Content: how to make it work for you
What is the most important element of your site that makes your users satisfied of their experience?
Some might argue that it is the flashy and interactive design. Others, that it is the information architecture and an intuitive website navigation. Or maybe it is your website’s speed, and a number of seamless integrations with key service provider partners? I would argue that it is the content.
Don’t get me wrong, all of the other elements are undoubtedly important; however, it is the information on your site that got the users to visit it on the first place. Whenever the customers have a question that needs to be answered, would like to buy one of your wonderful products or services, or maybe read more about your latest company updates, they go to your website to find these answers.
When they open your site, they might be entertained by the animations, feel pleased with the transparent cookie compliance policies, but if your content is not answering their demands they will close the tab, feeling disappointed.
Today, content can be presented in multiple formats: text, downloadable pdfs, presentations, images, videos, GIF animations, carousels, podcasts and more. The formats keep evolving, but the aim of why we create this content for the web remain the same.
In this article I decided to talk to three of our clients and active web content practitioners – Niall Berwick, Digital Project Manager at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), Ronan Smith, Content and Insights Manager at Central Bank of Ireland and Vivienne Maguire, the Head of Digital at Ibec, to explore what role content plays in their digital experience.
Content at RCSI - Niall Berwick
RCSI is a global organization with an exclusive focus on healthcare. We have campuses in Ireland, the Middle East and Southeast Asia and a large international Alumni community. Operating in a highly competitive market, we are constantly looking for better ways to attract high caliber academic, research and professional talent. Thus, the primary goal of our digital content is recruitment. In addition to recruitment the site also is key in helping us increase our brand awareness to a global audience.
Quality engaging content is therefore critical in informing such a wide audience quickly on what the RCSI can offer in terms of lifelong learning but informing our audience of RCSI research and opinion on today's challenges in healthcare.
I firmly believe actively planning and updating and enhancing a range of content types in the different areas of the site is the most effective way to engage and keep your customers.
With a diverse global audience and finite digital real estate presenting our customers with the right information at the right time is an absolute priority. Therefore, we have started working with personalisation. With the motivation to come to the RCSI as different as the individual I believe personalisation will provide an even better experience for our customers by presenting users what they want quickly, fostering loyalty, increasing brand awareness, and ultimately driving conversions.
Content at Central Bank of Ireland - Ronan Smith
For me, customer experience is about delivering the right content, in the right way, to the right people at the right time. When I first began developing websites in the nineties, it was something of a closed market. Few people had the know-how to build sites, design and functionality were much simpler, “customer experience” wasn’t even a thing as such, and the internet was much more of a push vehicle for content.
The technology has evolved, and digital maturity has increased, but even today at Central Bank of Ireland we believe that digital capability is no use without engaging, relevant and timely content. Our approach for 2021 is to build on our existing user-centric, plain language strategy – with a further focus on visual content. The goals for our content vary depending on the audience. For example, a goal might be to help build understanding of our work amongst general or niche audiences, or to inform the public on issues that may affect them, such as financial scams.
Placing our people at the heart of our brand, creating greater understanding of our work, and building stronger engagement and listening capabilities via expanded use of social media, story-telling, and relatable content are central to what we are aiming to achieve.
Content at Ibec - Vivenne Maguire
A good content strategy delivering high value content, can differentiate your site from your competitors and is critical for ongoing customer engagement. Good content is the backbone to any website and having a strategic approach combined with a good governance structure allows us to really develop and understand how and when our content is working. This approach together with a clear understanding of our customer journey’s and who our customers are, allows us to deliver the most valuable content to our site visitors, at the right time.
We have an incredible body of content to work with, from our powerful lobbying force who develop campaigns for real change, our trade associations covering a wide range of industry sectors, our HR and professional services, management training to members and much more. We are always testing and learning from our ongoing tracking and analytics and as we all know good content needs time and consideration so it’s really important we can deliver effective insights from our content and understand what is and is not working on the website.
Today Ibec.ie offers great diversity of engaging content from insightful business pieces to videos, on-demand and live webinars and podcasts, and we are looking to further developing our approach to personalisation and delivering an even more relevant and engaging experience for our members.
Your next steps
I hope learning about how digital leaders in RCSI, Central Bank of Ireland and Ibec manage their content got you inspired. As the next steps for advancing your content creation and management efforts, I recommend reading the following blogs:
If you need help reinventing your digital presence or if you want to get more output from your website content, contact us today.