Content Strategy: 5 Ways to Land Your Next Project

If you’re interested in content strategy, you probably want to be involved in projects that allow you to practice the basics of the discipline. Here are 5 ways to demonstrate to your clients that you are the right person for the job.

Note: This is not just an article for freelancers. If you’re inside an agency or the content manager for a company, these are tips you can use to persuade your bosses to give content strategy a try.

Tips and Tools for the Content Strategist


1. Demonstrate collaboration. 
Change management drives content strategy.  (By the way, there's a great business book out there now called Switch, which discusses the elements of change management.) 


The business analysis portion of content strategy is fundamental to the success of the project. You should ask questions like the following:

• Is the right talent in the right roles?
• Are the right professionals guiding and managing the workflow?
• Who makes the decisions, and do they have the right background to do so? (Think IT guy who runs a website — should he really be calling the shots on major content issues?)

Show your boss, or future client, you want to work with the people they have in place. However, you should make it clear that your recommendations are just those--just recommendations — at the end of the day, clients want to feel comfortable that you’re not going to ram things down their throat


2. Discuss return on investment, understanding you may not prove it directly.
I recently won a great content strategy product by answering this question honestly, “What will be our ROI?” I simply said, “I don’t know that you’ll be able to quantify it, necessarily. What I do know is that I will take the guesswork out of execution so your editorial staff will have more time to be creative, hopefully influencing the quality of your content, and therefore your page views (this was an ad revenue model).” I was hired on the spot because they appreciated my honesty, and I was crystal clear about objectives.


3. Be open to several discovery conversations.
Just like you wouldn’t agree to move in with someone after one date, it’s probably a good idea to have several meetings, or phone calls, before signing on the dotted line for a large content strategy project.


Different conversations will reveal the nuances of the project, and will give you the time you need to think through how you might handle each challenge. Clients (and bosses) like this approach as well, because it gives them the opportunity to see how your thinking evolves over time.


4. Be willing to break the project into pieces.
Sometimes, a client will only want to hire you for a content audit, and not the entire strategy plan. That’s okay. Not all content strategists can plan the entire content strategy lifecycle. This may also be the client's way  of testing the water. So if they call you to inventory or create a style guide or governance plan, take it. If you execute well, there will be more work down the road.


5. Talk about past successes — and things you might have done differently.
Clients like to know that you’ve handled similar challenges in the past. They also like to know what’s worked and what hasn’t--in the book Switch, these are called bright spots and gaps. 


Do not be afraid to talk about different content strategy challenges you managed. The sign of a strong, confident professional is the ability to reevaluate and analyze how you might have proceeded differently. This type of thinking demonstrates your ability to think through challenges, analyze the outcomes and apply what-if scenarios.


Any tips for a freelance content strategist or internal content strategist looking to convince influential stakeholders? They’ll appreciate the comments…and so will I.

This article first appeared on CMSWire.

Healthcare Marketing: 10 Words You Should Use Sparingly

If you're a healthcare marketer, you know there are certain words we use repeatedly that are overused. If the goal of content--print, Web, podcasting or video--is to be powerful and engage people, then using stale words will negate our desired impact.

I'm not saying NEVER use these words. Instead, as the healthcare marketing community, we should be willing to use new phrases to say what we mean to say.  Writing so we sound smart, brilliant and academic just turns people off from our content. Instead, our goal should be to communicate complicated subjects in a way that readers feel comfortable consuming.

10 Healthcare Words to Use Sparingly

10. State-of-the-art: What does this even mean really? When consumers are looking for healthcare technologies, they want to know you have every technology they need to fight their disease.  Of course your technology should be the most advanced.  

9. Innovative: I hope so. I don't want to see doctors who do the same thing again and again, with no attention to results or outcomes.

8. Comprehensive: The second cousin to the most dreaded word in healthcare marketing (#1), this word doesn't resonate the way you think it does. Say instead "We provide the full spectrum of care, so that no matter what specialty you may need, we can provide it." This message carries more power for consumers.

7. Experts: I would hope my doctor is an expert. I'm really sick and I need a cure. How about: "Our physicians  have written widely-used texts for both physicians and patients about thyroid cancers, and are considered internationally-renowned experts in the treatment of thyroid-related disease." Back up the facts. 

6. Unparalleled: Really? I doubt it. There are very few centers who can claim that level of care.

5. Board-certified: I have no problem with this term. Just explain what it means, which very few healthcare marketers do.  Say instead, "Our doctors undergo in-depth training to understand the complex anatomy of congenital heart patients. This level of specialized training is unusual in the medical field. However, for our patients, it is critical to ensure our experts know exactly how to manage complex cases and anticipate future complications."

4. Academic: Most consumers don't understand the difference between community hospitals and academic medical centers until they actually need the services at a research institution.  If you're going to use the word academic, make sure you actually define what it is--on every page! Remember, you have no idea which pages will serve as entry points for your users.

See how Fletcher Allen Health Care manages this issue?  It's brilliant--they explain to the consumer why academic medicine can help.

3. World-class: I want to vomit when I hear or read this phrase. Most patients in the world are not going to fly to the United States for medical care. How about galaxy-class? Or universe-class? Maybe the Martians are looking for the latest in radiation technologies?

Cite your U.S.News & World Report ranking, or accreditations you've amassed.  Let the consumer make the decision about your class.  Or instead say what you really mean to say:
"Our patients come to us from around the region and surrounding states.  Many are from the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, the surrounding states of the mid-Atlantic region, and the East coast."

2. Personalized: This is a tricky one, because people do want to hear it.  However, it's so overused, as is the word individualized. Instead, I urge my writers to describe the process--"Your doctors will evaluate all the information they have--biopsies, imaging studies, your clinical exams, and most importantly, listening to your symptoms--and create a treatment plan that is best for you."

1. Multidisciplinary: Was there ever any doubt this word was #1?  Just STOP saying it. Nobody knows what it means. And, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings--most centers who claim they are multi-d are not. Consumers realize this quickly when they only meet with one doctor.  So stop using this dreaded word and instead explain  the process of diagnosis and treatment at your institution.


"At our Center, a multidisciplinary tumor board meets each week to discuss new cases and diagnostic and treatment options. Endocrinologists, radiologists, pathologists, medical oncologists, nuclear medicine physicians and radiation oncologists attend this tumor board, and their combined experience results in optimal diagnostic and treatment options for patients."


If you're a healthcare marketer, your writing will sparkle again as you dust away these overused, trite phrases. More than ever, with a wealth of complex health information available, we need to be clear. That is truly a distinction important to patients. 


After all, if they can't even understand your Web content, why on earth would they come to your center as a patient? 

Content Strategy: 5 Digital Content Blogs You Need to Be Reading

Content strategy has arrived. When I first set up my Google alerts more than 2 years ago, I used to get 1 or 2 content strategy articles a day. Now, there are usually at least 6 or 7 in my alert email; sometimes, there are more than 10.


It's great so many are writing about content strategy. As every organization is compelled to publish great content, we need creative thinkers publicizing best practices and innovative approaches.


"Bigger" blogs like Brain Traffic, Content Science and Scatter/Gather are all doing a great job of creating insights about content strategy.  However, I wanted to make a list of those blogs who intersect with content strategy; they may not cover the topic directly, but what they have to say is important to our field.


There were two criteria for this list. The authors needed to:
     a. publish at least 1 time a month a
     b. discuss content strategy in a meaningful way


Here's my list:

1. I'd rather be writing: Technical communications blog with a lot of articles that overlap with content and usability. Written by Tom Johnson (@tomjohnson).
2. Eating Elephant: Written by Corey Vilhauer (@mrvilhauer), user experience strategist at Blend Interactive. Corey covers all things content strategy, user experience and information architecture.
3. Pybob: Shelly Bowen writes great stuff on content strategy and presented at this year's ConFab. Find her @pybop.
4. Above the Fold: Marli Mesibov (@marsinthestars) and Joe Baz (@joebaz) are UXers who take content strategy seriously.
5. Divvy HQ: Written by Brody Dorland and Jayme Thomason, Divvy focuses on content marketing and how it relates to editorial scheduling. (@brodydorland and @jaymethomason)

What are some of the content strategy blogs you read on a regular basis? Let me know and we can do version 2 of this list.

How-to: Create a Strong Ephilanthropy Social Media Strategy for Your Hospital’s Foundation

In today’s economy, raising money for any organization is challenging.  For hospitals, ephilanthropy and using social media has become vital for strengthening people’s awareness about the importance of giving.

I met Jesse Stremcha, ePhilanthropy Officer for Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota Foundation at a recent healthcare conference, where he graciously agreed to discuss some of his successes and strategies. He shared that the target of any successful ephilanthropy digital strategy has to be about sharing stories and educating donors.

About Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
Founded in 1924, Children’s had more than 12,000 admissions last year at their two hospital campuses in St. Paul and Minneapolis. An independent, not-for-profit health care system, Children’s provides care for any child, no matter if they can pay or not.

This means the hospital relies heavily on philanthropy, to provide services like Child Life Specialists, the Family Resource Center, foreign language interpreters and art therapy—services the staff refers to as wraparound care.  Those resources create a patient and family experience that make a critical difference for families as they navigate a health crisis.

Children’s tagline is, “Nobody knows kids like we do”. This brand promise shows in those programs that may seem secondary, but are truly central to the patient experience.

Ephilanthropy Strategy
Jesse explained that in Minnesota and the surrounding states, most people have had a direct experience at Children’s, or know someone who did. Therefore, the Foundation’s strategy revolves around two prongs:

1. Telling stories of other donors who gave and sharing those stories across networks
2. Activating the latent awareness of Children’s for people who are removed by one or two degrees

Social media is really the perfect medium for this two-pronged approach, because the blog serves a central repository of all their stories.  The grateful families already in their network share those blog stories with their networks. This sharing widens the funnel to increase the amount of people who know about Children’s and understand the importance of giving.

Another important feature of the social media strategy is the hospital’s microsite, which talks about the “big stuff”, “medium stuff” and “surprising stuff” they do at Children’s.  This charming site invites patients to leave short stories about what surprised them at Children’s and to watch videos about all aspects of patient care there.

Q. How do you create a strategy around giving?
Jesse: We talk about a culture of generosity. What does that look like? Not just for our patients and families but for our employees as well. And, how do we reflect that culture of giving back to the community?

Q. How do you take that strategic framework—the culture of giving—and communicate it digitally?
Jesse: We tell stories about people who have donated. For example, next week a group is coming in who donated pajamas to kids in the hospital, so they can wear cool, funky pjs instead of sterile hospital gowns.  We’ll be taping that for our in-house TV show. Our social media specialist will take pictures and turn it into a blog post for sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. (See the post here.)

Ephilanthropy, partly, is about empowering your supporters to be ambassadors to spread your message. So, we really do three things:
1. Create awareness
2. Educate about the importance of giving
3. Encourage our supporters to share these stories within their own networks.

We had an entire $100,000 room funded by a family who had a strong network of friends. They gave a large gift and collected the rest through social media fundraising. Those types of stories can absolutely happen; they demonstrate the importance of sharing stories with those in your network who feel an emotional connection with you.

Q. Is the blog the center of your social media strategy?
Jesse: The blog is main home base. From there, we can tell longer form stories designed for sharing.  You can say more in a blog post than you can on Facebook and Twitter. However, we also use direct mail and events to cultivate ongoing relationships.

We’re also lucky enough to have a Grateful Patient Officer, who educates families about how donations make a fundamental difference in their stay. For example, the Family Resource Center was funded through philanthropy.  Insurance doesn’t cover those types of amenities that truly make a difference to families.

Q. How do you decide where to “pin” your social media attention? Do you create it around a certain physician or service line, or patient story?
Jesse: In every philanthropy situation, there’s a tension between what the hospital needs and what donors want to give. We approach it from the point of view of building signature events around cornerstone programs, like the Heartbeat5000 (a 5K run to raise money for children with heart conditions).

We also pay careful attention to what’s happening on the ground and in social media spaces. For example, we saw that there was a lot of attention paid to NICU stories, so we created a campaign around the NICU.  Finding those opportunities and building on them activates our donors’ response.

Getting Started at your Hospital
From talking to Jesse (Thank you!), it’s clear to me that if you are charged with this role in your hospital, you need three major things to get started:
1. An overall strategy and message that fulfills your brand promise
2. A home base for your content
3. Access to the people you want to tell those stories about

With these three elements, you can create your own effective strategy with strong tactics. The goals are clear:  activate your audience to give generously, and perhaps more importantly, share your stories with others. The more people who know about the good work you do at your institution, the more opportunities there are for giving.

How about you? Any good stories from your organization regarding ephilanthropy?