Aston University: developing a content strategy

In January 2020, we were commissioned by Aston University to develop a content strategy for the University. 

They were already part way through a website project that included phased website migration to a new CMS, and redevelopment of key parts of their website including the “study” and “research” sections. 

However, they were also aware that they needed a longer-term institution-wide vision for content to better position themselves as a distinctive, research-intensive, business-focussed and diverse institution. 

They also wanted to better define their website structures to create greater efficiency, and develop new workflows and governance processes to ensure the website migration project was successful into the future.

To address their needs, our extensive project included the following work:

1. Reviewing their existing activity and approaches including assessing staff skills, reviewing existing materials and channels (online and offline) and reviewing institutional strategies and plans. 

2. Stakeholder consultation including conversations with around 40 senior stakeholders including the Vice-Chancellor, COO, deans of schools, and directors of professional service areas. This consultation explored:

   1. Priority objectives for the institution as well as for different stakeholders across the university

   2. Related priority audiences aligned to objectives and any key insights

   3. Challenges encountered in achieving priority objectives

   4. Views and insights on what makes the institution distinctive 

3. Assessing the current website performance using Google Analytics, user testing, intercept survey, heat maps, sessions recordings and content audit. This resulted in a website performance report benchmarking current performance.

4. Reviewing competitor websites to look at structure, brand, messaging and any content/digital innovation. This also included user testing on competitor sites. 

5. Audience research including a student survey, alumni survey, telephone interviews with business representatives and those in the research sector.

6. Stakeholder workshops exploring content ecosystem and workflows and online workshops on content modelling and prioritisation.

These insights led to the development of a content strategy that included:

• Substance recommendations including a content vision and principles, advice on communicating the brand and institutional values, and communicating the University’s distinctiveness.

• Priority objectives for the content strategy and audience prioritisation including content requirements to meet user needs and new content activity/innovations.

• Sample content for key audience groups and guidelines to support staff to create this type of content in future.

• A new recommended website structure that was tested with key user groups and website taxonomy to ensure connectedness between courses, news, business and research where appropriate.

• Measurement and evaluation recommendations to support successful implementation and allow further informed iterations and developments in future.

• A new proposed governance model and workflow processes to provide an element of control over future content production and support staff to create within a framework.

“In late 2019, Aston University was undertaking a major project to rebuild its website on a new platform. Over the years, the site had become large, unwieldy and difficult to navigate. In conjunction with this project, we decided to review our content strategy, to ensure that the new site met the needs of our diverse audiences, and that the content served dovetailed with all of our other channels.

After a competitive pitch process, Pickle Jar Communications were appointed as our partner on the project. They provided an impressive and comprehensive plan to develop our content strategy. Much of the work was scheduled for March 2020, when the pandemic was taking hold. Our account team worked to adapt the plan, particularly around user research, so that we were able to keep the project on track. We had weekly status meetings to ensure that we kept the project on brief and on time. This was important, as the emerging content strategy needed to inform the development of the new website which was running in parallel.

The approach of the team at Pickle Jar was to ensure a clear line of sight in developing our content strategy to Aston University’s overall 2020 – 2023 strategy. This involved stakeholder interviews with senior stakeholders in the University, and we were very confident for the account team to engage with our most senior colleagues to deliver this.

We are now in the stage of final implementation, with the Pickle Jar team helping us with our plans for articulating the content strategy to colleagues across the University, and our ongoing governance to ensure the strategy is delivered at all touchpoints with all of our audiences. We will shortly be re-running the website performance review element of the project, to measure how successful this has been to date.”

— Fiona Kilker, Director of Marketing at Aston University

Image credit, Aston University website