“Why do we need content strategy?! We have an editorial team!” - anonymous client

In my consulting experience I’ve heard this statement enough times that I’m willing to facilitate a kumbaya moment for content representatives of both sides.  Let this post be such a record.

When my company gets hired by your company, we are tasked with building the perfect website for your business and user needs - but of course it’s not so simple when it comes to roles and responsibilities. This issue of consultant Content Strategists and client-side content folks working together brings up questions around job descriptions, roles and power for decision-making abilities.

Since we’re both are responsible for the same content — to make it superior and different in the marketplace– it may seem like we are performing the same role. But like parenting a child, building a great content program requires shared responsibilities and looking to one another for expertise and assistance.

So how can we work together better? Here’s a little break-down of how our roles can be defined to successfully work in sync:

My role as consultant content strategist:
One of the things I’ll do is work extremely close with you to research, provide insight on your existing content and help you expand your holdings and position them competitively in the marketplace. Sometime it’s hard for clients to completely see outside of their own content. Being in-house, you live and breathe it, it’s harder to see objectively to analyze it and take risks in creative departure. You may not be able to take a creative departure due to political or budget constraints. But with a redesign, you can make changes to your content program that will impact your audience long term. It’s my job to help you see your content from a different angle, help you identify your premium assets, be the objective eye who drives the construction of the new structure and determine what the best course of action is given a new site vision.

In commitment to our trusted partnership, since I work day-to-day (ok hour-to-hour) with the design team, I represent you and your voice when we are wireframing your product. In other words, I am the bridge between your editorial needs and my team’s design ideas – pushing against designs that you won’t be able to manage due to resourcing constraints.

I will also lead you through my team’s design process, identify gaps that need to be filled in relation to the new designs, guide you through the major content decisions you’ll need to make and help set you up for production and migration in time for launch.

Your role as in-house content owner:

I believe the biggest relief I see that I give my clients is guiding them through the decision-making process for content while they still have to maintain their full-time editorial responsibilities. It’s a lot to take on when you are in the midst of a redesign, so here are some things that you could do to help the success of the new designs.

• This is probably the most important one: Loop me in on all major internal editorial decisions, ideas and requirements so I can make sure they are built into the designs

• Establish a key working editorial team who can look long-term and is in the position to make long-term strategic content decisions.

• Serve as a subject-matter expert in the content you know most about

• Socialize the best parts of the new design to you other coworkers not lucky enough to be on the working team — it will be an easier transition when the switch is flipped to the new production format

• Turn the strategy we come up with together into a product in real life. This means employing our defined strategy, using analytics to make page-level tweaks so the site performs better, maintain standards and consistency in describing assets, and manage growth according to plan over time.

How we play nice (of course, bonding over drinks also enhances this relationship):

• Workshop to define content features you’ll have for the long-run

• Construct your new content structure (me as the organizational expert, you as the subject-matter expert)

• Adapt your existing publishing schedule and flow with the new one (based on new template designs)

• Closer to launch, we can partner in training and onboarding new or existing editors , writers and content managers to make sure the content program we just created together gets implemented to match the site’s vision

• Work together to successfully migrate your content to a new home and prep for management for launch