Imagine a dinner party. What do you envision? The food! But not just the food – the entire experience. Come into the content kitchen for a look at how good ingredients (the raw content), good tools, good processes, and delivery all contribute to creating a satisfying experience.

Producing content in the public sector may seem, at first glance, like a completely different beast than marketing content for the private sector. However, once we look at the reasons for publishing content, the “marketing” aspects aren’t all that different. Private industry may have bigger budgets and more technology know-how to create cutting-edge websites, but in both sectors the content being produced is meant to support the organizational goals and the goals of the constituents and other stakeholders — in other words, the content consumers. Continue reading

If you think a FAQ page is where readers find handy information about their needs or a place where customers go to look for answers to frequently asked questions, think again. In an informal survey  I conducted,  occasional to frequent Internet users generally agreed that FAQ pages were of little use in actually answering their questions. Continue reading

The quest for the right mix of content on a corporate site is the holy grail for marketing groups. In a very common scenario, marketing  departments are given the budgets to develop content, and they create marketing material that is clean, crisp and clear. They plan content so that visitors are led down a compelling and attractive path to the shopping cart. It’s like coercing consumers down the aisle to a shotgun marriage. Reality, however, is that consumer behavior doesn’t work that way. Much like the pick-ups lines don’t turn the head of prospective dates, marketing content isn’t always what turns browsers into buyers. Marketers may think they know what content consumers want, but it doesn’t address the real needs of those who are looking at the buy as the beginning of a relationship.Continue reading