Intentional Design Inc.

The Pitch for Content Strategy

Today’s content strategy deliverable, courtesy of the good folks over at Brain Traffic, may seem like an unusual deliverable. In fact, if you’re not working as the lead on a team, you may never have to use this deliverable at all. But make no mistake, without someone doing this work up front, you won’t get a chance to use any of the other deliverables mentioned in this series.

This deliverable is The Pitch. It is what makes clients – external or internal – understand why they need it, what it is, how it brings benefit, who will benefit, who will bring the benefit and how, and what the mechanics are of what needs to be done in order bring those benefits.

Marketing communicators turned content strategists are pretty good at the pitch; justifying the benefits of efforts spent is part of the job. For other communicators, this way of thinking may not come naturally. In the technical communication realm, for example, there have traditionally been clear delineations about the work produced: a manual, help files, and perhaps text to the translators.  Making the case for content strategy is entirely new territory. For content strategists with a more technical bent, it’s hard to move away from explaining benefit in tactical terms – “the output will be interoperable with other XML schemas,” for example – and expressing ROI in terms that management will understand.

There have been numerous articles, presentations, and other resources produced on the ROI of content strategy, but it all comes down to the same core thesis. Making the case for content strategy is all about demonstrating the value it will bring, to help organizations meet their business objectives.