued the region in the past year.


Retail is a highly competitive marketplace. Consumer spending is scattered due to the myriad ways of making purchases. Manufacturers are becoming retailers, and new rivals - often in the form of both small companies and international players entering new territories - are continuing to fragment the market. In such a climate, every customer interaction becomes crucial.


“Today’s retailers have entered an era of infinite competition,” said Jez Frampton, Global Chief Executive of Interbrand. “These Best Retail Brands understand that every channel matters in the new landscape – and prove that though a multichannel approach is certainly more complex, if done strategically, it pays off.”


Brand-led companies are proving to be resilient by continuing to bolster their digital experience, while simultaneously finding new ways to reinvigorate the in-store brand experience.


“One of the most compelling lessons from the list is that the best brands didn’t stand idly by, waiting for further signs of recovery. They contributed to it by anticipating their customer’s desire to return – not to shopping as usual – but to something better,” said Bruce Dybvad, CEO of Interbrand Design Forum. “For the most part, companies have invested in better store experiences and put more capabilities into the hands of their shoppers.”


The most prominent global retail trends gaining relevancy across the sector include:


The Need to be Agile: Now that consumers decide how, when and where to interact, the only location for retail is where the customers are. Responsiveness trumps efficiency and adds value for customers. Brands like Uniqlo and Tesco are experimenting with new ways to better engage with customers. Tesco created a virtual grocery store in a Seoul subway station and Uniqlo built a summertime roller-rink and pop-up store in Manhattan.

Focus on the Path to Purchase: By returning their attention to the way consumers make purchase decisions, top brands find opportunities to innovate around pain points and build relationships. Today’s pathway is more complex, with digital tools enabling customers to conduct more robust research to identify the best value.

Every Brand is a Story: While retail has historically been extremely operationally focused, more retailers are looking to brand to build value. A brand must develop a theme beyond a shopper’s need for function and identity by adding even more emotion and dimension. The trick is to find the value beyond the transaction. The world’s best brands know what the customer values, and work relentlessly to provide it for them.

Leverage Design to Build Brand Value: Experience is the defining element of any brand. It provides the memory that prompts repeat use, or doesn’t. Shoppers expect their favorite brands to speak in a consistent voice, in-store, online and in traditional and digital channels. In retail it is extremely difficult to get all the customer-facing components to talk the same talk to convey consistency and relevancy. Design is the ticket to breaking out of an old brand identity to re-inspire your customers. It can help add excitement and drama to routine transactions and its storytelling ability can energize brand culture.

The Promise of Omnichannel Retail: A successful omnichannel strategy has the potential to revolutionize retail, but the typical state of cross channel commerce remains poor, plagued as it is by information silos, organization issues, and non-interoperable programs that frustrate customers. Brands like Walmart, Boots, and Macy’s are aggressively taking steps to master the new omnichannel world. The challenge it represents is great, but so are the rewards.   Global key findings from the study include:

• Walmart maintains its #1 position on Interbrand’s U.S. Most Valuable Retail Brands list for 2012, with a brand value just over US 139 $m, but down 2% from last year.
•  
• Amazon.com maintains the #9 position, and increased its brand value by 32%—the largest riser amongst all countries’ brand rankings. 
•  
• eBay moves into the top 10 for the first time, replacing Dell on the U.S. Most Valuable Retail Brands list. Dell fell off the list due to the fact it no longer meets the report’s criteria. (To be defined as a retailer, a brand must generate at least 50 percent of its revenues from sales through its branded retail locations). Dell is continuing to focus more on its enterprise business which occurs through direct sales channels rather than retail locations. 
•  
• Across all the global lists found in this year’s report, the overall top risers include Amazon.com (U.S.; up 32%) Lerory Merlin (France; up 22%), Mercadona (Spain; up 22%), Lidl (Germany; up 20%), Tractor Supply (U.S.; up 18%), and Sephora (France; up 18%). 
•  
• The top new entrants include Guess (U.S.: 1,748 $m), Bershka (Spain; 873 $m), and Muji (Asia Pacific; 355 $m). 

About Interbrand Design Forum 
For more than 30 years we have been creating retail brand experiences for companies around the world. Interbrand Design Forum’s talent for game-changing innovation spurred us to create a business model that integrates analytics-based strategy into what began as a design and architecture group —the first and only company with such a comprehensive offering. Our broad range of services includes: retail design, brand strategy, shopper sciences, packaging, digital, documentation, and rollout. This unique ability to address retail’s growing complexity has led many of the world’s top companies to our doorstep and propelled Interbrand Design Forum to the forefront of the industry. For more on Interbrand Design Forum, visit www.Interbranddesignforum.com.


About Interbrand
Founded in 1974, Interbrand is one of the world’s largest branding consultancies. With nearly 40 offices in 25 countries, Interbrand’s combination of rigorous strategy, analytics and world-class design enables it to assist clients in creating and managing brand value effectively across all touchpoints in all market dynamics. Interbrand is widely recognized for its Best Global Brands report, the definitive guide to the world’s most valuable brands, as well as its Best Global Green Brands report which identifies the gap between customer perception and a brand’s performance relative to sustainability. It is also known for having created www.brandchannel.com, an international online exchange and resource about brand marketing and branding. 

Why Personas are Critical for Content Strategy

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The most popular content strategy tools borrow from the discipline of information architecture, but there is one invaluable tool that is imperative to the process of strategy and implementation of tactics that we can thank our user experience cousins for: personas.

By Kristina Mausser on February 16, 2012

 

Content Strategy

This series of articles explores content strategy and interaction design. Curated by Colleen Jones of Content Science, each article highlights a new voice, a new way of doing content strategy, or applying tried-and-true content principles to new situations.
See all posts

Related posts:

• Content Strategy: no longer just the preserve of the web professional
• Johnny proudly presents: Content Strategy Week
• Content Lifecycle: Closing the loop in content strategy
• Getting Started with Content Strategy
• Why shouldn’t I kill personas?

Why Target Audience Segmentation Isn’t Enough

At an organizational level, content treatment, be it in print or online, has traditionally defaulted to the use of broader target audience segmentation to define messaging and distribution/dissemination. Speak to most content owners and creators within established departments – communications, marketing, policy – and you’ll hear how their messaging strategy aligns with the organization’s (or product/service’s) target audience. The challenge with digital content, however, is that the target audience segmentation approach of yesterday’s Industrial Revolution falls far short of the content requirements of today’s Information Age.

“A persona is a user archetype you can use to help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions, and even visual design.” – Kim Goodwin

The Benefits Of Personas To Digital Content

Personas help to bring richness to otherwise statistical data. Unlike traditional target audience segmentation, they provide greater depth and context to generic target audience groups by focusing on one character who embodies the predominant qualities of the larger group.
When done right, personas bolster demographic, psychographic and technographic data with more qualitative information that is paramount to all content decisions:


All of the above have incredible effects on the types of content published, when it is published, how it is published and what happens to it after it has been published.
Because of this, those who undertake content strategy without doing their due diligence to create personas will miss critical information points that should be used to inform the planning, creation, management and measurement of digital content.

Target Audience vs. Personas: A Case Study

I recently worked on creating a bilingual (English/French) content strategy for a university publication that was transitioning from print-only to digital first. When I started, the information provided by the editorial team and the communications department was that the publication had two distinct primary target audience segments:

• alumni over the age of 40; and,
• alumni under the age of 40.

Their secondary target market was university staff and donors. As a starting point, these vague delineations didn’t provide enough information to help decide:

• What content needed to be created;
• How to digitally disseminate the content (Through email? Social? Web? Mobile?);
• Where visitors would be viewing the content (Locally? From around the world?);
• How they would access the content (From their desktop computer? From their iPhones? Not online at all?)

By bolstering the initial broad target audience segmentation with additional psychographic and technographic data, the university still didn’t have enough information to help properly create an effective digital content strategy for such a broad target audience group.

With so many critical questions left unanswered, and too many costly technology decisions to make, the university agreed to create personas from research undertaken for that express purpose.

Amazing results were uncovered once the personas were completed. A third target audience segment emerged (current students) and the university discovered that the technology assumptions they had made based on dividing their primary target audience segment into two groups – older and younger users – was erroneous. It turns out, their highly educated older demographic was just as inclined to read content on a tablet as their younger audience group. What’s more, the personas also helped to define an effective content strategy for user generated content in multiple languages. This helped to plan for a better user experience through an adaptive translation approach rather than a more traditional virtual English/French tumble approach.

Surprisingly, the most valuable effect the personas had on informing the content strategy was on the conversations they sparked with key stakeholders. Similar to most organizations, the university had content stakeholders scattered between a variety of different departments – web, communications, marketing, graphic design, alumni, public relations, development, and the magazine itself. While each could agree on the segments they were trying to target, none could agree on which department’s communications objectives and content were more important.

(c) All rights reserved by Follow The UX Leader

Borrowing from the fundamentals of user experience design, I printed the personas on 4×3 foot poster-size paper (as seen in the image above) and hung them up in the boardroom for all to see during critical content strategy meetings. Each time content strategy discussions derailed due to departmental agenda, I was able to re-direct the conversations to one of the personas hanging on the wall – how would this decision/requirement/objective/perspective help this particular user in obtaining the information that he/she wants or needs?

This approach helped all inter-disciplinary teams contribute to the overall content strategy by directing their expertise and efforts towards creating a sustainable model and governance structure that satisfied not only the needs of the department, but of their users as well.

With the foundational research completed for each target audience segment, the university now has a baseline upon which to continue to assess, measure and tweak the initial content strategy. In two years’ time they can update the personas with new research and continue to glean insights from the rapidly changing technological and social landscape that impacts the university’s messaging and delivery.

The Long Term Value of Personas To Content Strategy

Content strategy is more than just a discipline. It’s an approach to content that must be adopted at all levels of an organization to be effective. As it becomes ubiquitous to the way in which traditional disciplines create and manage content (marketing, communications, public relations, etc.) across digital channels, the tools that we use now to plan for content will need to evolve beyond the out-dated approach of target audience segmentation. With the demise of top down communications and a increasingly fractured digital channel landscape, organizations must continue to plan for and produce content that remains liquid and linked to engage users on their terms.

Content Quality: A Practical Approach to Content Analysis

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By Patricia Redsicker | Published: February 21, 2012

 

“Your web content will never take care of itself” ~ Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web

If you tell your boss or client that their web content has issues, they will want to know what kind of issues you’re talking about and why they are issues in the first place.

Knowing the answer to the question, “How do you know if your content is any good?” may not be easy. But it’s important if you want to:

• Retain your audience
• Understand how your site measures up against the competition
• Know where your content needs improvement

In order to diagnose problematic content you should analyze it periodically (at least every six months) and measure it against specific content qualities. Those qualities are:

• Usefulness and relevance
• Clarity and accuracy
• Completeness (of sentences, thought, ideas, and logic)
• Influence and engagement
• Findability (SEO)
• Branding consistency
• Intended audience
• Consistency with business priorities

Maintaining your content

Perform a content analysis of your website every six months.

Content must be maintained to be successful, and that takes a lot of hard work! However content problems arise precisely because owners don’t take the time to do maintenance.
In fact if you haven’t performed a content analysis of your website in the last six months, chances are high that there are content issues that need fixing. Some of those issues include:

• ROT (Redundant, Outdated or Trivial content)
• Broken links
• Missing meta descriptions
• Policy changes that might affect content
• Inconsistency with branding style
• Weak calls to action

The process of content analysis

To do a content analysis of your site, start with a content inventory to figure out what your web content currently looks like. The easiest way to do this is to use a simple spreadsheet that looks like this:

Use a simple spread sheet to perform your content audit.

Go through every single page on your website and record what you find using the above format. Be sure to make careful notes and to add more columns as needed.

Keep in mind too that content is not only text but also video, photo images, audio, infographics and everything else that lives in your website. (For tips on creating more informative content audits, take a look at this article by Ahava Leibtag.)

Dedicated oversight

Once you have performed your content inventory, you’ll have all the information you need to manage your site accordingly.

Unfortunately, when your main focus is to consistently create content that engages your audience, it is an enormous task to go back and evaluate what was created in the past to ensure that it is still relevant to your audience.

But as Arnie Kuenn says in his book, Accelerate, “Responsible content delivery includes dedicated oversight.” It is very important to have high content quality on your website, not only to optimize user experience but also to ensure that your brand is consistently held in high regard.

The last thing you want is for your credibility to be undermined simply because a user came across a broken link on your site. So if it means hiring someone to perform content maintenance, or having to take the time to do it yourself, make sure that your site receives dedicated oversight.

Quick takeaway

Of all the things that will impact user experience on your website, content is the most important factor. Make sure that it is always updated, organized, and relevant. Yes, it’s a lot of hard work, and the more content you generate the more content you will need to maintain. But the quality of your content is not something that you want to compromise.

Over to you: How much effort will you make to maintain your web content this year?

Project Management + Content Strategy What Does a Project Plan Say About Your Value of Content?

posted by
Michael Driscoll

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In 1999, I worked on my first big project plan on a million dollar project for a marquee client. The plan included the smallest details for a new website, infrastructure, support, and monitoring. It was the perfect project plan, as much as any plan can be at the start of project...or so it seemed.

During a routine project meeting, someone asked about the plan for the content. By that point in the project the, IA (information architecture) was complete, design was done, and development was well underway. Called “content development” at the time, not even the contract referenced a content plan, which meant any time put toward content was immediately out of scope.


Figure 1: Example of a really bad project plan without time for content strategy. 

After much discussion, the decision was made to export the existing content and import it—untouched—into the new content management system. The results were just as you would expect: over-budget, delays, client dissatisfaction, and that's just the start. The site eventually launched, but the content clean-up went on for months afterward.

Much has changed to improve planning for content. More knowledge, tools, dos and don’ts are available to us than ever before. Yet for some, it’s still 1999 when it comes to effectively planning for content at the project management level.

It starts with how a company values content strategy as a whole, and how a project plan is put together.

What does Your project plan say about Your value of content?

It says a lot.

A good indicator of how a company values content is to look inside the project plans they create and execute.

When Does Content Strategy Begin?

If content strategy begins toward the end of a project, say, after design is complete, the value of content strategy within that organization is low. This is a project destined for disaster because smart companies have figured out that content planning starts on Day 1, if not Day 0.

If content strategy is a single task squeezed between other tasks then the value of content strategy is extremely low. This can indicate that a company doesn’t understand the importance of content or that content strategy is an afterthought. The road ahead is long and complicated for these companies, not to mention expensive.

If content strategy is a series of tasks fully integrated with UX, design, SEO, and technology then the value is extremely high. A project plan is most successful when the project manager views content as a critical strand of DNA and not just an arm or a leg. This indicates a mature organization with a good understanding of the role content plays within a project.

How Often Is a Content Strategist Engaged?

A company’s value of content can also be determined by how often a content strategist (or team of content experts) is engaged during the project lifecycle.

Content strategists are often durational resources, which means their work is rarely isolated to a set of deliverables and then they are gone, on to the next project. Content needs to be monitored during a project as it rolls from one discipline to another. A more effective method is to plan for content strategy oversight throughout the project with routine check-ins built into the schedule. This little trick ensures budget and resources are allocated to address the many unknowns surrounding content that can plague a project.

Project plans and, therefore, project managers that plan for content early and often say a lot about your organization's priorities. Integrating content strategy into the DNA of a project is something I wish I had known back in 1999 with that first, big project plan that seemed "perfect" in every way.  Don't suffer the way I suffered. Make content part of your project DNA.