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Content Strategy
Optimizing messages from the ground up
The content strategist role is still evolving as the field grows, and its description and responsibilities continue to develop.
In my view, a key responsibility of content strategists is to guide copywriters in creating engaging content that aligns with the brand's voice and tone. This typically involves four main phases: Discover, Define, Design, and Develop.
Discover
Inventory
How
Gather all existing content, in any media, final or draft, active or not, and list all with details such as format, date, etc.
Audit
About
Read, watch, and listen to each piece, annotating its quality relevance and adding recommendations.
Categorization
What
Organize content assets into logical categories based on their characteristics, topics, or themes to create clear and intuitive structure.
Structure
How
Build a visual picture of the current structure and how these pieces relate.
Competitor
Analyses
About
Evaluate and gather competitors' strengths + weaknesses information, identify
opportunities + threats, to improve company's competitive position.
Gap
Analyses
What
Identify the "gap" between a company's current and desired future state to determine how to bridge it.
Define
Analytics
How
Interpret the current content performance using data analysis and statistics to gain insights and make informed decisions.
Focus
Group
About
Gather a small, representative sample of users to provide feedback and insights on their objectives, expectations, and pain points about content & interaction.
Stakeholder
Interview
What
Engage with individuals with a stake or interest in the project to gather their perspectives, needs, and expectations.
Whiteboard
What
Collaboratively map out ideas and identify critical themes for a clear and concise plan for content creation and distribution efforts.
User
Flow
About
Define the user's goal, identify the actions required to achieve it, map out the flow, and test/refine it to ensure the content is intuitive and easy to navigate.
Proof of Point
What
Create and test content prototypes before investing resources into creation and distribution - Proof of Point (PoP).
Design+Develop
Taxonomy
What
Identify and define concepts and relationships between content, and create categories to ensure it matches the user's point of view.
Information
Architecture
About
Organize and structure information to support users' needs and goals to deliver the right content at the right time, despite the point of entry.
Sitemap
Why
Create the content structure visual representation, ensuring all pages are organized to support users' needs and serve as a reference for content creators, designers, and developers.
Empathy
Map
What
Identify the target audience, and build a map including the user's thoughts+feelings, actions+behaviors,
pain points+challenges, and goals+aspirations to create
tailored content.
Priority
Guide
About
Prioritize content based on business goals and user needs, allocate resources effectively to focus on high-priority content, and achieve maximum impact and desired outcomes.
Page Flow
What
Map out the user journey to ensure that content is presented logically and intuitively, appropriately tailored to fulfill each situation and that users are guided toward their desired outcomes.
Strategy
About
Define goals, target audience, messaging, and tactics that align with business objectives, and guide the creation, distribution, and management of content to connect the needs of users and the business.
Content
Roadmap
Why
Outline key initiatives, timelines, and dependencies to create a clear plan for content creation, publication, and promotion aligned with business goals and user needs and optimize resource allocation for maximum impact.
Content
Brief
Why
Create content briefs to guide content creators and stakeholders, align content with the overall strategy, and meet desired standards.
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