Content Assessment and Recommendations

As part of the second-level content strategy graduate class, I evaluated content strategy needs for Current, powered by GE.

Problem:

Current, powered by GE, is a strategic content marketing platform with the goal of producing quality sales leads for LED lighting fixtures and connected Internet of Things applications in commercial spaces.

The marketing team wanted to optimize content for better ROI and to develop efficient workflows to manage content needs and creation among teams.

Actions:

Evaluative materials provided included strategic background information, keyword sitemap, site analytics, key personas, and a stakeholder interview.

Beginning by identifying and stating both stakeholder and audience goals and needs, through reviews of the strategic background and persons. I delved into the analytics of more than 200 pages to identify areas for more scrutiny. The analytics showed a small portion of published content was truly being seen.

Next, I reviewed the stakeholder interview. The issues raised confirmed my findings through the analytics. The interview showed that content is being created in siloes with little overall shared strategy.

Results:

The stakeholder interview was a key element in making recommendations. It identified the most important need was a strong governance plan.

Issues included:

  • Managing staff time used on low-performing content.
  • Content bloat where the same content is published multiple times, but in different sections of the website.
  • The best content, as identified by the client, also had the highest repeat visitors but is being drowned out by poor performing content.
  • Consistency in content curation on key pages such as Industries and Featured Content.

Recommendations included focusing on foundational actions such as completing a content audit, detailing workflows, and setting specific measurement standards.

A key recommendation was the development of a content brief template for content creators to better align content with organization and user goals.

Lessons Learned

While the work is too recent have results, I anticipate significant changes in the management of content. This project shows the importance of strong content governance as part of an overall content strategy. It showed how content that is not governed well can actually be detrimental to organization goals.