Plan your content’s life cycle

Picture By: Lukas Blazek
All content goes through a life cycle. The life cycle of content can occur differently depending on the project. However, three phases are consistent: evaluation, design, and execution.
The first phase is evaluation, the research stage. In this phase, content strategists try to identify the needs and desires of their target audience, like the business goals to appease stakeholders and the desires of their users. They (and other researchers) conduct qualitative research, quantitative research, usability testing, traffic analysis, and content auditing to gather data on their audience.
The second phase is the design phase. In the context of “The Elements of Content Strategy,” the design phase is the communication brief. During the design phase, content strategists plan how to approach and communicate with their identified audience. Content strategists create user proxies from the information researchers. User proxies consist of personas, user scenarios, use cases, activity flow. By using user proxies, content strategists better understand the people receiving their content. They don’t see their audience as a simple cluster but as individual people (read the Designing for Emotion takeaway about personas for more information).
The third phase is the execution phase. In the execution phase, writers and designers create content. It’s important to remember that creating content is also a process (a sub-process to the content life cycle). Your content will experience multiple editions through this phase, and your final product will contrast your original proposals. You will need to make difficult decisions on what to include or not include. When approaching these dilemmas, review your user proxies and other research. Also, ask yourself, “What does my audience need, and what do they want?” If you retain your focus on your audience, the path will be easier to navigate.