Is your content working? This presentation will help institutions answer this question for every piece of content they publish, in every medium and channel. Content is the way our organizations’ work is manifested online — so content success translates to higher success of programs, services, and programs. Using real stories, this session will connect content effectiveness with business results. Attendees will leave with their own content success metrics.
Many schools create, manage, and measure content without a true strategy — without a sense of the audience and with no explicit, measurable goal. Once you do have an audience and goals, you can start to interpret the data from analytics software, survey results, usability testing, etc. We’ll discover which metrics are the most important for content and user experience evaluations, and learn to translate data into actionable recommendations for stakeholders.
This session will cover how the “old” way is ineffective, and will paint the picture of a better way of working that will result in more effective content. This session will include interactive exercises as well as facilitated discussion, so that at the end, attendees will have their own content success metrics to take back to their schools.
5. Multiple parts
1. A strategic statement tying content to business
goals
2. Guidelines and policies: Who, what, when,
where, why, and how of publishing content
3. The people, power, and processes to execute
#1 and #2
7. Foundational tenets
1. Content creators & SMEs have a common
understanding of what key audiences want, and how
their content helps deliver that.
2. Content creators & SMEs have a common
understanding of the org’s goals are and how their
content contributes to them.
3. Content creators & SMEs share their content in a
consistent, effective way
8. Principles
• The organization creates content that its audiences want
• The organization creates content that helps it meet its goals
• Content has success metrics and is measured against those
• Content that is no longer relevant is no longer available
• Content is promoted, surfaced, and cross-linked based on its
topic, not its source
• Content is created in the organization’s voice
• The organization manages content platforms, tools, and
channels in a way that ensures their effectiveness
32. Because we did the research
Because the dean asked us to
Because the faculty member told us to
Because we have this program
Because we do this thing
Because we created the information
Because we have no way to say “no” to the request
Because we think we have to
Because everyone else is
Because
Because
33. If you don’t know what you’re
going for, how will you know
whether you’re succeeding?
35. What I heard from higher ed folks
Lots of challenges
• We don’t know our business goals
• Our content isn’t mapped to our business goals
• Folks who give us content don’t have goals
• Even if we do know, what can we do to increase success?
• How do we help content owners succeed?
36. Setting goals is challenging!
“There’s a lot of cool stuff happening at the
university that no one knows about”
• Who would love to know about it?
• What would they do as a result of knowing it?
• Why don’t they know about it?
• How could you change that today?
37. Technology is not our friend
•“IT is backed up, so we can only do things we
can implement ourselves for free”
•“There’s a lot of content on our public site for
current students because the student portal is
a mess”
38. Ratio of effort to results
•Size of potential audience
•Priority of potential audience
•What we want the audience to DO
•Resources to create the content
•Results
51. Page views are not the goal – the goal is the
goal.
--Mike Powers
@mjpowers
52. High-level higher ed goals
1. Get students
2. Help students, faculty, alumni succeed
3. Get money to keep doing 1 and 2
53. Translated to content…
Content
Get students • Appeals to high school students
• Provides correct, useful
information
Help students and
faculty
• Helps students register, add/drop,
etc.
• Markets the school
Get money • Shows the value of the school
• Gets donors
54. Some sample goals
• Attract more qualified students
• Encourage applications
• Raise awareness and perception of our university
• Help admitted students stay
• Inspire more alumni to donate
• Reassure people about the institution’s stability
• Raise the quality of job applicants
Others? What about for other programs & schools?
61. Keep asking “why”
• Why are you publishing this content?
• Why have you/we invested the resources to create the program
that the content is about?
• Why would the audience want to know this information/about this
program?
• Why…?
• Why...?
76. How will you know it’s successful?
• Reached the audience in the channel that matched their
expectations
• The audience took the action you wanted them to take
• Users took the next step you wanted them to make
• They were more satisfied with your institution
• They called customer service less
• Donations went up
• They talked you up to their friends/family/colleagues
77. Answers may be on the page or not…
• Google Analytics measurement – unique page views, referrals, etc.
• Content audit
• User testing
• Surveys
• Social shares
• Measuring the results themselves: more qualified applicants, event
registrations, etc.
78. Answer the right questions
• Executives
• Site management
• Content owners
• Users
80. • Content doesn’t exist in a vaccuum
• Better content in one area may support a goal in
another
81. A case study
• Site redesign required a news article for each update
on the home page
• Volume of news articles overwhelmed the site
management staff
• Viewership to each article was relatively low
• Would fewer articles mean fewer views?
82.
83.
84. Turning goals into KPIs
1. Benchmark where you are now
• Content performance
• Pain points
• Tie back to business
2. What will constitute success?
• Envision the desired goal
• Make it measurable!
85. Some considerations
• Make sure your KPIs cover both organizational goals and user
needs
• Think about them from multiple perspectives
93. Next steps
1. Learn what works
2. Use that information to develop goals
3. Create an editorial calendar and templates for review time,
roles, and processes
4. Share all with staff
5. Track/measure and communicate the results
6. Use the results to improve future content
94. Change the conversation!
• Partnership
• “We will help your program shine” and help you tell your story
better
• Before a long-term commitment to something new, try a pilot for a
specific subset and then refine based on their feedback
• Foster connections between content areas for the benefit of all
offerings connect back up to business goals
95. Resources
• My article and worksheet
http://www.contentcompany.biz/2016/04/27/return-on-content/
• Aligning Business Goals with User Goals in Content by Michael Andrews
http://storyneedle.com/aligning-business-goals-with-user-goals-in-
content/
• Making Content Measurable by Jess Hutton
http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/making-content-measurable/
• Why Attempting to Establish the ROI of Content Is a Fool’s Errand by
Ronell Smith
https://medium.com/dissenting-opinion/why-attempting-to-establish-
the-roi-of-content-is-a-fools-errand-d8b4fdfd3a6c#.39kpxyxzs