Content lifecycle management services

The right content, at the right time, and in the right place

When visitors or internal users can’t easily find the content they want, they might think you don’t have it. Worse, they may find something that they think meets their needs, but actually doesn’t. When you put systems in place for optimal content lifecycle management, your audience can get the most recent, accurate, and on-message information – and be more likely to look for more.

Go from “best intentions” to best practices

• Ad-hoc content or competing decisions from different teams and departments can distort your brand.
• Duplicated or inconsistent content can frustrate your audience.
• Without standards for creation, maintenance or archiving, you end up with a bloated, more costly site to maintain.

Get structured: Reshape your content lifecycle management and governance

When you work with us, we develop content systems for you to make it easier for your team to manage content. We can also help you execute the recommendations, including:

• Developing an audience-focused content strategy.
• Cleaning up and migrating content.
• Writing content.

A tailored plan for your unique needs

We learn about your organization and build out detailed recommendations for your unique content lifecycle management challenges. Then, we give you improved systems to efficiently create, organize, track, archive, and update your content. And that means a significantly better experience for your audience every time they return.

Our plan will offer recommendations and tools to optimize your content across its entire lifecycle. This may include:

• Streamlining your content processes and workflows.
• Clarifying content roles and responsibilities within your team, and between teams.
• Identifying ways to measure the progress of your content lifecycle management implementation.
• Defining new standards and guidelines.

Working with us, step by step

Your organization is unique, including your challenges, goals, and your project’s scope. Before we start, we create a custom plan with clear stages and key activities at each point, so you know what to expect as we go forward.

1. Stage 1: Discovery and strategy

   We take a deep look at your organization and your audience, using research and data to identify gaps and challenges in your current approach to content lifecycle management.

   • Activities

     Some of the activities we may undertake include research and assessments of your company, current situation, and technical factors. This includes information gathering about your:

     • Business objectives.
     • Employee, stakeholder, authoring needs, and capabilities.
     • Project and technical goals and constraints.

     It also includes comprehensive assessments of your:

     • Processes and governance, including team structures.
     • Technology.
     • Resources.

   • Deliverables

     We will produce comprehensive reports that detail:

     • Key findings and insights about your business, employees, and governance needs.
     • Specific problems and gaps in structures and processes.
     • A framework for designing a new approach to content lifecycle management.

2. Stage 2: Design

   At this point, we define the structures, processes, roles and responsibilities, and support tools you will need to create a streamlined system of content lifecycle management.

   • Activities

     We work collaboratively with your team, stakeholders, employees, and project groups on activities such as:

     • Defining and designing team structures, processes, roles and responsibilities, and content goals and objectives.
     • Designing support tools such as standards and guidelines, content submission forms, and style guides.

   • Deliverables

     Outcomes may include:

     • Visuals showing content lifecycle management processes.
     • Recommendations about roles and responsibilities.
     • Design recommendations for content support tools.
     • Frameworks to support you as your governance and operations evolve.
     • A cohesive action plan outlining priorities, roles, tactics, and timing with respect to budgets.

3. Stage 3: Implementation and maintenance

   We can guide you through the change process, for example:

   • Identifying pilot projects for smaller-scale changes that build support for bigger ones.
   • Evolving your action plan, with content support tools including standards and style guides.
   • Supporting your team to continually review, evaluate, and evolve your content lifecycle management.

Related Content

Our podcasts and articles share ongoing best-practices advice and ideas from experts.

• Content in Practice podcasts: monthly content governance and operations ideas.
• Articles: Detailed discussions of content governance and operations, and content lifecycle management challenges.