Kevin Lang
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IMI

 

IMI: Content + UX

There's a clear and defined relationship between content and UX. An important part of designing a great user experience is creating useful and engaging content. According to Peter Morville's user experience honeycomb, great user experience is useful, desirable, accessible, credible, findable, usable, and valuable. Great content also comprises many of these same elements.

As a Content Specialist at IMI, I created and executed content strategies and deliverables for clients across various industries. From research and ideation to production, learn more about my content process and its overlap with design below.

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Discover and Research

"What type of content would be informative and engaging for the client's audience?"

Content marketing starts with understanding the client’s goals, their products and services, and their industry as a whole. Through research, we can get a better picture of what content currently exists within this space and what are users engaging with. This is crucial for identifying content opportunities that resonate with their audience’s needs and align with business goals.

Research methods include:

  • Competitive analysis: What type of content are competitors creating?
  • Content audit: What content already exists on the client's website?
  • Keyword research: What topics and keywords are users searching for within this industry?
  • Secondary research: What trends, stats, and information exist for this content topic?

Define the Content

"How can we tell a compelling story through our research findings?"

After conducting research, the next step is to synthesize and organize the findings into content strategies, roadmaps, and research docs. This allows us to think about and define the structure and flow of the content piece. The goal is to take our research and craft it into a compelling story that’ll connect with the client’s audience.

Design and Prototype

"How should the information and content be visualized?"

Once the content is finalized, we collaborate closely with designers and copywriters to produce the content piece. This helps to ensure that the visual direction, tone, and messaging of the content piece are aligned across internal teams and external stakeholders.

Test and Iterate

"Are there any content and/or design improvements that need to be addressed?"

At this stage, we gather feedback from the client and make any necessary iterations to the content and visual design of the overall content piece. After the final content design is reviewed, revised, and approved, it's ready to be published on the client's website.

Launch

“How can we drive content engagement and traffic to the client’s website?”

Now that the content piece is live, our ultimate goal is to drive engagement and traffic to the client's website. That’s where content promotion comes in. Content promotion is accomplished through a combination of PR, social media, and paid media efforts, including:

  • Influencer outreach: Identify and reach out to relevant bloggers, journalists, and editors for content promotion.
  • Native advertising: Run paid ad campaigns on native ad platforms to reach target audience segments.
  • Social promotion: Promote the content on the client's social channels through organic posts and paid social ads.

Measure

"What were the results of our content efforts?"

Finally, the last step is to measure and evaluate the analytics behind our content. Using Google Analytics and other reporting tools, we analyze the results of our content promotion and distribution efforts, including engagement and traffic (direct and referral). This provides a quantitative overview of how the content performed and help us make improvements/optimizations for next quarter's content initiatives.