The Merc Co-op Content Strategy Kit
Consulting for a local co-op grocery store; website content strategy kit
Client: The Merc Co-op
Team: Patrick Guy, Stacie Alldritt
My role: User experience designer and consultant
Date: 2014
Background
We met with the stakeholders to make sure we understood the ins and outs of the in-store marketing strategy. From there, we created a content strategy kit to help the client understand the types of content that should be produced to keep their web presence aligned with their in-store marketing strategy.
Stakeholder workshops
The Community Mercantile, a local grocery co-op had just set in place a new marketing strategy guide. This guide was filled with detailed information about their shopper's habits and desires. While their guide was helpful for determining promotions, The Merc needed help envisioning how all of this information would be best translated to a website strategy.
To align in-store and online experiences we needed to better understand the types of content co-op shoppers are looking for.
Persona needs
Through consultation with stakeholders and store shoppers we mapped the user wants and needs of five core personas groups. The priority of user wants and needs for the website were presented through the persona’s perspective. Themes like “personal fulfillment” resonated more with certain groups through informative or narrative lenses.
Key insight
Content strategy would be organized into four buckets that could be traced to certain modules on the site. Each content type is grounded in the persona groups interests in common web themes and how they best take in information.
Perpetual informative —> Information about how to become a member
Time-based informative —> Daily hot bar menu
Perpetual narrative —> Brand values and practices
Time-based narrative —> Highlight on a current local farm
Content strategy kit
The Merc wanted more than just a website redesign, we created a toolkit that can be useful long beyond the life of a site redesign. The store already does a great job of meeting customer needs and desires in-store, so we wanted to extend that personal support online. The toolkit outlines how all their customer groups take in information and how to best support their needs on the site. It also gives examples of how competitors are meeting needs in each quadrant.
The content strategy kit was delivered with a presentation, website module mockups, and recommendations for the upcoming website redesign. The kit provided significant guidance and influence on the website’s redesign as well as marketing strategies.
