In the previous article, you saw that your team is the #1 key for great content. By thinking about what it takes to craft a spectacular cup of coffee, we learned that:
Your team are the experts.
They know your audience.
They are smart and capable of learning new skills.
You set the expectation that they master the skill of content creation.
And, you give them the right learning experience so they can meet content marketing objectives.
We coach your team to create great content. – ShevilleMEDIA
What is included in content strategy coaching from ShevilleMEDIA?
A spectacular cup of coffee depends on the skillful execution of a number of steps:
Harvesting, sorting, roasting, grinding, brewing, and presenting.
Similarly, we coach your team to collect all their ideas — just like harvesters gather the fruit of a coffee plant — and then sort, deconstruct, intensify, extract, and finally present truly crafted content to your audience. Because we coach your team, they become skilled content creators.
Harvesting ideas
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.- Linus Pauling
Prior to the content coaching workshop at your site, we facilitate idea gathering with sales, marketing, leadership, and technical experts — anyone in your organization who has an idea on content creation.
During the morning session we have a joint meeting to present these ideas to the entire group, and go through a second iteration of idea generation. This exercise establishes alignment among the various functions of your organization. It also generates excitement because your entire team will realize the quality and quantity of content you can provide to your audience.
Sorting according to standards
Your leadership team supplies the mission and vision. Based on that, we coach your team how to sort the ideas into various categories. For example,
- Content ideas that support our company goals for X
- Content ideas that support our company goals for Y
- Content ideas not currently aligned with our objectives
This sorting exercise establishes a hierarchy of information for your entire library of content. We can use this hierarchy later for website blueprinting and other high level structural decisions.
Deconstructing
Many ideas yield additional value when force is applied. Even ideas which are first discarded may contain value. So we facilitate an examination and ‘grind’ down a selected subset of ideas to see what is inside.
This process often uncovers further valuable ideas for content. We place these ideas back into the hierarchy established in the sorting stage.
Extracting
The home coffee aficionado controls, more than any other variable, the brewing process. Varying brewing conditions wholey changes the outcome. Too little coffee produces a weak cup. Water that is too cool gives an uninspiring cup, while water that is too hot yields strange off flavors. You may have seen coffee nerds using high precision gram scales, timers and other high tech tools to ensure a delicious and satisfying cup. They have their brewing process down to a science.
Content creators influence the quality of the user experience via the quality of their writing. Just like coffee nerds, your team can learn the skills to reduce great writing to practice. It takes the right coaching to appreciate, for example, how the structure of a sentence or paragraph affects the flavor of a blog or article.
Presenting
One lump or two?
Cream?
For here or to go?
Even the greatest espresso shot might be delivered in a paper cup. Why? To satisfy the consumer. Others insist on a pre-warmed stone mug.
We coach your team to present your expertly crafted content in all the ways your audience wants to consume it.
Which one of our coaching options are best for you?