Measuring content strategy: Not a piece of cake

I was recently approached by a member of my team to think through a content issue. We are redesigning a major experience on our website, and the “sacred cows” were ripe for tipping. Did I wish to tip? Why yes, yes I did, thank you.

It’s a minor change. Minuscule. But I was positive it would make the user experience better. It would change the tone for this particular experience from robotic to something more human, and “human” is among our core values. It wouldn’t necessarily make the content easier to understand, but it would certainly bring it more in line with our brand.

But when I started looking into it, it was mentioned the change might not be worth the effort. It was reasoned this change would be a lot of work to ferret out every time it appeared on our sprawling website, and may require reengineering and redesigning.

In essence, even if it was the right thing to do, since there was no way to measure the effect of the new content in terms of conversions, it wasn’t really worth doing.

And this, my friends, made me sad.

At my company (and I’m sure at lots of other companies) changes in content, interaction design, and visual design are usually launched at the same time. Since we rarely launch a content change on its own, we are left to ponder how, exactly, do we measure for our content? It’s like baking an awesome cake and asking the diner, “So, how did that particular brand of flour affect your overall cake-eating experience?”

So what do we do?

I suggest we don’t measure content in terms of conversions as the only measurement. I propose we measure our content against ourselves. Our brand. What we want to accomplish. What we want our company to sound like. Feel like. Taste like (you know, if your company actually bakes cakes or something). We need to recognize content is the voice of our brand, and we have to take responsibility for what we say to our customers and how we say it. I want us to ask ourselves not, “Will this new content make us more money?” but, “Is this new content right for our brand?”

I understand we’re all looking for ways to cut costs, and since content isn’t as visible as visual design, it would be easy to dismiss it. After all, if we can’t always directly measure how much money we’re making off our content, why bother?

Because I think it matters now more than ever.

Just as companies are evaluating how every dollar is spent, so are our customers. Our websites are perhaps our only opportunity to show prospective customers exactly who we are and what we can offer them. Now is not the time to neglect content. Now is the time to make sure that every word is relevant, influential, and enticing. If a customer lands on a website and leaves because the content was irrelevant or unprofessional, we won’t have the chance to say, “Hey! Come back! That’s not really us. We just threw some stuff up there until we have money for good content.” That person is gone, baby. And we may never know it.

So fight the good fight at your company. I’m not sure how my situation will turn out, but I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m having a huge piece of cake.