Creating the MESSAGE ARCHITECTURE

What is a message architecture?

A message architecture is a hierarchy of communication goals that reflects a common vocabulary related to the ethics your company espouses. It consists of a set of attributes representing your company values and making it actionable for all of your team. The output is typically an outline of attributes (adjectives & phrases) that appear in order of your communication priorities. A message architecture drives the content design and lays a strategic foundation and yardstick against which is possible to measure existing content, determine quality, prioritize content types, budget, and new content investments.

Why do you need a message architecture?

The first step of defining a brand-driven content strategy is to define who you are, where you want to go, and how you intend to communicate with your audience.

By creating the message architecture you will get a clear definition of your communicational goals. It will help your team deliver consistent content and messages aligned with your business priorities and brand values.

Conducting the  CONTENT AUDIT

What is a content audit?

A content audit is a core process many content strategists employ to understand the current content state of a website or other marketing material. It is possible to address different areas of focus through a range of approaches, including quantitative, qualitative, and special-interest audits. Many audits begin by tracking quantitative attributes, then move into qualitative details. Our approach to the content audit depends on the needs of the project, and our phase in the project.

Why do you need a content audit?

After defining your message architecture, as a next step, you need to look at your content that is currently available. A brand-driven content audit will help you analyze if the available content is consistent with your brand values. 

Using concrete criteria based on your message architecture, you should explore what is good, reusable, and worth of your „old“ content. The audit can identify gaps compared to who you are now and who you want to be in the future. Finally, it will lay the basis for your further content production and ensure customers experience your business in the most appropriate way.

Defining the EDITORIAL STYLE GUIDE

What is an editorial style guide?

The editorial style guide explains how you should define your content to uphold your brand values. It often address two main focus area:

1. Style, mechanics of construction, grammar and usage

2. Tone, voice and messaging

Why do you need an editorial style guide?

After conducting a brand-driven content audit and defining the content you need to create, find, or aggregate, the next step is to define the style, tone, and voice of your content. By setting the editorial style guidelines it will be easier to define your appropriate content types and enable writers and editors to create consistent content across all your deliverables. When your messages align with your brand values and at the same time are consistent in style, tone, and voice, your communication evolves and becomes of great value to users.

Identifying appropriate CONTENT TYPES

What is a content type?

A content type is a specification for a structured, standardized, and reusable kind of information entity. Content types serve as the foundation for building templates that can be used throughout a website or other publishing channels.

Why do you need brand appropriate content types?

After identifying what content you need and how you should define its style, tone, and voice you need to identify the best way to structure that content. Our goal is to make it consistent for use on the website and other publishing channels. 

In this phase, your goal is to define content types that will ensure your customers love your site and recognize your brand values. At the same time, you should develop content types that will be easy to apply and use by your team.

 Defining the  CONTENT MODEL

What is a content model?

The content model is a formal representation of structured content that represents the collection of content types and their interrelationships. It provides a shared vocabulary for content that communicates its essential structure as well as the meaning and makes it easier to execute a content strategy.

Why do you need a content model?

When you move from audit to a content model we are moving from a picture of the current state to a picture of what needs to be. As you can see the process of defining a content model is crucial in executing your brand-driven content strategy. By defining your content model you will have a clear idea of how to structure your content types and offer high-level brand-driven content to your customers. Based on your specific content types you will develop your individual content model template that will guide you through the content creation process in the long-term. 

Elaborating a cohesive MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION

What is multichannel communication?

Multi-channel communication refers to the use of available technology to provide your customers with relevant information and enable them to interact across multiple channels.

Why do you need to elaborate a cohesive multichannel communication?

Customers' expectations today are demanding, they expect to receive personalized, relevant content that will grab their attention despite their busy schedule. Hence, you should define a cohesive multichannel communication by choosing channels that will meet your communication goals, your audience needs, and that will fit your resources and constraints.

Developing the EDITORIAL CALENDAR

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar is used to ensure consistent content publishing over a set time period. It helps you plan for content creation: to establish priorities for when, where, and what content will be published across your platforms, and to discover any holes in your plan.

Why do you need to develop an editorial calendar?

By defining an editorial calendar you will lay out a plan for consistent communication that addresses the complete experience, not just the website, but also all other communication channels. You will define who will do what, and at what frequency. An editorial calendar will offer you a tactical plan for continuous consistency, save your time and money, improve communication within your team, with your audience, and at the same time support your brand values in the long run. Once you set up your editorial calendar you and your team can simply start to execute the defined tasks.