Mastering Healthcare Content Strategy: Key Lessons for Stronger Governance [Part 2]
It’s time to take control
When it comes to content governance, we’ve seen firsthand that success doesn’t happen by accident—it requires deliberate focus and a willingness to tackle the hard questions. As we explored in our previous article, a lack of governance puts your brand’s trust at risk, squanders your content investments, and threatens future content workflows.
To combat this is no easy task. It requires not only putting a set of protocols and roles & responsibilities in writing, but also getting your team aligned around new content workflows and moving in unison to make governance a reality. Let’s take a closer look at those concrete tactics that will help set you up for long-term success.
1. Hone your Strategic Focus
To enforce governance around your content strategy, you need to have first defined your content strategy in sufficient detail. That means it should be ground in the following:
- Clear organizational objectives
- Key business imperatives
- Real audience needs
Additionally, it should be socialized to facilitate alignment between constituent groups before proceeding. We recently partnered with a large B2C organization that struggled to manage content stakeholder requests, because there was no standardized method for intaking, triaging, and prioritizing them. By working closely together, we helped them get a handle on day-to-day stakeholder management and overall content maintenance burden. And yes, we know this one isn’t as easy as it sounds, so we’re always happy to help!
2. Consider your Appetite for Change
Clarify for yourself what types of change you’re open to as part of this exercise. Are process changes fair game, but personnel or role changes are off the table? Ultimately, our consulting is tailored to your specific needs and business context, but it helps to set these types of guardrails going in, so that everyone is on the same page. When working with a client in the software industry, we made sure to collaborate early in the project to set expectations and boundaries on the desired outcomes of the engagement, which minimized churn and time-to-value.
3. Aim for Cross-Department Representation
Make sure to include representatives from all applicable parts of the organization into your content workflow for well-rounded input and grounded discussion. Define the core group of 4-5 individuals who will shape this program, and the full list of subject matter experts to be interviewed, very carefully. This ensures that the program design is well-informed and that important groups are already bought in along the way. During a recent project, we helped our insurance industry client identify a lean, cross-functional team that was empowered, representative, and nimble, while also ensuring key stakeholders from outside the core group were consulted and informed at key moments throughout the engagement lifecycle.
4. Prioritize Internal Alignment
Ensure your team is aligned around the need for change. Often we see that the project owner is clear-eyed about gaps, but other key stakeholders are resistant or just don’t see it as a top priority. Building consensus internally, before pursuing this type of work, will help it to proceed efficiently and productively. We at Genuine always try to provide deliverables that are easily socialized and directly support conversations throughout the project that will generate alignment and encourage buy-in from diverse and senior stakeholders, but proactive measures to rally your team around a common purpose will allow the project to proceed at full steam from kick-off onward.
5. Enable your Team
Make your team feel heard and supported in implementing changes. Help them to see that the recommendations will ultimately improve everyone’s working lives by creating clear accountability, reducing friction, and promoting efficient operations. Identify potential champions and detractors so that you can better manage communications throughout the project. When stakeholders feel that the responsibility to implement change is their burden alone, they are more likely to balk at anything other than minor tweaks to current operations and will remain close-minded to innovation.
When working with a long-time client in the medical device industry, we created a plan and materials specifically designed to support change management. Together, we identified potential advocates and detractors for conscious incorporation into the communications plan and developed tailored training programs and a roadmap for execution. Coupled with empathy and understanding from senior stakeholders, thanks in part to the research we produced together, the content marketing plan roll-out was destined for success.
6. Shore Up Your Data Foundation
We have the luxury of data at our disposal these days, but it is only valuable if it is structured and comprehensible. All governance efforts should be grounded in a foundation of clean, tagged data that can be used to generate insights and identify real problems to solve or patterns of success to lean into, as well as validate the success of content strategy initiatives as they are rolled out.
Taking the first step
We know this is hard. No one wants to see their hard-won content strategy or investment in a premier toolset go to waste. If you find yourself in this situation, and you’re struggling to keep your powerful content engine on its tracks, don’t feel as though it is a unique problem or let yourself fall into analysis paralysis - just reach out!