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A Content Strategy Maturity Model for Associations

(and the Rest of Us)

Carrie Hane

@carriehd

Dina Lewis, CAE

@dinalew

Presented by

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What we’ll discuss tonight

Research findings
Tips for getting executive buy-in
Practical governance policies

Ideas for guiding your content strategy journey

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Why research association content strategy?

Decision to Join

Current association members ranked dissemination of knowledge or content among four of the top five most important association functions

2016 Operating Ratio Report

Periodicals/Publications

8.82% revenue/8.11% expense

Educational Programming

9.96% revenue/8.17% expense

Competition

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Project Goals & Scope of Research

Identify associations doing content strategy
Explore how associations are doing content strategy
Articulate the positive impact of a strategic approach to content
Analyze challenges to content creation and dissemination

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Content strategy is everyone’s job

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Content strategy is scalable

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Content strategy is a journey

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Content strategy success is dependent on culture

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Content Strategy definition

The planning and judgment for the creation, publication, dissemination, and governance of useful, usable content across departments and functional areas.

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Content Strategy Tactics

Audience surveys/usability
Content audits
Content governance
Content model
Digital content training
Editorial style guide
Job descriptions
Journey maps

Metadata strategy
Collect/Monitor analytics
Personas
Planning calendar
SEO strategy
Stakeholder interviews
Strategy statement
Structured content
Taxonomy

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Profile survey

Content Strategy Adoption Key

Beginner: 1 to 6 tactics Intermediate: 7 to 13 tactics Advanced: 14 to 17 tactics

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Common challenges for�association content strategy

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What the future could look like

Staff working together, not just one person, not competing
Basing decisions on audience behavior—not perception, anecdotes, or what members say they want
Flexibility to shift tactics while aiming for same goal
Organization aligned around members’ journeys and topics

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What’s working

Cross-department content councils
Research-based personas
Content strategy roadmap
Education and empathy
Get help and support

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Content Strategy Maturity Model

For associations and other organizations

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Components of the Maturity Model

Culture – how staff and other stakeholders interact to get content strategy work done

Operating Mode – how content work gets spread throughout the organization

Focus – scope of vision employed in executing the content strategy

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2

3

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Intermediate

55%

Culture	Organic	Cooperative	Collaborative
Sustainability	Buy-in/Establish roles	Accountability	Integrated Outcome-focused
Mood/Mindset	Excitement Aspiration	Uncertainty	Confident Accomplishment
Operating Mode	Planning	Executing	Iterating
Scaling	One person or department	Multiple departments - creating alignment	Organization-wide - making dynamic connections
Optimizing	Tactics Establish metrics	Workflows Channels Analyze (Use) metrics	Process Data-driven
Focus	Tactics- starting something/getting started	New models Building bridges	Environment Outcomes

Beginning

35%

Advanced

10%

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Intermediate

Culture	Organic	Cooperative	Collaborative
Sustainability	Buy-in/Establish roles	Accountability	Integrated Outcome-focused
Mood/Mindset	Excitement Aspiration	Uncertainty	Confident Accomplishment
Operating Mode	Planning	Executing	Iterating
Scaling	One person or department	Multiple departments - creating alignment	Organization-wide - making dynamic connections
Optimizing	Tactics Establish metrics	Workflows Channels Analyze (Use) metrics	Process Data-driven
Focus	Tactics- starting something/getting started	New models Building bridges	Environment Outcomes

Beginning

Advanced

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When our organization redesigned its website to be more member-focused and no longer based on our org chart, we realized we needed a centralized content team ...

Director of digital publishing, large professional association

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One thing we learned is that you should do a robust job making sure folks understand content strategy, so they know how their work fits into the bigger picture.

Director of digital publishing, large professional association

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Communicate, communicate, communicate. Up, not just down. Not one-way. You must listen. You must recognize the issues [members] are facing. Don’t assume you understand.

CEO, small trade and professional association

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Intermediate

Culture	Organic	Cooperative	Collaborative
Sustainability	Buy-in/Establish roles	Accountability	Integrated Outcome-focused
Mood/Mindset	Excitement Aspiration	Uncertainty	Confident Accomplishment
Operating Mode	Planning	Executing	Iterating
Scaling	One person or department	Multiple departments - creating alignment	Organization-wide - making dynamic connections
Optimizing	Tactics Establish metrics	Workflows Channels Analyze (Use) metrics	Process Data-driven
Focus	Tactics- starting something/getting started	New models Building bridges	Environment Outcomes

Beginning

Advanced

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Associate chief content officer, large professional association

We are re-casting the way we think about content and member engagement, not reinventing it.

Senior vice president of marketing, communications, and publishing, large professional association

Vice president of communications, large professional association

It's a work in progress and slow-going because we are committed to ensuring this is a cross-functional, transparent effort.

We're doing a lot of experiments and doing what we can, hoping to spread things further as we go.

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You need the willingness to bring others along—to teach.

The content strategy helps us decide what we DON’T do.

Director of marketing, medium professional association

Vice President of Communications and Marketing, medium-size professional association

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Intermediate

Culture	Organic	Cooperative	Collaborative
Sustainability	Buy-in/Establish roles	Accountability	Integrated Outcome-focused
Mood/Mindset	Excitement Aspiration	Uncertainty	Confident Accomplishment
Operating Mode	Planning	Executing	Iterating
Scaling	One person or department	Multiple departments - creating alignment	Organization-wide - making dynamic connections
Optimizing	Tactics Establish metrics	Workflows Channels Analyze (Use) metrics	Process Data-driven
Focus	Tactics- starting something/getting started	New models Building bridges	Environment Outcomes

Beginning

Advanced

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Director of operations, small trade and professional association

For us, content strategy starts with understanding what our members are looking to achieve, what interests them, what draws them to our conference, and making sure we provide that type of information.

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Put together a good, collaborative team. Have open chats about where you want to go with your content and what content resources you want to provide to members and your industry. Define that vision together.

Senior director of marketing, medium trade & professional association

Senior director of communications, medium trade association

Communicate the value of content strategy in language they understand; include the value to members; how it will improve efficiency and decrease cost; how it promotes teamwork.

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The content team included staff from every department—a matrix shared among everyone in the group.

Looking at our content has helped us discover our content gaps and opportunities to produce more content in areas that members want and remove content that’s not relevant anymore.

Senior director of knowledge and learning, large professional association

Director of digital publishing, large professional association

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How to Use the Maturity Model

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Self

assess

	Beginning	Intermediate	Advanced
Culture Sustainability and Mindset	At what level do we have buy-in? How are we defining content strategy roles?	Teams are held accountable through “strategic nagging”	Teams are outcome-focused Work is cohesively integrated
Culture Sustainability and Mindset	Aspiring to do content strategy	Are we doing it right? Enough?	Definitely doing it! Accomplishments and confidence
Operating Mode Scale and Optimize	Is one person or department test driving content strategy?	Are multiple departments committed to content strategy?	Organization-wide commitment to content strategy?
Operating Mode Scale and Optimize	We are doing some tactics and trying to do them well.	Guidelines/workflows documented. Content performance measured against established metrics	Teams make data-driven decisions about content creation and management
Focus	Tactics only	Trying new ways to work collaboratively	Outcome focused and transparent communication. Process tweaks

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Play to Your Strengths

Marketing	Attract and retain members Understand audience Set goals and measure progress

Education	Cross-department collaboration Set measurable outcomes Identify relevant topics for industry Work with subject matter experts

Communications	Focus on voice, messaging, and expertise of the organization Consistency Clear, concise, credible messages Layers of information

Publications	Identify relevant topics for industry Create compelling and relevant content Organize and classify information

Web	Holistic view of content Understand user journey Focused on creating positive experience

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Solve your main challenges

Inability to prioritize content areas	Survey members Create personas or members journeys Conduct stakeholder interviews

Lack of content alignment among departments	Include content responsibilities in job descriptions Create organization-wide content strategy statement Create a content model Use an organization-wide content calendar

Inability to make data-driven decisions about what content to create	Use digital analytics to measure goal attainment Establish content governance policies

Inadequate or inconsistent content quality	Audit content Create and enforce content guidelines Set up and operationalize content governance Train authors in digital best practices and content standards

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Follow advice from others

Get buy-in
Identify staff resources needed
Align content strategy with organizational objectives and member needs
Apply data to decisions
Take the time you need
Create a cross-departmental “content council”
Focus on the progress and outcomes

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Every organization can benefit

No one can afford not to develop a content strategy
Don’t need to do everything at once
CEO leads adoption
Every organization is unique
You are not alone
There is always room to grow

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Thank You!

Carrie Hane

Tanzen LLC

@carriehd

carrie@tanzenconsulting .com

Dina Lewis, CAE

Distilled Logic, LLC

@dinalew

dina@distilledlogic.net

www.contentforum.org

Get the report: bit.ly/content-research-report