This project proposes a plan that aims to achieve the business objectives of a client company.

I applied design thinking principles to understand the brand and target audience, ideate solutions, test, and implement them.

If you would like to know more about design thinking, you can see my ‘About‘ page for the different stages and how the project is organized.

Here you will the most important insights I’ve gathered and how I used them to propose content formats, and a plan for content distribution.

Summary: The client seeks to increase brand awareness and conversion rates for their service. The strategy proposes the use of organizational knowledge and participant narratives of their experiences to build brand authority. A major implication of the project is that the content is aligned with the customer’s needs.

The Target Audience

The desired audience is adventure-seekers and travellers interested in active holidays, and lots of physical activities. It is an international English-speaking audience in the age range of 19-34, and medium to high income. They are also open-minded and agreeable individuals who would like to enjoy the experience with friends and family and make good memories.

In the context of the content strategy, they seek content that is interesting and are keen on using online resources to get information. That is a good starting point for developing a plan that offers online content.

Those insights were gathered during research on the target audience. You can see how I conducted quantitative and qualitative research.

Tradeoff: When ideating formats, I only focused on one of the four groups of personas that I identified during the research. I did so as I noticed that the last group scored the highest on all 10 out of 11 motivational variables related to adventure travellers. So, it was closest to the ideal target audience that we wanted to attract to purchase the service of the client.

The Client Company

It is an adventure company that offers travel services like guided hikes, expeditions, and youth camps alongside other adventure activities including sailing and kayaking.

Brand and Values

The brand is shaped by the images of the outdoor environment, participants, and activities. The meaning of the brand is that of the ‘Explorer’ which allows the customer to find freedom and gain mastery of various skills.

Typical for ‘Explorer’ brands are wildlife scenes, mountains, and night skies.

The uncover the story behind the brand values, I lead a card sorting session with the stakeholders in the company. The brand values give the company a competitive advantage by giving it a different meaning.

During the process of the work, the brand values are also measured up against the persona insights to find the sweet spot of values that are communicated through the content message. In such a way, we would be able to deliver value for the customer and the brand.

Current Content Practice

The current practices provide insights into the content development process and organizational knowledge and capabilities. The insights are then used to propose solutions that are feasible to produce and implement with the current resources.

Distribution

Different types of content are distributed on social media, the website, and the newsletter. The current strategy focuses on building an audience on social media around the passion points and interests of the target audience. The client also uses paid ads on social media and Google in line with the objectives to increase awareness and conversions.

Content Analysis

I’ve gathered insights from a few sources. Down below, I share the most important points of a content analysis that I conducted using a sample of 51 posts on social media. Overall, content fits brand values and persona’s interests. Still, I found that…

1. The expertise and benefits for the customer are not well communicated. Engagement is most noticeably observed in the form of ‘likes’.

23 posts out of 51 are given the adapt verdict.

2. Identifiable characters are used to attract the target audience. However, there should be more content that appeals to the need for relatedness and social connection based on persona insights.

34 posts out of 51 include identifiable characters.

3. Most used persuasion principle is liking. There is no clear use of persuasion principles despite having few sale posts that were found during the audit.

28 posts out of 51 use the liking principle to persuade.

4. More content that satisfies the customer’s needs in the information search should be published on the website.

Majority of posts (35 out of 51) fall in the information search and loyalty phase.

5. Content types can be diversified by including videos that appeal to the need for variety and clarity and content that is entertaining and easy to understand.

33 posts out of 51 are the picture and text type.

Organization

The organizational analysis includes all tangible and intangible resources that the client currently employs to create value for the organization. I discuss some of the most important insights below that are detrimental to the execution of the content strategy.

Personnel

The content organization is partially established. There are a few people with skills in content marketing, photography, and videography. The team is capable of working with creative tools to create content and understand data. Volunteers collaborate for a few months of the year.

Planning

The team does not use a content calendar and project management tools to keep track of the workflow. The budget is limited to 50,000 euros per year.

Insight: The organizational resources are constraints in executing the strategy.

Outcomes

The most essential outcomes from the insights considered for the development of the content formats are discussed below.

1. Current content practices focus on social media and paid advertisement. Content on the website is seldomly published.

Yet, the customer is likely to search for information on Google where the website content performs the best.

Also just Google and then you will come to websites and you will read about it.

Interviewee 1

2. The client’s expertise is not well communicated.

And the customer needs to feel safe before making a purchase decision by evaluating the expertise of the organization.

If you need to have some expertise in that field because for example most of the times we don’t have the expertise, we are just young people who want to try an activity and it should be doable for people who are who just want to try something.

Interviewee 7

3. Picture and text is the most common content type shared by the client.

The content type is aligned with the customer’s preferences. More, the customer also likes to consume audio-visual content as it would give them a better sense of the experience.

Just it sparks your interest or you get to know more about the atmosphere or just the region maybe.

Interviewee 6

Formats

5-Liner Pitch

I pitched those formats to the client by making them relevant (using a societal issue) and focusing on sharing their expertise in the premises of the format. In the end, I mention what’s in it for the audience.

How-To

The format has been developed based on the outcomes to provide expertise about the service of the client and customers’ content preferences to consume information on the web. The insights are discovered during the quantitative and qualitative research phases.

Idea

It meets the customer’s expectations for sharing information on the website that can be reached via search engines. The format is ideal to show expertise. It fulfils the client’s mission to teach skills. See the prototype.

Narrative Elements

• Tone of voice: serious, respectful
• Tense: present
• Point of view: limited, company’s perspective
• Persuasion: authority
• Sweet spot: physical challenge, authenticity, relationship-building

Unique Selling Points

+ Drive traffic
+ Increase brand and domain authority
+ Provide in-depth knowledge
+ Able to diversify the content type
+ Encourage the customer to get in touch

Persona fit

Motivations: knowledge, excitement
Decision-making: expertise, friends, equipment
Content need: learn about the organization
Channel: website, YouTube
Stage: information search, purchase

Monthly average search

Those searches are relevant for the creation of similar content pieces that fit the format. The data is also used as an indication for developing KPI measures.

Keyword	Monthly Searches	Difficulty
how to stay warm in a tent	1200	Easy
how to put up a tent	950	Easy
how to sail into the wind	590	Easy
how to backpack	510	Medium
how to dress for hiking	510	Medium
how to hike in the rain	90	Medium

Participant Stories

The format has been developed based on the insight that the customer’s preferences to learn about the experience while making a purchase decision. However, the client didn’t share such content yet. And the brand credibility seemed fragile. So, the format aims to fill in the gap.

Idea

It aims to build trust by meeting the content needs of the audience to learn about the experience. Also, the format is suitable to increase engagement and interaction with the audience. Engagement and interaction will further increase the trustworthiness of the organization as an established service provider.

Narrative Elements

• Storytelling:
  • identifiable characters (customers)
  • plot (in nature)
  • verisimilitude (real story)
• Tone of voice: casual, respectful, enthusiastic
• Tense: past
• Point of view: limited, character’s perspective, 1st person count
• Persuasion: social proof, expertise
• Sweet spot: physical challenge, authenticity, relationship-building, excitement

Unique Selling Points

+ Create positive brand attitudes
+ Increase brand credibility
+ Improve brand recall
+ Improve the dialogue with the audience
+ Meet the content need to learn about the experience

Persona fit

Motivations: social connection, escape, excitement
Values: sustainability, authenticity, expertise
Content needs: learn about the experience, get excited, verify the credibility of the provider
Channel: Facebook, Instagram, website
Stage: evaluation, loyalty

Testing

The prototype test used the second content format. A narrative of customer experience was shown alongside an image of the character who told the narrative.

The test revealed that such type of content is perceived as trustworthy and enjoyable.

The result confirms that the format will be beneficial to increasing brand credibility and creating positive attitudes. That format will be helpful to increase conversions.

See how the study was organized, and what manipulations were tested to get those results.

Implementation

KPIs

KPIs are created based on different timeframes:

– initial objectives set by the client
– search engine’s 3 to 6-month period to pick up on keywords
– team’s capabilities to produce the content

The indicators serve as a reference point and should be reviewed each 3rd and 6th month.

Funnel Stage	Objective	KPI	Metric
Audience Awareness	Increase brand awareness by 15% in 12 months	Increase new website visitors by 15% in the next 12 months Increase reach on social media by 15% in the next 12 months	Page views New visitors Profile views and reach Unique video views Video reach Impressions Website traffic
Lead Generation	Increase lead generation by 10 % in the next 12 months	Increase new followers from social media by 10% in the next 12 months	New followers New subscribers
Lead Nurturing	Increase engagement by 15% in the next 12 months	Increase engagement rate by 15% in the next 12 months	Engagement rate Post likes, comments, shares Watch time Audience retention
Lead Conversion	Increase conversion rate and achieve 150 bookings in 12 months	Increase conversion rates on the website by 100% in the next 12 months	Click-through-rate Traffic source
Customer Loyalty	Gather 15 % of user-generated content to improve brand reputation in 12 months	Increase user-generated content by 15% in 12 months	Engagement rate Frequency of hashtags Mentions

Inventory

The inventory contains content that is part of the two formats. The content has been atomized into different types to tell one coherent story across various platforms.

Funnel Stage	Content	Content Type	3H	Platform	Tactic
Audience Awareness	How-to article	Article	Hygiene	Website	SEO
	How-to video	Video	Hygiene	Youtube	SEO, Youtube algorithm
Lead Generation	How-to reel	Video	Hygiene	Instagram	Organic reach
	Participant stories: story	Video, images	Hub	Instagram, Facebook	Organic reach
	How-to posts	Images, text	Hygiene	Instagram, Facebook	Organic/paid reach
Lead Nurturing	Participant stories post/carousel	Images, text	Hub	Instagram, Facebook	Organic reach
	Participant stories: reel, quiz	Video, text	Hub	Instagram, Facebook	Organic reach
	How-to quiz/poll	Images, text	Hygiene	Instagram, Facebook	Organic reach
Lead Conversion	How-to article	Images, text	Hygiene	Website	SEO
	How-to video	Video	Hygiene	Youtube	SEO, Youtube algorithm
Customer Loyalty	User-generated participant stories posts	Images, text	Hub	Instagram, Facebook	Organic reach

Distribution

Audience awareness: in-depth articles and how-to videos bring traffic to the website and increase brand awareness

Lead generation: content provides transparency and heuristic cues about the organization and experience to convince the customer to become a follower

Lead nurturing: interactive content aims to increase engagement and facilitate the dialogue with the audience

Lead conversion: content provides information that matches the decision-making criteria of the persona

Customer loyalty: content is gathered by the customers to increase engagement

Content Calendar

The calendar reflects the funnel stages (buyer’s journey stages), yearly programming, and content rhythm. The content was scheduled around the first tent-pole for the summer season.

Priorities

A priority matrix is used to define the tasks that the content organization should focus on during the coming year.

Focus on:

• creating content that will deliver traffic and increase brand awareness
• optimize the website
• use of persona insights
• engage with the audience on social media
• bring order to the process of content creation and publication

Final Thoughts

The project has taught me how to strategically use content to shape the brand and achieve the business objectives based on target audience insights obtained from primary research.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to practice a variety of skills including leading a workshop session, operationalizing theories and conducting interviews with customers on a few occasions. That made me a much more skilful listener and communicator.

I also worked closely with the owner of the company, and I had the chance to interview them and learn from them about business strategy.

In the end, they had to evaluate my work on a feedback assessment form. And I was happy to see that they were inspired to look at the value of their service and brand in a different way that was previously not considered.

Nikoleta has grown in her communication in this period to connect, communicate and understand our organization. She did stimulate our thinking and approach to marketing, sales, and communication with customers to the next level. She got quite some attention for her thoughts backed by theories in a way that we now think a bit more fundamental about customer relationships. She did do a great job working at such a distance to work autonomously (we are sorry that it could not be here on the spot). [In conclusion] A clear view of the challenges of (potential) customer relationships and building a brand are great results of this project.

Merch, Owner

Additionally, I’ve received official feedback from my university supervisor. And they were impressed that I provided a new fresh look on the customer core value. That is the value that is brought to the customer by delivering the service.

“Interesting that the core values of the company are interpreted theoretically with psychological theories on motivation, in addition to the usual marketing suspects.”

Matthijs Veenstra, University Supervisor

And what seems to be the end of a project is only the beginning of the journey. So, I would be happy to connect and talk about our fresh start!

---