Deborah Carver on Digital Strategy for Freelancers

"Data can inform strategy, but if you’re not aware of what your audience searches for online and enjoys, how can your product really communicate with them?"

Deborah Carver is a Minneapolis-based digital strategy consultant and publisher of The Content Technologist, a newsletter about the sticky issue of platform management that many freelancers like to avoid. On April 20, 2021, Deborah joined us to explain what content strategy is and why it’s important, illuminate how algorithms, automations, and analytics shaped her career, and answer questions about running a freelance media business.

The transcript has been shortened and edited for clarity. 

 

WHAT IS CONTENT STRATEGY? 

There are many definitions of content strategy but Kristina Halvorson is considered a thought leader in the space. She wrote a book called “Content Strategy for the Web,” which explains that content strategy determines what, how, why, for and by whom online content gets produced. If you’re interested, her updated definition can be found here, though I kinda diverge from Kristina these days. 

In my view, content strategy uses qualitative and quantitative data to integrate editorial and business operations. It’s data-informed decision making that allows a business or organization to say, “This type of content will produce XYZ outcomes, which we know because X audience is doing Y behavior on Z channel.” In other words, it turns to those who are or will be consuming the content, gathers data about their habits, preferences, and tastes, and then uses that information to make business decisions. 

Why? Because we’ve moved into a far more collaborative era in which understanding your audience is crucial. Data can inform strategy, but if you’re not aware of what your audience searches for online and enjoys, how can your product really communicate with them? Content strategy bridges that gap making sure there is always proof that an audience’s preferences have been considered.

 

CONTENT STRATEGY IN PRACTICE

Usually a brand approaches me and says, “Hey, we’re looking at a brand refresh and we want to restructure our content so it reaches our target audience.” I then create a proposal that includes content research, synthesized data, and a guiding statement that my client brand can use to actually determine what content suits them best. The proposal usually identifies some key performance indicators (KPIs) that help the brand assess whether the content is working by measuring its efficacy. 

 

BUILDING A FREELANCE CAREER

So I’m on my third go-round at freelancing. The first time was in 2010. I was fresh out of grad school, working at a mixology bar, and looking to supplement my income with freelance writing. But at the time no one in Minneapolis was paying for internet writing. If they were, it was pennies, and frankly I was more interested in life after the bar than making a name for myself.

The second time was after I got soft-fired from my first agency job. I thought I could make it on my own, but I had a hard time staying self-motivated, and I only got one gig through a temp service, so I went back to another agency pretty quickly. (Hot tip: If you’re a strategist or writer and you haven’t worked with agencies before, they’re always looking for high-quality content writers and strategists. In fact, most non-media businesses and brands have no idea how to produce content on a regular basis. They need lots of help and can make great first clients.) 

This third time I had a clear idea of what I was going to do, how I could support myself, and I had a first client secured. The agency I had just quit hired me to finish some digital strategy projects, and I was happy to have three months of income while I lined up freelance work and prepared to launch my newsletter.

But my freelance practice has always been a means to establish myself as a thought leader and differentiator in business-to-business (B2B) content strategy. In that part of the industry, it’s easier to ask for what you need in terms of a good paycheck. The rates are more negotiable if you have something else to offer — in my case, experience with web analytics and content strategy. 

Between the first and the third time I tried freelancing, when I worked for the agency, I also gained a ton of experience setting project scopes and negotiating contracts, so I knew what my clients were looking for. But there’s also the emotional maturity bit. If you’re not super self-driven, freelancing can be a struggle.

 

LEARNING ANALYTICS

Math has never been my favorite subject because I can be hella careless, but I also learned that most people in digital marketing and analytics didn’t know any more than I did. So while I was kind of forced into analytics, it also helped me go up a couple of pay grades. 

But my original reason for getting into analytics was a bit selfish. I had a gig where I produced all the content for a company — everything from print mags to email newsletters to web and social media posts. But I had no idea who was reading any of it and I wanted to know what tools other strategists were using to figure that out. 

At my first agency gig, we were also required to get certified in Google Analytics. (I don’t think I’d fully understand web analytics if I hadn’t had a really awesome colleague who explained analytics in plain language to me. I owe so much of my current trajectory to her.) 

That particular agency described itself as “performance marketing” — meaning they wanted numbers with everything. So it helped to memorize the metrics in Google Analytics like I used to memorize the menus when I worked at the mixology bar. Eventually, with a lot of practice and overlong work weeks, I got comfortable with explaining the difference between pageviews and users and bounce rates and all that.

The more website analytics you look at, the more you learn about content consumption and what people actually like and spend time with. Since I was tackling analytics more from the SEO side, I learned a lot about how people search, what they want when they use Google, and how Google meets or fails to meet those needs. It’s also a little on the easy side because Google has such a monopoly on analytics and search, so I didn’t have to learn as much about other platforms. 

People still look at garbage metrics like pageviews as proof of content success, so a lot of my job is helping them see other success indicators, like developing returning audiences or identifying what actually connects users long-term. 

 

DEVELOPING YOUR OWN CONTENT STRATEGY 

Strategy should always start with the subjects you know best and what your audience wants to know about. The first part isn’t hard to figure out because you are the culmination of your own interests. But the second, knowing your audience, is more challenging. 

I got into search engine optimization (SEO) and analytics midway through my career, and I’ve been able to tap that data and experience when cultivating an audience. But if you’re unsure what subjects resonate, do your research. Who do you want to reach, and what do they talk about? 

If you’re unsure what your audience finds interesting, I recommend that you start with Google Trends. It’s a great way to figure out whether one search term is more popular than another. So, if you’re looking to write a newsletter about content strategy versus, say, content marketing, you can explore which term is more trendy using Google Trends. You could also supplement those data points by following any channel or niche for a few months and conducting competitive analysis and noting any major trends. 

 

NEWSLETTER AS PROMOTIONAL TOOL

While I don’t make much money from my newsletter, it does promote my consulting business. Generally, if I want to do a certain type of strategic project, I write a few newsletters about it, and then clients reach out when they have that sort of work. My agency partners know when I’ll be a good fit for a project, so they tap me. 

My consultation work tends to be months-long projects that are collaborative and research-intensive, and my clients are mostly niche content marketing sites because that’s where I’ve had the most professional experience. I typically work on really big website redesigns and SEO strategy, and most agencies only redesign their websites once every 2 to 5 years. 

 

BUSINESS VERSUS EDITORIAL 

You may have noticed that it sounds like I don’t actually do any writing or editorial for clients. That’s because I don’t. Usually I work with content directors and give them the data they need to sell-up their business

You may have also noticed there’s a lot of business speak in my responses. Lots of content strategy is translating editorial concepts into business speak, which I might hate but also can’t escape.

It took a long time for me to get over my editorial ideals and think about content from a business value perspective. But getting over my ideals helped me get off the struggle bus and move into something that looks like a reasonable living. 

And also the measurement and search part is fun! People search for some weird shit and I get to tell my clients about it. And if I had my way, more brands would be better at identifying a few topics that the audience cares about and will read about regularly, creating what content strategists call a pillar structure. (I wrote a bit about pillars recently.) Companies would also understand that profits never come from a single content piece but a library that’s built over. 

 

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