How content strategy can solve business challenges, communicating the value of content strategy, the culture changes needed in order to create content strategically, and some potential approaches for getting executive buy-in

1. Selling
Content
Strategy to
Management
Or, how content strategy
challenges are keeping your
CEO up at night
#contentstrategy
Hilary
Marsh
#chiCSmeetup Chicago
Content
Strategy
Meetup
March
2013

2. What weʼ’ll discuss tonight
§ Sample content strategy problems
§ Communicating the value of content
strategy
§ Culture change
§ Potential approaches for raising
awareness
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

3. About me
§ Content strategy since 1999 (yep!)
§ Clients include
• American Bar • CompTIA
Association • Trulia
• Walgreens • Florida
• FINRA Association of
• HIMSS Realtors
§ I have taught, hired, led, and done
content strategy
§ Strategic direction, tactics, oversight
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

4. Sample content
strategy problems
How many ring true for your organization?

5. Sample content strategy
challenges
§ No one can find anything on our website,
and they’re starting to complain to the
CEO
§ Practically everyone in our organization
can – and does – publish content to the
site, and on social media, and you’d
almost never know it was from the same
organization
§ No one is in charge of the home page
§ Everyone is in charge of the home page
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

6. Sample content strategy
challenges
§ We want to share our information on
social media more fully, but we can’t do it
easily because of our technical
limitations
§ We can’t add comment functionality to
our content because we won’t know how
to handle the comments
§ Our best material is presented as PDFs,
with titles like “4002.pdf”
§ We can’t pull in related links on content
automatically because our content isn’t
tagged or labeled
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

7. Sample content strategy
challenges
§ Our website is organized based on our
org structure rather than on how our
audience thinks about us or our content
§ Our audience can’t get the information
they want from their mobile devices
§ Our content isn’t appearing on Google
like we think it should
§ “We should be on YouTube”
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

8. What do you notice about
these challenges?
§ They result in business challenges
§ They’re about
§ process
§ ownership
§ collaboration
§ mutual understanding (or lack thereof)
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

9. Why isn’t this
solved already?

10. Common obstacles
§ Communication silos
§ No understanding of what content
strategy is or the value it can bring
§ No understanding of what content is or
the value it can bring
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

11. Communicating
the value of
content strategy

12. Content strategy: what is it?
§ It is NOT:
§ a content audit
§ an editorial calendar
§ a message architecture
§ a plan to churn out white papers
§ voice and tone
§ editorial guidelines
§ All these are tools used to execute a
content strategy
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

13. Content strategy: what is it?
§ From the Content Strategy Consortium: the
practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and
governance of useful, usable content
§ From Kristina Halvorson: Content strategy isn’t a
bunch of tactics. It’s a plan:
§ a well-founded plan, fueled by your business
objectives and user goals
§ an achievable plan, created with your current
business reality, content assets, and limited
resources in mind
§ a future plan, for what’s going to happen to your
content once you send it off into the world.
§ a profitable plan, where your measures of
success ultimately have impact on your
organization’s bottom line.
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

14. Content strategy: what is it?
§ My definition:
§ the who, what, when, where, why, and
how of all the content a site or
experience will offer
§ a strategic statement tying
communication (and content) to
business
§ and the people, processes,
and power to execute that
statement
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

15. Three faces of content strategy
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

16. What would happen if you skipped content strategy?
Tremendous risks after the site is (re)launched:
§ No one will come
§ Frustrated users will flood the call center
§ Visits will drop off dramatically after the first few
weeks
§ Nothing will change about your business
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

17. How to create that
strategic statement

18. Know and understand the business goals
What is your company trying to accomplish?
§ Understand the business strategy – this affects the
content you’ll want to create (or keep), as well as the
channels you’ll use.
§ Understand the brand strategy – this affects your tone
and style.
§ Choose success metrics that you can actually measure.
§ Interview the stakeholders. Know whatʼ’s important.
§ Know the pitfalls. Watch the internal politics.
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

19. Understand your audience
§ Understand your users: what are their goals? their needs?
their pain points? what do they not need?
§ Read existing knowledge, and do your own– go stand in
their shoes
§ Create personas and stories about your users
§ Segment your users (by activity, role, age, interest – think
beyond demographics)
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

20. Get to know the content (and the creators)
§ What information is required to support the business, the
users, and the tasks?
§ Itʼ’s not just textual: it can come in many different forms
§ Need to know whatʼ’s there already…
§ Online
§ Offline
§ In peopleʼ’s heads
§ … and what needs to be created or deleted.
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

21. Sample statements
§ Curate an authoritative website that offers [list specific
audiences here] to take actions supporting [list
organization's causes here].
§ [our site] is the key online vehicle to support and make
members and others aware of the organization’s
strategic objectives and the programs and services that
support them.
§ ____.com is the easiest way to buy ____ on the internet
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

22. If you don’t know what you need
to communicate, how will you
know if you succeed?
—Margot Bloomstein
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

23. Content strategy
requires culture
change

24. Culture change
§ From “knowledge is power” to “sharing knowledge is
power”
§ New need for collaboration – and trust
§ Moving together toward common goals
§ Subject matter experts are not writers
§ “Poof – you’re a publisher”
§ “HOP e-news”
§ How many universes are there?
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

25. Understand change
management
1. Establish a sense of urgency
2. Create the guiding coalition
3. Develop a change vision
4. Communicate the vision for buy-in
5. Empower broad-based action
6. Generate short-term wins
7. Never let up
Courtesy of Kotter International 8. Incorporate changes into the culture
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

26. Potential approaches
to sell/introduce
content strategy

27. Just because it’s the right
thing
§ Educate your management
§ When they agree, work with them to
educate the company
§ Show successes along the way
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

28. Stealth approach
§ Work with a single group that already
gets it
§ Tackle a specific initiative in a new way
§ Measure success
§ Take the success story to executives, with
ideas about how it could scale
§ Give them the messages to share with the
staff
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

29. Pain relief
§ Paint the picture ofthe end state, an
organization where communication is
valued, where people share information,
and where everything works effectively
§ Show how different things are now, and
the business risks posed by the current
state
§ Come armed with a plan about how to
get from the current to the future state
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

30. Common to all approaches
§ Talk their language, especially ROI
§ revenue
§ speed
§ engagement
§ Give the executives the messages to
share with the staff
§ You’ll be the person executing what
management wants
§ Keep them updated about progress and
obstacles
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013

31. Thank you!
§ Hilary
Marsh
§ www.contentcompany.biz
§ hilary@contentcompany.biz
§ (312)
806-­‐7854
§ For
useful
arFcles,
visit
my
site
and
subscribe
to
my
newsleJer!
How to Sell Content Strategy to Management Hilary Marsh – www.contentcompany.biz Chicago Content Strategy Meetup
March 26, 2013