Compelling Services Need Compelling Content: How Informaat applies omnichannel content strategy

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Relevant content is a critical element across all channels of a service. That is why a good content strategy is of crucial importance. At Informaat, service design and content strategy go hand-in-hand.

In our daily practice, we see big brands struggling with getting their content right. Unfortunately, broken content experiences are still commonplace. For instance, product promotions in one channel that seem to have vanished in other channels, or a website that provides you with perfectly-tailored content, yet the related call centre agent treats you like an unknown prospect. Bad content experiences are proven to damage the overall customer experience. The larger the organisation and the more touchpoints involved, the more challenging it becomes to get the content right in each context, on each touchpoint and for each customer. Getting content to reinforce your experience strategy requires some effort and smart tactics. But where does one begin?

Outside-in with content journeys

It all starts with finding out what content is relevant to your customers and at what point in the journey. A good way to do so is to carry out user research, create personas and map the customer’s experience of your service. So far, all well-known service design techniques. But in addition to these, we put extra focus on content and map the customer’s content experience as well. By doing so, we uncover insights into the customer needs and questions, content purposes, content types and formats, and more general content considerations that make up a ‘content journey’.

Holistic: all channels, front stage and backstage

Compelling content is not just a matter of great substance (e.g., copy, video, graphics). Structure – for instance in terms of metadata – is important as well because it makes our client’s content findable, personal and relevant. And besides these directly visible content aspects, one also needs to consider less visible aspects, such as the people, processes and tooling involved. Top class content (we like to call it ‘Triple A content’) scores well on all four content strategy pillars: substance, structure, workflow and governance. At Informaat, we take a holistic perspective when working with content, taking into account all these aspects for all touchpoints and channels — a prerequisite for a seamless experience.

Agile and adaptive

An omnichannel content strategy may sound like a great plan … that runs the risk of landing in the bottom drawer of your boss’s desk. In our experience, the best way to implement a content strategy is with the tactic of ‘connecting the dots’. We work step-by-step. With a strong vision and backlog, and based on an awareness of what’s going on in your organisation, our team determines what elements of the strategy can best be implemented where and when. It both orchestrates initiatives and bridges silos, thereby supporting growth in content maturity from ‘A’ to ‘AA’ to ‘AAA’. This is how we make omnichannel content strategy actionable.

Informaat helped ABN AMRO to get a clear view of our content situation and define a solid content strategy and roadmap. They are currently doing an excellent job helping us to implement the strategy step-by-step within the bank.

Stephan de Ruiter, Head of Omnichannel content strategy and delivery, ABN AMRO (The Netherlands).

A content journey enriches a customer journey map with a content perspective. It links service design and content strategy.

Informaat is a design consultancy that supports organisations in the development and implementation of their digital strategies. To extend its UX- and content design capabilities, it started its service design practice in 2008. Informaat works with the biggest brands (private and public sectors) in the Netherlands and abroad. More information can be found at informaat.com.