Most organizations today are facing an increasingly competitive global market, requiring greater brand and product differentiation than ever before. In this environment, assessment of competitor content offerings provides valuable insights that can be leveraged when creating near- and long-term content strategies. Whether highlighting opportunities for creating new content, repositioning current offerings or completely overhauling content, competitive assessment enables content strategists to provide specific, targeted recommendations that can transform a brand and win the hearts and minds of consumers.

1. Generating Insights:
Using Competitive & Market Assessment
to Shape Your Content Strategy

2. 1. Introduction
2. Competitive Assessment Overview
3. Step 1: Getting Started
AGENDA
4. Step 2: Gathering Data
5. Step 3: Analyzing Results
6. Step 4: Creating Recommendations
7. Q-and-A
2

3. 01
INTRODUCTION
Content strategy overview

4. ABOUT LAURA BLAYDON
§ Senior Manager, Content Strategy at SapientNitro in Chicago, IL
§ 15 years experience in content, digital and communications strategy
§ Previous clients and employers include Allstate, Sears, HSBC, Walgreens and
Northern Trust
§ Passionate about large enterprise sites (including intranets) and exploring the
intersection of business and audience needs
4

5. ABOUT SAPIENTNITRO
INDUSTRY-LEADING CLIENTS PARTNER WITH SAPIENTNITRO
5

6. CONTENT STRATEGY AT SAPIENTNITRO
Content strategy is the systematic, thoughtful approach to surfacing the most relevant, effective and
appropriate content at the most opportune time, to the appropriate user, to achieve a company’s
strategic business objectives.
Content Experience
Content Delivery
What is the content experience for
the end user? What goes into a
digital solution, and to which user(s)
is it targeted?
What model is necessary to acquire,
create, maintain and optimize
content?
Content Governance
What operational processes and
mechanisms are required to ensure
the continued success of content?
6

7. CONTENT STRATEGY LIFECYCLE
SapientNitro’s approach to content
strategy provides a flexible
framework for achieving content
success.
Building from this approach, we’ve
tailored a process to fit the unique
needs, goals and focus for any
content project.
7

8. 02
COMPETITIVE ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
Who needs a competitive assessment, and why

9. COMPETITIVE
ASSESSMENT:
WHAT IS IT?
§ An in-depth look at direct and indirect
competitor experiences, generally conducted
during the project discovery phase
§ An exercise to inform an understanding of one’s
relative position in the marketplace and identify
gaps and areas of opportunity
§ A targeted view of digital (desktop, email,
mobile, social experiences) and non-digital
(print, in-store, call center) experiences
§ A complement to other research activities
including user research, persona creation and
stakeholder research
9

10. A competitive assessment is needed when:
WHEN IS IT
NECESSARY?
§ An organization is just starting up, is entering
new markets or is introducing new products or
services
§ An established business is looking for a way to
benchmark against peers and “change the game”
§ New data is needed, either to evaluate new
channels and/or competitors, or to bring findings
up to date
10

11. Competitive assessment:
WHY IS IT
IMPORTANT?
§ Provides a broad view of what others are doing
and how they’re doing it
§ Yields insights that can be used to inform tactics
and to define an overall strategic approach
§ Offers valuable perspective on creating a truly
differentiated strategy
§ Provides a baseline so that future performance
can be measured and monitored
11

12. 03
STEP 1: GETTING STARTED
Ensuring your assessment is set up for success

13. IDENTIFY YOUR COMPETITIVE SET
When determining the number and type of
experiences and competitors to evaluate, keep the
following in mind:
WITHIN INDUSTRY …
§ Your stakeholders will generally have opinions
about which competitors should or should not be
included.
§ The complexity of your project is highly correlated
to the number and type of experiences in scope.
AND/OR OUTSIDE OF INDUSTRY …
§ Not all competitors will have all the features/
functions/content you’re looking to evaluate.
13

14. DEFINE THE ASSESSMENT SCOPE
Areas of focus could include some or all of the following, as determined by business and audience
needs, available resources and the project budget/time line.
Navigation &
Organization
Interaction Design
§ Navigation labeling
§ Error messaging
§ Content organization
§ Ease of use
§ Information hierarchy
§ Use of expected
interaction design
conventions
§ Visual design of
navigation
§ Form design
Content
§ Content
comprehensiveness and
usefulness
§ Content usability
§ Multimedia content
§ Education content
Engagement
Features &
Functionality
§ Brand alignment
§ Interactive charts/tools
§ Editorial voice and tone
§ Mobile/tablet capability
§ Content “personality”
§ User profile
§ Professionalism/
credibility
§ Social media integration
§ Feedback forms
§ Home page content
14

15. DETERMINE RESOURCE NEEDS
The resources you have available could drive the scope
of the work, and vice versa. A few tips:
§ The more resources are involved, the more
communication and coordination is required among
team members.
§ A competitive assessment may be broad or deep, but
one that is both broad and deep is oſten extremely
labor-intensive.
§ When working with a diverse team, one discipline
will generally need to act as the lead.
Resources could include user experience
architects, content strategists, visual designers,
digital strategists, technologists and others.
15

16. 04
STEP 2: GATHERING DATA
Gathering inputs to inform your assessment

17. LEARN TO LOVE (OR LIKE) EXCEL
For any competitive assessment, a
spreadsheet is your best tool for:
§ Capturing initial, qualitative findings
§ Assigning quantitative scores
§ Ranking competitors by scores
§ Totaling scores by areas of
evaluation
§ Identifying overall patterns
17

18. PERFECT YOUR METHODOLOGY
§ Have a well-defined, documented methodology for
gathering, evaluating and scoring, including:
§ Amount and type of qualitative data
§ Definition of each score
§ Ensure all parties involved in data-gathering are
aligned on the process
§ Refine your approach as needed during the
assessment, based on findings
SAMPLE SCORING KEY
4. Superior !
Provides an exceptionally good experience
3. Satisfactory!
Meets basic user needs"
2. Unsuccessful!
Does not meet basic user needs"
1. Failure!
Provides a very negative experience"
0. N/A
Lacks a particular feature or quality"
18

19. CORRECT FOR INCONSISTENCIES
Even if only one person is gathering and
analyzing data, inconsistencies will happen.
From this:
You can minimize these by:
§ Setting aside time to review raw qualitative
and quantitative data at key points
throughout the process to ensure consistency.
§ Performing a final review of data to clean up
outliers and edit qualitative findings as
needed.
Forms, phone, email options
Product content is robust and features links to related
information from individual product pages, which is
helpful. There appears to be more detailed product
information than virtually any other site in the review.
To this:
The majority of the non-product content is
concentrated in the Resources section, which
contains news (primarily press releases), events and
research articles (located in the Library section), as
well as product information and information geared
toward investment professionals.
The information that appears to be the most robust
and have the most potential value to end users, in the
Library section, is organized only by date and author
and is therefore difficult to locate by topic, making this
section not as useful overall. The news content is
similarly poorly organized and therefore not useful,
although the number of users who would actually be
reading this information is likely limited.
Hmm … which one did the content strategist write?
19

20. 05
STEP 3: ANALYZING RESULTS
Identifying key insights and patterns

21. Goals for your analysis include the following:
ANALYSIS
GOALS
§ Identifying patterns in the data for each competitor,
and for the competitive set
§ Highlighting overall themes that can be used to frame
the analysis and guide recommendations
§ Finding any outliers in the data, which could be the
result of a unique competitor or inconsistencies in the
evaluation process
21

22. QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT
Qualitative assessment involves reviewing detailed findings and identifying themes, both within each
competitor’s experience as well as across the competitive set.
Excerpts reveal positive and negative findings:
Competitor #1
The site devotes the entire "above the
fold" area on their site to guiding
users to product detail pages and
analysis tools.
Product detail pages provide very
robust information and are easily
digestible.
Related documents are easily
accessed in the sidebar of each page.
Competitor #3:
The site contains a very confusing,
disjointed presentation of product
information. Product listings are
inconsistent in multiple places.
Product detail pages offer plenty of
information, but they are also poorly
formatted.
PDFs are completely separate from
the rest of the product information.
Competitor #4:
The home page main feature uses
unnecessary animation to present
some of the product information.
The drop-down in the main
navigation contains the entire
product catalog and is overwhelming.
Product landing pages are confusing
and exhibit poor information
architecture.
22

23. QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT
An effective quantitative
assessment requires “horizontal”
and “vertical” analysis across
competitors and areas of
evaluation.
Interac+on
Design
Error
messaging
Interac3on
visual
design
Ease
of
use
Uses
common
design
conven3ons
Form
design
Average
score
Naviga+on
and
Organiza+on
Naviga3on
labeling
Content
organiza3on
Memorability
Informa3on
hierarchy
Naviga3on
visual
design
Average
score
Content
Product
informa3on
Comprehensiveness
and
usefulness
Content
usability
Mul3media
content
Research/educa3on
Home
page
Average
score
Features
and
Func+onality
Interac3ve
charts/tools
Tablet/phone
Account
system
Social
media
integra3on
Feedback
mechanism
Average
Score
Personality
Brand
strength
Editorial
voice
and
tone
User
engagement
Professionalism/credibility
Average
score
OVERALL
SCORE
Client
Compe+tor
1
Compe+tor
2
Compe+tor
3
Compe+tor
4
Compe+tor
5
3
2
3
2
2
2.4
4
3
2
2
3
2.8
4
4
3
4
4
3.8
1
1
1
2
3
1.6
2
2
1
2
3
2
3
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
2.2
3
2
2
3
3
2.6
3
2
3
4
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
1.6
2
2
1
2
1
1.6
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
2
2
3
2.33
4
4
2
4
4
3
3.5
4
2
3
3
2
3
2.83
2
2
1
2
1
2
1.67
2
3
2
1
3
2
2.17
2
2
2
1
2
2
1.83
0
2
1
3
1
1.4
4
3
3
1
1
2.4
4
3
4
2
1
2.8
3
3
3
2
1
2.4
0
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
2
2.2
2
2
2
2
2
2.08
3
3
3
4
3.25
2.92
3
3
3
3
3
3.08
2
3
1
2
2
1.84
2
2
2
3
2.25
1.8
2
2
2
3
2.25
2.04
23

24. 06
STEP 4: CREATING RECOMMENDATIONS
Determining an approach based on findings

25. 1. Document the high-level themes from your analysis.
ORGANIZE
YOUR FINDINGS
2. List improvement opportunities that relate to each
theme and address major gaps identified in your
findings.
3. Show findings in a summary view as well as a
prioritization chart, as appropriate to the project.
4. Know your audience and present findings and
recommendations accordingly.
25

26. USE VISUAL ELEMENTS
Where possible, use charts and graphs to illustrate scores and facilitate understanding of results. Also
consider whether additional information, such as a feature or tool comparison chart, could be useful.
Establish a visual language throughout
final deliverable(s), and use charts and
graphs to illustrate key comparisons.
Client
Compe+tor
1
Compe+tor
2
Compe+tor
3
Compe+tor
4
Compe+tor
5
26

27. PROVIDE VISUAL EXAMPLES
Visual references are useful for orienting your audience to the specific components of an experience
your findings reference, as in the following financial services example.
27

28. ALIGN WITH BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
Organizing findings by business objective, priority and feasibility allows stakeholders to see a path to
immediately implementing “low-hanging-fruit” recommendations.
Sample recommendations (excerpt):
Business Objectives
Recommendations
Priority
Feasibility
Increase Credibility
§ Create more “thought leadership” content.
§ High
§ Medium
§ Clearly reference media mentions and awards
throughout the experience.
§ Medium
§ High
§ Create editorial guidelines to aid in the creation of
clear, consistent content.
§ Critical
§ Medium
§ Audit and update current content to ensure it
accurately reflects the brand voice.
§ High
§ Medium
§ Define a common vocabulary for use in specific areas.
§ High
§ High
§ Provide opportunities for customer feedback.
§ High
§ Medium
Strengthen Brand
Improve Customer
Satisfaction
28

29. CREATE A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
A well-executed, robust competitive assessment yields valuable insights that can be used to inform
short-, medium- and long-term content strategies.
If you’re ambitious, you can use assessment findings as a platform to:
§ Jump-start business planning and prioritization sessions
§ Create a case for a more focused, sustained measurement program
§ Develop a strategic road map to guide future content creation,
feature/functionality development, authoring capabilities, etc.
§ Secure the necessary resources to successfully execute your plan
29

30. 07
Q-AND-A

31. THANK YOU!
Laura Blaydon
Senior Manager, Content Strategy
SapientNitro
lblaydon@sapient.com
© 2013 SAPIENT CORPORATION | CONFIDENTIAL