Spanning Silos: Removing the People Barriers to Achieving a Unified Content Strategy

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About Me

• Product Manager at MindTouch• Been involved with content at all stages

– Customer Support Manager– Product Marketing Manager

• Sales Engineer

– Customer Experience Manager– Product Manager

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• What does it mean to have a Unified Content Strategy?

• Who are the players?• What are the players’ goals?• What is their content like?• What tools do they use to create content?• How do you get rid of Barriers?

Overview

What does it mean to have a Unified Content Strategy?

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What is a Unified Content Strategy?

Unified Content Strategy isn’t just making sure that you have a single location for your content.

Unified Content Strategy is purposely aligning how content is used by all departments

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Why do I need a Unified Content Strategy?

• Inconsistencies in your content are very transparent to your audience

• Wasted resources on creating content that isn’t used

• Frustrating Customer Experience• Bigger budget from more buy-in

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• Inconsistent, fragmented• Each channel is different• Too slow to update with modern

release schedules

• Customers, partners and product experts can not contribute

• Really FRUSTRATING

Today’s Content

Who are the players?

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Marketing

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Sales

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Support

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Product

What are the players’ goals?

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Marketing Goals

• Help Sales close business• Getting/Converting leads• Drive interest and buzz around the product• Maintain the reputation of the

Company/Product online/offline• Tracking, Tracking, Tracking• Continuity of information across systems

(CRM, Email, Marketing Automation, Social Media, Sales Slicks/Materials)

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Sales Goals

• Close business– ABC - Always be closing

• Renew customers with ease – Account Management/Customer Experience

• Increasing revenue opportunities– Upsales

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Support Goals

• Customer Satisfaction– Net Promoter scores

• Closing Tickets– Metrics typically measure # of tickets closed

and how fast they are closed

• Deflecting Tickets– Self Help options

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Product Goals

• Customer Adoption– Making the product easy to use

• Customer Retention– Making sure the product keeps up with requirements

• Customer Feedback– Enhance the product based on usage

• Effectively communicating the hard work done by development team– Appreciation for the hard work

• Quality

What is their content like?

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Marketing

• Content focuses on Business benefits• Created with Sales in mind

– Helps facilitate the sales cycle or generate interest to fill pipeline

• Social Media content needs to be easy to reference

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Sales

• Content is benefit focused• Simplified overview of features and

functionality to entice buyers• Most likely generated by Marketing or a

Sales/Marketing person

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Support

• Cause and Effect style docs (Issue and Resolution)

• Responses to forum threads• Reactive content creation• Typically doesn’t follow content styles

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Product

• User Manuals and Knowledge Bases• Review of the features and functionality

within the product• Topic/Tutorial/Reference style structure• Most closely associated to Technical

Writers

What tools do they use to create content?

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Marketing

• Marketing Automation Tools– Landing Pages

• Email Automation– Email campaigns

• Social Media Management tools• CRM

– Canned emails

• Blog• Corporate Website

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Sales

• CRM• Email• Anything Marketing gives them

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Support

• Help Desk• Knowledge Base• Chat• Phone System• Forums• Support portal (if not integrated with Help

Desk)

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Product

• Desktop Authoring Tools• Documentation Publishing end point• Bug Tracker• Blog• QA Testing Suite

How do I get rid of Barriers?

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Leveraging what we’ve learned

• Goals are primary drivers for success in the department– Incorporate their goals into your strategy

• Make the content easy to access– Accessibility is half the battle

• Make sure the content is multi-channeled– Ability to serve content over any channel the

players leverage

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What are the barriers?

• You don’t understand my goals• You don’t understand my initiatives • I can’t use your content • I don’t have time to wait for content to be

perfect• How will your goals affect my goals?• This is too large of a project to execute

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Addressing Barriers

• You don’t understand my goals– Now you do, need to tailor messaging to those goals

• You don’t understand my initiatives – Need to understand the current environment within

each player’s dept

• I can’t use your content – Identify what is missing and how to work with that

defiiency

• I don’t have time to wait for content to be perfect– Make it easier for people to contribute content that

follows content styles

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Addressing Barriers (cont.)

• How will your goals affect my goals?– Make sure your goals incorporate their goals

• This is too large of a project to execute– Break the project down into achievable

objectives and measure the success

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What barriers are you encountering?

• What roadblocks are you encountering?• What department is the biggest blocker?• Have you been shutdown in the past when

you try to propose a Unified Content Strategy?

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Follow up sessions

• How to Make the Shift from Product Help to Exceptional Product Experience – Reviewing Product help experience– Aaron Fulkerson MindTouch – Tomorrow’s lunch session

• It Starts with Buy-in: How to Achieve Executive Support for Your Content Strategy Initiatives – Q&A with Aaron Fulkerson and Case Studies of

successful implementations for HTC, SuccessFactors, and Blackboard

– Aaron Fulkerson and Corey Ganser – MindTouch– Thursday 8:30am

Thank you