How can stakeholder interviews improve your content audit?

Who holds the keys? Internal All-Stars: Managers, team members, subject matter experts – gather the inside scoop from those who live and breathe your brand. External Explorers: Customers, prospects, partners – uncover what resonates with them, what confuses them, what makes them click. Unveiling the Content Grail: Perspectives & Opinions: Understand what they think about your current content, what topics matter most, and what tone resonates. Pain Points & Problems: Discover their content struggles, the questions they can't find answers to, the information gaps that frustrate them. Opportunities & Dreams: Uncover their content desires, the formats they crave, the problems they wish your website could solve.

Stakeholder interviews involve engaging with key individuals to gather insights and perspectives. In a content audit, these interviews enhance understanding of goals, preferences, and expectations. This input refines audit criteria, ensuring alignment with stakeholder priorities, and leading to a more focused and effective content assessment.

Stakeholder interviews are a goldmine in content audits, offering insights often missed by quantitative data alone. By engaging with diverse stakeholders – from executives to frontline staff – you gain a multifaceted view of your content's impact. They provide qualitative feedback on user experience, content relevance, and brand alignment, aspects that numbers alone can't fully capture. This feedback identifies gaps in your content strategy and uncovers hidden opportunities, ensuring your audit isn't just a data exercise but a strategic tool for enhancing engagement and meeting business objectives. In essence, these interviews turn your audit into a dynamic, holistic roadmap for content optimization.

Talking to key people gives you inside knowledge about what they want. This helps connect your content plan with what the organization wants to achieve. By having chats with important people, you get a better idea of what content is important to them. Stakeholder interviews help you see where your content plan is lacking. Knowing what info is missing or unclear helps you fill those gaps for a more complete content plan. Involving key people in the process makes it a team effort. Being consistent in how you represent the brand makes it stronger and builds trust with your audience. Info from these talks gives you a good base to make decisions based on facts.

Never underestimate the absolute gold that sales/customer support teams sit on, unknowingly. I've found it needs coaxing out of them as their daily innocuous-sounding conversations received from customers act as valuable insight to how they; research your company, what media they favour, times they're active, phraseology they use (to inform SEO and content) and more importantly what kind of personalities you're dealing with.

Content audits can tell you what content is working and what isn't working. But it can't tell you why. As content success often depends on promotional efforts, brand reputation, sales & marketing messaging, CX, etc. So you'll often need to deal with stakeholders from those other silos to determine those whys.

To begin with, there is room for improvement in defining or creating content goals and objectives. Utilizing these insights and findings can enhance content development, aligning it with frameworks like AIDA or SEO silo structure. This improvement can contribute to increased interaction, engagement, and long-term SERP growth.

• Complements data analysis : They provide qualitative insights that quantitative data alone may miss. • Reduces blind spots : They uncover hidden issues and opportunities that may go unnoticed otherwise. • Improves accuracy and relevance : They ensure your audit results are well informed and reflect real world audience needs.

Stakeholder interviews are crucial in content audits as they provide firsthand insights into expectations, goals, and diverse perspectives. By understanding stakeholders' needs, preferences, and concerns, the audit gains depth and relevance. This ensures that the content aligns with organizational objectives, resonates with the target audience, and meets the overarching strategic vision.

The stakeholder interviews are key: because auditing content without them is like trying to review a book without actually reading it #youwilllookstupid

In planning stakeholder interviews, it is essential to grasp qualitative techniques and laddering interviews to comprehend how to conduct and analyze the results effectively. Utilizing tools like the HMW matrix, exploring values, consequences, attributes, and more can provide valuable insights into what is required to enhance content efficiency and improve SEO ranking.

First, identify key stakeholders such as content creators, marketers, and end-users. Create a list of open-ended questions that explore their perspectives on content effectiveness, goals, and challenges. During interviews, gather qualitative data on content relevance, user engagement, and alignment with organizational objectives. For example, in a company undergoing a content audit for its website, stakeholder interviews could involve the marketing team, web developers, and customer service representatives. Questions may cover topics like the purpose of specific content, target audience feedback, and the impact of content on business goals.

Planning Stakeholder Interviews • Identify key stakeholders : Include representatives from marketing, sales, IT, customer service and any other departments related to content creation and consumption. • Define interview objectives : Determine what specific information you need from each stakeholder group to inform your content audit. • Develop interview questions : Prepare structured questions that address your objectives and cover various aspects of content performance, user experience and future needs.

Planning stakeholder interviews is a crucial step to ensure the success and effectiveness of the engagement. Begin by creating a comprehensive list of individuals who hold a stake in your website content, considering both internal and external perspectives. Prioritize stakeholders based on factors such as relevance, influence, and availability. Clearly define the objectives of each interview, outlining what specific insights or information you aim to gather and how it contributes to your overall content audit. Tailor your questions to address the unique content needs, challenges, preferences, and feedback of each stakeholder group. Craft open-ended questions to encourage candid responses and avoid leading or biased inquiries.

- Define objectives for each stakeholder type - what info is needed from them? Tie goals to audit. - Create open-ended questions that elicit perspectives on their content needs, challenges, ideas. - Avoid leading or biased questions that could influence answers. - Prepare probes to dig deeper into initial responses. - Contact stakeholders, explain purpose and benefits, get them onboard. - Schedule interviews at convenient times and preferred locations. Allow ample time. - Use video chat if in-person isn't feasible. Test tools and connectivity. - Take thorough notes during interviews to extract key insights. - Follow up with appreciation, share how their input helped guide decisions.

✓ Prepare clear goals and questions : Define what you want to learn from each interview and develop targeted questions to gather specific insights. ✓ Choose the right format : Consider individual interviews, group discussions or online surveys depending on your needs and time constraints. ✓ Actively listen and take notes : Pay close attention to their responses ask clarifying questions and capture key points for later analysis.

Make it as casual and comfortable as possible. If it feels too stiff or formal, you'll get robotic answers. You don't want robotic answers. You want honest and human answers. That said, start with a casual opener like, "So, tell me your story. How'd you become a customer in the first place? How'd you hear about us?" Out of that answer, you should hear clues to their Problem State and Dream State. Then you follow-up on those threads. Go deeper with inquiries like "tell me more..." Keep your questions as open-ended and simple as possible. Make sure you talk about 20% of the time.

Stakeholder interviews can be really beneficial. To begin, send background information about the project to the stakeholder before the interview. Some additional tips: -Identify the key stakeholders who are relevant to the project. -Clearly determine the objective of the interviews (this will help with creating a list of questions to ask during the interview) While interviewing, make sure to take notes and ask follow-up questions as needed. Keep an eye on the clock during the interview so that you are respectful of their time.

To conduct effective stakeholder interviews: Introduce Yourself: Clearly state your purpose and thank them for participating. Ensure Confidentiality: Assure anonymity and privacy of their responses. Active Listening: Pay close attention, showing interest in their answers. Use Probes: Ask follow-up questions for clarity or additional detail. Take Notes: Record important points or the entire conversation if permitted. Summarize: Review key points to verify understanding and allow additions. Close Graciously: Thank them and explain the next steps. These steps ensure a respectful, informative, and efficient interview process.

To maximize effectiveness, approach these interviews with a structured yet open-ended format. Start by identifying key stakeholders across various departments - sales, customer service, and product development - as they offer diverse insights on content impact and customer engagement. Craft questions that delve into their observations, challenges, and suggestions regarding the existing content. This approach provides a multi-dimensional view, highlighting areas needing improvement and opportunities to align content more closely with user needs and business goals. Integrating these rich insights into your content audit can lead to a more comprehensive and effective content strategy.

After stakeholder interviews, effectively analyzing and utilizing the data involves: Organize Data: Categorize notes or transcripts by stakeholder group, question, or theme using tools or spreadsheets. Identify Patterns: Look for recurring themes, trends, or issues across the data. Highlight Key Insights: Document significant findings, quotes, or examples that encapsulate stakeholder perspectives. Visualize Data: Create charts or graphs to help illustrate and understand patterns or relationships. Apply Insights: Use the gathered information to refine content goals, develop user personas, assess content quality, and identify gaps or opportunities.

Analyzing and Using Stakeholder interview Data » Organize and transcribe : Record and transcribe interviews for easy reference and analysis. » Identify key themes : Look for recurring topics, concerns and suggestions across interviews. » Prioritize findings : Assess the impact and urgency of each theme based on frequency and potential impact.

Esta parte es la más difícil. Poner condensar todo lo que se aprendió es sumamente complicado. Yo separo el feedback en tres categorías. Ideas, bloqueos/confusiones y problemas. Me aseguro de que todos los participantes tengas sus líneas en un Excel y cuando mencionan una confusión, lo marco para mejorar las comunicaciones o los componentes educativos. Las ideas son las de más baja prioridad, pues algunas veces son ideas que no escalan a otras realidades de negocios.

Stakeholder interviews can significantly enhance a content audit by providing deeper insights and diverse perspectives. By engaging various stakeholders, you gather qualitative data on user needs, expectations, and experiences that quantitative data might miss. Analyzing this feedback helps identify content gaps, areas for improvement, and successful elements to replicate. Prioritize and categorize stakeholder input to align content strategies with actual user preferences and business goals. Integrating this data with your audit findings gives a more holistic view of your content's performance. It informs a more targeted, effective content strategy that resonates with your audience and business objectives.

Try to hear the voice of the stakeholders, define the priorities to fulfil them and make sure that you periodically rethinking them in order to improving your business.

Interviews build internal alignment! Engaging with stakeholders fosters cross-departmental collaboration and buy-in for your content strategy. By involving key players in the content audit process, you can align priorities, address potential roadblocks, and create a more cohesive and effective content strategy. Remember, when you align expectations with reality, you never get disappointed.

Stakeholder interviews play a crucial role in enhancing a content audit by providing valuable insights into the perspectives, goals, and expectations of key stakeholders. Through these interviews, content strategists can gather information on the target audience, business objectives, and desired outcomes. Stakeholder input helps identify content priorities, gaps, and areas for improvement, aligning the content audit with organizational goals. Additionally, understanding stakeholder preferences and pain points aids in refining the audit criteria and evaluating content relevance and effectiveness.

Eu que atuo em design, inovação e ESG considero a entrevista com Stakeholder um momento chave no processo de construir a estratégia e iniciativas de uma organização. Lembro aos meus clientes e meus parceiros que ESG não é necessariamente marketing, mas sempre será comunicação. A razão é simples, uma vez que sua organização está agindo nesta estratégia, passa ser interesse dos seus stakeholders, para isso a comunicação é chave para atingir seus objetivos. Estou alinhado com o artigo, mas tem um ponto provoco bastante nestas entrevistas que é a transparência e sinceridade. Ela é chave para a construção da materialidade, do entendimento real do que é relevante para seus stakeholders, parte essencial para a construção desta estratégia.

Yummy! This is a super juicy topic. Content audits tend to work best when they are part of a comprehensive content strategy. Meaning that the content audit itself is part of understanding how the content you currently have addresses your target audiences needs across the buyers’ journey. Here are a few things to consider: ✅ Define your user personas - their purchase journey and what interests them. ✅ Take inventory of the content you have and how it maps to stages across the buyers’ journey. Any gaps? ✅ Align with internal teams on buyers journey, make adjustments, and proceed to fill your content gaps.

Craft specific questions that align with the content audit objectives, such as understanding content effectiveness or identifying gaps. However, during the interviews, remain open to exploring unplanned topics that stakeholders introduce. This balance between structure and flexibility often reveals unexpected insights, such as unmet user needs or innovative content ideas. It’s also essential to create a comfortable environment where stakeholders feel free to express honest opinions. By doing so, you gather diverse and genuine perspectives, enriching your content audit with deeper, actionable insights that can significantly enhance your content strategy.