Online Content: Two Purposes - One Process

Content is always promoted as one the most important aspect of an online presence, either to create an immediate arms-length interaction or a more personal interaction. For some it simply represents their brand and a means of qualifying them … at least that’s what customers say. An example of a more personal interaction might be a new home real-estate web site, which is designed to provide only the barest minimum of details about the new homes (Why?) they want you to visit…they can only sell you a house when you visit the sales office.  On the other hand, companies that sell products online must provide a lot of detail about a product to help customers make immediate, impulse purchase decisions. In other cases, such as special services or commercial services, a business may want to provide significant content to qualify them as a capable provider, and this is designed to result in a more personal contact or online inquiry as well.

In a sound marketing strategy the goal of online content can have two very different purposes, depending on what type of business you operate.  One may be the need to satisfy an immediate demand and or a transaction and/or another may seek to initiate a more personal form of contact like a visit or a phone call.

Clearly, different types of businesses demand different content strategies for their web sites based on how they stream potential buyers into the sales funnel.  Not only does the type of business have an effect on content, the size of business has some relevance in the process as well.

Large businesses can afford to apply appropriate resources to updating and maintaining all levels of content regardless of the type of business they are in. Small business on the other hand is much less capable of assigning resources from an often over-worked staff to maintaining the online content. Small businesses are often caught up in the day to day process of managing the enterprise and are overwhelmed with hiring and firing, managing finance, sales, product development, and more. As a result, their most important marketing medium is left to languish from lack of resources. Large businesses can suffer from this same approach, but for different reasons, they may just be indifferent.

This may seem like a simple problem to solve, all it takes is more resources for small businesses and to focus on the problem, right? Wrong…more often than not the content needs a skilled hand in ensuring that the content reflects your business goals, is well worded, is optimized for Search Engines and is consistent with your marketing strategy.  Doing this on a consistent basis over time is a considerable investment  and must be carefully managed to take advantage of buying cycles, seasonal products, changes in the economy, competition, and changes in company  direction.

We don’t have the scope in this article to address all of the factors that can benefit your online presence as it relates to your specific business demands and sales funnel, but we can provide some simply rules for preparing content.

Research shows that visitors often scan pages looking for relevant content. As a result, how you say it can almost be as important as what you say.  Using a strategy that prizes scan-able text is essential to creating effective content. Here are a few simple rules for updating and changing online content regardless of the type or size of business you have.

1. Try highlighting important words through bolding, increasing the font slightly or adding hypertext links to serve as one form of highlighting
2. Insert meaningful headings and subheading by pulling titles and terms from the body copy. Try to make your headings simple and easy to understand.
3. Use bullet lists from time to time but be judicious in their use. Too many will defeat their purpose. While consistency is good in bullet throughout the site, more than one list on a page can create a conflict in focus for a reader. If two bullet lists are required on a page, try and use different means of laying out that second list to create differentiation.
4. Focus on one idea per segment or paragraph.
5. Avoid compound sentences and industry jargon. Keep ideas short and easy to read.
6. Don’t write in proposition style. This is where we create a need and then present the conclusion as a result of a need.  The conclusion often needs to go first to create impact and grab the “scanning” reader. 
7. White space is the most valuable resource on a page; it helps readers focus their attention. Don’t waste it by adding too much content!
8. Above the fold (a newspaper term) defines the most important area in any web site. It’s a bit of a moving target with today’s varying resolutions but suffice it to say long scrolling pages should be avoided and your most important content should be seeded at the top of the page. 
9. Keep online content clear, use simple language. Even the most sophisticated reader will appreciate clarity and focus. Allow your content to be accessible. 
10. Finally, don’t ignore accessibility guidelines in the design of your online presence or how you communicate with all of your customers.   As we are entering the “Baby Boomer “age, many of your aging customers may need to be accommodated in some manner. You don’t have to have a physical or mental disability to require accessibility accommodations.

eLearning: SME’s & the Creative Process



Classroom training adds reoccurring commitment
of  time, effort & cost

Instructional design and creative direction are essential to the creation of intuitive eLearning; they help empower the learner to explore content and they create a desire to engage. This becomes a difficult process when most interactive content and Subject Matter Experts are born in the crucible of the ivory tower learning paradigm. The Subject Matter Expert (SME), or teacher and the creative development team represent two very different sensibilities when trying to create an intuitive learning environment.

For the SME, each topic is carefully detailed, researched and written down in a formalized text of some sort that can be agreed on and finalized, often by a peer committee review process. At least that’s the typical classroom style learning process we have grown up with. 

But this is changing as we go from classroom to virtually any place to learn online, without a teacher or instructor to guide us. Regardless of the source of the content the resulting “knowledge guide” used to develop eLearning is enshrined at some point in a traditional written form such as textbooks, subject matter expert content briefs, studies, instructions, guidelines and regulations. The content is often very specific, structured and unwavering in identifying the basic tenants of any topic to ensure that there is an agreed upon knowledge base.

The ability to deliver this carefully defined information in a meaningful way has largely depended on the environment and the person delivering the information. The “classroom teacher” often chooses what to accentuate, when to emphasize certain content and how to best illustrate key elements of content to reinforce comprehension of the basic principles of a concept. With the advent of eLearning, both the environment and the teacher involved in delivery of learning have been changed, embedded or even eliminated for the most part. As learning delivery methods have moved to an online environment, so too has the medium moved to a different kind of learning development process.  

The question now becomes who or what has replaced the “on the ground” teacher’s role in this new method of learning? How is the textbook knowledge being delineated in online learning and how are we guiding the learner? The surprising answer to these questions is that much of the responsibility for interpreting content through the interactive process has fallen to the eLearning instructional designer and the creative director. They now fulfill the role of interpreting the information to create a learning environment that allows for intuitive comprehension. The overall benefit in this change is that, no longer is the learner at mercy of the teacher’s choices. The learner now has an expanded role in interacting with the content to choose to explore knowledge that reflects individual interest within a topic.

In many ways this is a much more dynamic learning environment where learners can begin to explore the content in meaningful ways while still absorbing the basic principle designed into the learning programs content. The unfortunate pitfall in all of this, just as in the teacher enabled learning environment, the effectiveness of an online learning program is largely based on the skill of the interpreter, and in this case it is the interactive development team. Understanding adult learning, digital media production and interactive design are crucial if the Self-Paced eLearning or Blended learning is going to be successful.

In the eLearning development cycle, unlike within classroom learning, the development pipeline from concept to delivery is much shorter and the subject matter expert can exert much more influence on the content, or so it would seem. However, in reality the typical subject matter expert has only the knowledge of the 2D representation of the information, i.e., books, documentation, practical application etc., while online learning is now representing the content in a more 3D format which cannot be effectively managed and directed by the subject matter expert. They must rely on the skill and ability of the design team to creatively interpret the information in an interactive form that engages and creates comprehension. The more a subject matter expert tries to impose structure on the content the less intuitive, creative and engaging the content becomes, ultimately subordinating comprehension to structure and minimizing the learner’s ability to control the learning experience.

In thinking about this you may have noticed this process is not dissimilar to the video production cycle where there are many influencing factors and unknowns in the development process even though we have a clear understanding of what final product we would like to arrive at. Ultimately the production team including the instructional designer, writer, creative director, etc. must be trusted to influence the final production and achieve the aforementioned goals of the learning experience. Not surprisingly, like film and televisions production, subject matter experts can have a significant and positive influence on an eLearning production but not without great cost, time and effort.

In short if you want a great eLearning production and you want to manage time and cost effectively, you need to recognize your role in that process and make sure you have a great creative team that understands digital media production (often this kind of talent comes out of the television industry), adult learning and interactive design. A successful eLearning experience is less about a specific process that can be carefully managed, but more about an intuitive process that generates a creative understanding of the content that gives the learner the power to explore and the desire to engage.