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Content Strategy: Considerations for Higher Education

Inside: • What is a content strategy? • Content strategy misconceptions • How to get started & analytics

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Contents

Background What is content strategy, anyway? Why do you need a content strategy? How to get started Content strategy misconceptions Choosing keywords Quick tips for content contributors Keep it fresh: Where to find ideas Analytics can—and should—impact your content strategy Summary About Hannon Hill

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The premise is simple. By providing original and valuable content on a frequent basis, you drive traffic to your site, foster engagement, and ultimately generate a better ROI for your organization.

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Background Most higher education organizations invest heavily in a great website design, a robust and powerful content management system, and they always put together an impressive team of content contributors. In addition, almost 100% of colleges and universities are in some way engaging in social media in order to communicate directly with their target audience and to drive traffic to their website. Considering the amount of financial and human resources that a lot of organizations dedicate to their web presence, it is surprising how many colleges and universities do not have a strategy in place that focuses on the heart and soul of their websites: their content. In the age of content marketing, producing original valuable content is key to a successful web marketing strategy. This white paper will discuss the anatomy and the benefits of a content strategy. In addition, it will provide a guideline for the incremental development of a strategy, and provide tips on how to overcome pushback, how to choose keywords, how to coach your contributors, and how to find inspiration for fresh content. Finally, it will discuss how web and social analytics can help you further optimize your content strategy.

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What is a content strategy, anyway? “Content is King” has arguably become one of the most frequently used phrases when it comes to inbound marketing. The premise is simple. By providing original and valuable content on a frequent basis, you drive traffic to your site, foster engagement, and ultimately, generate a better ROI for your organization. Since content is king, having a strategy to make sure that you provide the highest and most effective content as possible becomes a mandate. Skeptics might say that the term “content strategy” is just a buzzword invented by marketing companies who want to talk organizations into hiring them, but the truth is that even if you don’t outsource your content planning, it is highly advisable for you to develop a content strategy. After all,

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since content is the main reason why you have a web presence and the main reason why people visit your site and interact with you online, it only makes sense to dedicate an appropriate amount of time making sure that your content most optimally supports your university’s goals. We will discuss the benefits of a content strategy below, but let’s first define what it actually means. A content strategy determines many of the key questions for your marketing team and content contributors, including: • What type of content will be

created on which topics? It’s crucial that you go beyond identifying your content strategy through numbers and types of content. For instance, “two blog posts” per week is certainly a worthwhile goal, but you can greatly improve your strategy (and ultimately, the quality of your content) if you also specify the topics of those posts. Similarly, it’s not enough to just specify the topics (“Let’s do something about charity projects spearheaded by students”), but you also need to make sure that your contributors know the medium of your content delivery (blog post, press release, social media, etc.)

• Who is in charge of each piece of content? You can use your content strategy tools to assign content-specific responsibilities to

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specific groups or individuals. This will help you assess in which areas your content team members are most effective.

• What is the key message to be delivered? Determine the key messages that you want to convey with your organization’s web presence. Then, for every piece of content that you plan to produce, ensure that your contributors know which message or messages it should deliver.

• What is the purpose of your content? Your team will be empowered to generate higher quality and more targeted content if they have a very clear understanding of the purpose of their contribution. Is the main goal to attract new students? Is it to encourage your alumni to remain involved in the university? Is it to highlight your culture or values?

• Which specific goals is your content meant to support? Similar to the question above, it is also imperative that your content providers understand the overall strategic goals of the organization. Arm your team with knowledge about the vision and mission of your organization to enable them to best support your goals through quality content delivered to your target audience.

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• How the content will be promoted? Providing fresh quality content is key, because it makes your content share-worthy, but you also want to make sure that people are aware of your content. Therefore, identify the channels you use to promote your content, including social media channels, press releases, newsletters, etc.

• When and where the content will be published? Establish a target publish date (as well as a review date) for each piece of content and determine the best place to publish it.

• Which keywords will be used? While this is not part of every organization’s strategy, going through a keyword analysis can be a crucial component in your content strategy. Identify for which keywords you are currently optimizing your site, which search terms generate the most traffic to your site, and which keywords your current target group is looking for on your site. The keywords on which you are currently focusing may not necessarily be the most effective ones. Therefore, consider using a focus group to determine what your audience is searching for, so that any discrepancies may be revealed. Furthermore, determine ranking difficulty and search volume to

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assess if it’s “worth it” to focus on specific words or phrases. Including your target keywords in your content strategy keeps them top of mind for your contributors.

• Which campaigns will the content be associated with? If you are measuring your marketing campaigns (cost, ROI, conversion rates, etc.), your content strategy should also determine with which campaign(s) a specific piece of content will be associated.

Your content strategy can be as complex and elaborate or as simple as you want it to be. Use the questions above to identify what your strategy needs.

Why do you need a content strategy? Now that we have defined what a content strategy encompasses, let’s dig a little deeper and discuss some of the ways in which implementing a strategy

By implementing a content strategy, you show that you are committed to your vision. You will get more buy-in from your content contributors once they understand why fresh, relevant content is so important, what your key message is and how their content will be used.

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can really enable you to leverage the power of content marketing. The benefits of a content strategy include, but are not limited to the following: • It ensures commitment.

By implementing a content strategy, you show that you are committed, both to publishing fresh content and to your vision. Furthermore, you will get more buy-in from your content contributor team once they understand why fresh, relevant content is so important, what your key message is, and how their content will be used.

• It helps you produce higher quality content. If you have a clear picture of your overall strategy, you are in a better position to write content that strategically and optimally supports your plan. In addition, by dedicating time to research relevant, interesting topics that answer key questions or unique perspectives, you provide more value to your target audience.

• It improves your SEO. If your content is worth sharing, you will increase your PageRank and your inbound links, so simply by providing solid content, you are benefiting your SEO. Moreover, it helps to keep certain keywords top of mind when writing your content and adding your meta descriptions.

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• It optimizes the promotion of your content. While quality content is your number one priority, you also want to make sure that your target audience knows that it’s there. Your strategy helps you identify the most appropriate and effective channels and the best ways to promote your content. For instance, you may not want to send out one generic post through of your social media channels, but instead, be a little more targeted in your approach.

• It helps you identify what works best. By creating a content strategy and an editorial calendar, you know exactly what you did, so you can go back and analyze what worked and what didn’t, which will help you adjust your strategy as needed.

• It allows you to re-purpose your content where it makes sense. Because your content strategy allows you to create a

Because your content strategy allows you to create a content inventory of sorts, you can identify areas where it makes sense to re-purpose some of it.

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content inventory of sorts, you can identify areas where you can re-purpose some of it.

• It leads to more consistency in your overall message and campaigns. When all of your content contributors can see your strategy, your key message, and what each team member is contributing, you are much more likely to see more consistency in your overall message and tone.

It’s worth pointing out that implementing and maintaining a content strategy does not mean that you can’t publish any new content or new posts spontaneously or when the need arises. This is the age of agile marketing, where it’s crucial to be able to respond to new trends, new topics, and new opportunities quickly. What it does mean, however, is that when you have a strategy in place, you increase the quality of your site and your overall message.

How to Get Started Now that we’ve learned about what a content strategy is and how it can benefit your business, you may be completely on board with the idea, but if you never had a content strategy before, you may ask yourself “How do I even get started?” Here’s the good news: As pointed out above, you can make your content

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strategy as simple or as complex as you want or need it to be. As long as you have a strategy, you can measure it and optimize it.

Implementing a content strategy does not mean that you can’t publish new posts spontaneously or when the need arises. This is the age of agile marketing, where it’s crucial to be able to respond to new trends, new topics and new opportunities quickly.

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Let’s take a look at the steps involved in developing a content strategy: • Identify and assess your

team. Who is currently contributing content? What are each person’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests? One person may be an amazing researcher or a great editor, but might not be comfortable being put on the spot when communicating with visitors in quasi real time on social media

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channels. Therefore, spend some time analyzing the make-up of your team in order to determine your initial plan of action.

• Define your audience. You and your team may have a good idea of who your audience is, but make sure to take some time to get synchronized, define personae, and identify what your audience is looking for. Some of the questions you will need to answer about each persona may include: What is the main purpose of their visit? What type of device do they most frequently use to look at your site? What are the social media channels that they generally use?

• Determine your key messages. Write down your most important messages that you want your audience to take away from your website and your social media presence. Consider creating a top 10 list in order to ensure that the key messages are always top of mind.

• Audit your existing content. Your content strategy must include an audit of what you already have in place. Yes, it may be painful to go through some of your content and realize how outdated it is, but it’s crucial to weed out the bad and to re-purpose the good content. Furthermore, carefully look at your

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information architecture. What are the most frequently viewed pages? What are the pages that people seem to search for, but may not be easily accessible? Be prepared to re-structure parts of your site.

• Analyze content gaps. One of the outcomes of your content audit will be a content gap analysis, which determines topics of interest for your target audience that you are not currently addressing to an appropriate degree. Your content gap analysis should include what those topics are and which keywords should be used once the content is created. In addition, it’s best to plan ahead and discuss how the new content will fit into the overall information architecture.

• Brainstorm types of content delivery. Content can take on many different forms: information pages, articles, editorials, press releases, blog posts, infographics, videos, white papers, webinars, and social posts, to name but a few. Determine which media would work best for which types of content.

• Assess frequency and feasibility. Once you have identified on which content media you want to focus, assess how

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frequently your contributors will be able to produce the desired content.

• Create an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar allows you to plan ahead, allocate resources, and to keep your team coordinated and informed of each other’s responsibilities. Your editorial calendar may contain the following: topic, key message, type of content, keywords, target publish date, assignment, workflow (where applicable), promotion channels, and status.

• Identify and produce regular content features/categories. Creating regular features or categories, such as “Featured Stories”, “Student Spotlight”, “Behind the Scenes”, “Alumni Success Story”, etc. establishes a nice sense of familiarity for your visitors, and if they like what they see, they are more inclined to read the next installment of the feature.

• Expand your channels. Once you have pushed out and promoted your content through the channels that you identified earlier in the process, determine what other media are available and evaluate which ones you may want to try. The marketing world is moving quickly, with new channels emerging regularly, so keep your eyes open for new opportunities.

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• Re-assess (and re-build, if necessary) your team. After each iteration of your content strategy implementation, re-assess both your processes and your team. Do you need to augment your team? Does anyone need more coaching? Are you making the best use of everybody’s time and talents?

• Process feedback. Listening to feedback from your audience is absolutely crucial to your content strategy. Always encourage comments, handle them gracefully, and take your visitors’ input to heart.

As you can see, you are never “done” with your content strategy, as it should be a living, breathing, evolving plan.

Content Strategy Misconceptions When introducing the idea of a content strategy for the first time, be prepared for a certain amount of pushback. Even

Creating regular features or categories, such as Featured Stories, Student Spotlight or Alumni Success Story establishes a sense of familiarity for your visitors. If they like what they see, they are more inclined to read the next installment.

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though your team members and stakeholders may agree that it sounds like a good idea, perhaps they may worry that they may end up wasting their time developing a plan that they would likely never execute. This type of skepticism is not uncommon - understandably so, since in the days of agile marketing, we all focus on trying new things quickly. Therefore, take time to understand those reservations and educate your contributors on some of the most common misconceptions with regard to content strategy, such as the following: • An editorial calendar makes

you less flexible. Your editorial calendar ensures that you have a plan. It does not prevent you from taking advantage of new opportunities or topics as they arise. Without a plan, it’s difficult to foster accountability and consistency. Another benefit of an editorial calendar is that you can go back and see an exact timeline of your content posts and promotions, and assess the amount of traffic that you generated as a result. Being able to easily correlate your actions with your results can actually increase your flexibility, as it empowers you to assess what content works best.

• Developing a content strategy is not worth your time. Your

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content strategy can be as high-level or as detailed as you want to make it. At a minimum, you should capture your key messages, your most important keywords, and the types of content on which you want to focus. Dedicating sufficient time to a content audit and clearly identifying content gaps. Since your content is the main reason for your web presence, and the reason why people visit your site, so why would you not want to make sure that your content is optimized, supports your message, optimally represents your organization, and ensures that you provide your target audience with the quality content for which they’re looking?

• A content strategy only focuses on quantity. Some content strategies seem to solely emphasize the number of blog posts or social posts. Sure, you can simply say “Publish two blog posts per week and tweet twice a day”, but you wouldn’t do right by your audience if your main concern were quantity. A strategy is more than a to-do list. It’s a game plan that provides guidance and increases the quality of your work. Make sure that in addition to specific tasks, your strategy clearly

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captures the “why” and “how” of each piece of content.

In order to ensure that your team members understand the purpose of your strategy, ask them what their concerns are. It’s better to address their reservations immediately, so that you can get any misunderstandings out of the way and start focusing on your plan of action.

Choosing Keywords One of the components of your content strategy may be the keywords for which you want to optimize your site. It’s no secret that Search Engine Optimization is not only one of the key strategic components of inbound marketing, but it also creates one of the main challenges for web teams. Whether you outsource your SEO or you decide to handle the optimization yourself, the process typically involves a fairly extensive standard checklist. The first step, however, is to determine for which keywords you want to optimize your site. This may sound like the easy part, but considering that you’re laying the groundwork for your SEO, it is advisable to be thorough in your approach. How do you choose your keywords? Here are some suggestions: • Compile a list. When collecting a

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pool of keyword ideas, include every suggestion. Start with the question “What are the words and phrases that people may use to find us on the web?” Don’t just capture the obvious words, either. Think outside the box and include other universities, areas of study, misspelled words, or keywords that you may otherwise consider secondary to your primary product buzzwords.

• Create a word cloud. If possible, get your target audience involved in the keyword planning process, because after all, they

Keyword Brainstorming

Keywords go stale and consumer interests change, so you should evaluate your current keywords and generate new ones frequently. Brainstorming for keywords is a lot like any other brainstorming process. Here are some pointers to help you get started:

1. Get others involved, and make sure everyone’s energy level is high. (We recommend not doing this immediately following lunch.)

2. Do a creative exercise before you get started to get the juices flowing.

3. Reserve your judgment until the end, and make sure everyone else does the same. There are NO bad ideas during brainstorming!

4. Write all ideas on a whiteboard or somewhere visible to all participants.

5. Encourage piggybacking. This is especially important for keyword brainstorming, since you will want to investigate many similar and related keywords.

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know best what they want, how they do web searches, and whether they find what they’re looking for on your site. Create a word cloud that includes all of the keywords that are currently on your site. Next, send out a survey or host a focus group in which you ask your audience about they keywords that are important to them. Comparing the two word clouds may be an eye-opening experience

• Narrow down the list. After going through the exercise of compiling an all-inclusive list and determining what’s important to your audience, you may want to go through a round of cutting some of the keywords that you think are not a great fit.

• Determine the search volume and the competition of each keyword or phrase. The biggest conundrum with regard to keywords is the fact that the higher the search volume for a word or phrase is, the harder it is to rank high for it, but on the other hand, the lower the search volume, the less interest there is. The trick is to hit the sweet spot by finding keywords and phrases that are specific enough to not be completely out of reach for you in terms of achieving a decent search result ranking. To find out the search

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volume and ranking difficulty for each keyword, use one of the tools available on the web, such as SEMRush, WordStream or the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

• Group keywords together. Once you’ve determined your overall set of keyword candidates, see how you can group them together and how to map them to specific pages on your site. Keep in mind that you don’t want to optimize each page for 50 keywords, because you would end up with virtually no optimization at all. Instead, focus on no more than 5 or 6 keywords per page.

• Use web analytics. Analytics are an agile marketer’s best friend. Use your analytics tools to determine the most frequently used keywords by your visitors and to find out which keyword searches tend to be used by visitors who spend the most time on your site. In addition, monitor how you rank for your keywords compared to your competition and try to determine what companies that rank high for certain keywords do that you are not currently doing.

Remember, SEO is not a one-time activity, but an ongoing effort. In order to remain competitive and to optimize your inbound marketing campaigns, you need to not only frequently measure your SEO success, but also adapt your

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optimization. It’s an iterative process that, much like the (marketing) world, never stops.

Quick Tips for Content Contributors Now that we have outlined some of the many steps that you can take in order to develop a content strategy, let’s compile some quick tips to keep in mind as you develop or update your strategy and produce your content. • You cannot over-estimate the

importance of your content. Always keep in mind that content is the reason why people visit your site and interact with you on social media. Without quality content, your social posts become nothing but noise. Every content contributor has to remain aware of this and strive to continuously raise the bar. Never stop assessing what your target audience is talking about, what questions they’re asking, what problems they’re trying to solve, and what content they find most engaging.

• Consistency - creating and meeting expectations. Don’t post content just for postings sake or to achieve the quantity outlined in your strategy, but do your best to adhere to a fairly consistent schedule, because once your visitors

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know what to expect, they are more likely to return to your site. You may also want to consider a recurring feature, such as “Athlete of the Month”, department feature or a faculty spotlight of the week.

• What’s your story? When your main intention is to provide value to your audience, you may find your content getting a little too impersonal or too instructive at times. It’s good to strive to make your content as relatable as possible. Consider mixing up your typical content structure and tell a story. Maybe you can spotlight a student or staff member who is trying to overcome a particular challenge and guide your readers through the trials, tribulations, and triumphs. Oftentimes, we remember stories much more easily than bullet points or statistics.

The more valuable your content is, the more likely it is to be shared by your visitors, and the more credibility you will earn as a result. Therefore, don’t be stingy when it comes to giving advice.

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• Share advice. There’s no question about it—the more valuable your content, the more it will be shared by your visitors, and the more credibility you will earn as a result. Therefore, don’t be stingy when it comes to giving advice. What are some of the questions that prospective students are asking? What are some of the discounts that student are eligible to receive at local establishments? Grateful readers will share your content and generate more traffic to your website.

• It’s okay to self-promote, in moderation. Many organizations subscribe to the philosophy that you should never toot your own horn and only focus on providing advice and university news. Of course, you need to determine the best strategy for your particular school. Keep in mind that prospective students are genuinely interested to hear why your university is a great choice for them. Current students and alumni may want to share articles and posts with others, because they are proud of their school. As long as your content is not solely used for the purpose of self-promotion, but fulfills the needs of your target audience, you’re on the right track.

• Refer to previous and upcoming posts. Linking to

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previous posts or features can help your SEO and encourage increased readership and visitor loyalty. However, do so where it makes sense, and don’t write your content around potential links, but let opportunities arise organically. If you have an editorial calendar and you already know what’s in your backlog, use it. Alternatively, give your visitors a little preview of what you will discuss in upcoming posts. Creating and meeting expectations can really help grow your readership.

Keep it Fresh: Where to Find Ideas By now, we understand the importance of creating fresh, original content as one of the key ingredients of web marketing. “What if I don’t have anything to write about?”, you may ask. If you are truly drawing a blank and don’t have anything to say, it may be best to step away and take a break from your content schedule rather than posting something that really doesn’t offer much value to your readers.

Here are some areas to use as starting points to generate ideas for interesting blog topics:

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• Current news and events. Why not start your day reading up on current events, both in the world in general and pertaining it one of your departments? For instance, a political movement or event may be something on which you have an expert in your political science or sociology department. Every day, you are sure to stumble upon at least one or two stories that pose thought-provoking questions or topics.

• Your visitors’ interests. One of the easiest ways to find out areas and topics in which your visitors are interested is to look at the search terms that they used previously to get to your site. You can also determine your most popular and engaging previous posts by reviewing your page views, your comments, and how many times a post got shared via social media. You may then either take the discussion a step further, for instance, by focusing on a particular comment or question asked by your readers, or write about a related subject.

• Current discussions. In order to find out what your target audience is talking about, spend some time browsing discussion boards and social media forums. What are the things that students tweet about? What are the types of topics that

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seem to generate a lot of engagements on student forums and message boards?

• Polls and surveys. Polls and surveys are not just a great way to interact with your audience on your site, but they can also be used as a tool to generate ideas for valuable content. For instance, you may discuss the outcome of a poll, or provide a list of key take-aways of a survey. You can also use polls to gauge the level of interest for specific areas.

• Publications and achievements. Colleges and universities provide a plethora of stories. Your faculty and your students get published or have speaking engagements on a regular basis. Celebrate their achievements. They don’t even have to be academic. Human interest stories have the potential to really connect with your readers.

Polls and Surveys are great ways to interact with your audience and they can also be used as a tool to generate ideas for valuable content.

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• Suggestions and ideas. Modern marketing places great emphasis on engagement. Therefore, consider asking your visitors to submit their own stories and suggestions.

Analytics Can—and Should—Impact Your Content Strategy Content is and will remain king. Providing original, sharable, and share-worthy content is the best thing you can do to optimize your site for search engines, to drive traffic to your site, to foster visitor loyalty, and to increase your marketing ROI. Perhaps content is even more than king. Content is you. It’s the reason why you have a web presence. It’s the reason why people come to your site or your social media channels. It’s part of the value that you provide to your target audience. In order to continuously improve the quality of your content, you need to measure what type of content and content promotion works best. That’s where analytics (both web traffic and social analytics) can really help you out. Here are some ways in which you can use analytics to improve your content and your strategy. • Search Terms. Pay close attention

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to the keywords and terms that people use to come to your site. For what are they searching? In what are they most interested? Are your search terms and your keywords in alignment? Compare the keywords for which you are optimizing your site with the search terms used by your visitors and identify new keyword opportunities, new content opportunities, and evaluate whether some of your current keywords should be tossed or modified. In addition, use search terms to identify potential content gaps. What are your visitors looking for that you’re not currently providing?

• Social media channels. Social media supports multiple goals. Two of the most important ones are to engage your audience and to promote your content. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you should sign up on every social media channel possible and start blasting out updates and links indiscriminately. Instead, measure, with the help of tracked links, which social media channels are the most effective ones in terms of generating traffic to your site and fostering engagement. In addition, make sure that you track your re-

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tweets in order to analyze the best times to promote your content and the effectiveness of hashtags you used.

• Page views and time spent on page. Since you want to make sure that you continue to provide the best quality content possible, monitor the number of page views and the average time spent on a specific page. Looking at the number of page views alone only gives you part of the picture. A large number of page views can mean that a particular content is easily accessible and that visitors expect to find what they’re looking for on that page, but if the average time that a visitor actually spends on the page doesn’t exceed more than a few seconds, you can assume that the content does not meet most visitors’ expectations. Use your page view data to determine what your audience wants and use the time spent on pages to assess content quality.

• Visitor loyalty. Believe it or not, it’s not that difficult to generate traffic to a particular piece of content, just by following some SEO best practices, using a clever title, and promoting your content via various channels. But just because you may be able to create a one-time rush to your page doesn’t mean that

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you’re providing highly valuable content. How many of your new visitors return to your site? How many visitors check out additional pages on your site? How many people subscribe to your RSS feeds? How many people share your content? Answering those questions is crucial if you’re truly committed to delivering top notch content.

• Side-by side view: content updates and web traffic. To get a more comprehensive understanding of the correlation between your actions and your results, try a side-by-side view of your content updates and your web traffic. If you have an editorial calendar that provides you with a timeline of all of your content-related activities, use it to determine what topics, which keywords, and what types of content delivery and promotion rendered the best results.

• Referral pages and inbound links. Knowing from which site visitors came to your site can be extremely helpful, as it gives you an indication of the types of interests your target audience has, so that you can tailor your content accordingly. In addition, keep track of your inbound links. Is the

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Summary Considering that your content is designed to drive visitors to your site, to foster engagement, to increase visitor loyalty, and ultimately, to increase your ROI, the importance of developing and implementing a content strategy cannot be overestimated. A good content strategy helps you streamline your efforts, increase your content quality and delivery methods, convey more targeted messages, and provide you with the tools you need to further optimize your marketing campaigns. When developing your strategy, keep in mind that it’s an evolving entity. Start small by addressing some of the key questions that you want your strategy to answer and then expand as you and your team get more comfortable with the process. As always, in the world of agile marketing, use analytics to measure what works best, and use insights gained from your data to make content and strategy decisions.

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number increasing? What’s the overall quality of your inbound links? Do the inbound links point to specific pieces of content on your site? This will help you further optimize your content for specific audiences.

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About Hannon Hill Founded in 2001, Hannon Hill is a leading provider of powerful web content management software. The award-winning Cascade Server application provides advanced solutions for online information management and has been a recipient of the ‘Best of Show Award’ from Internet World Magazine. Hannon Hill has also been recognized by Inc. Magazine, placing 247th amongst the prestigious Inc. 500, which represents the top 500 fastest-growing private companies in the nation. Hannon Hill continues to accelerate its customers’ online success. Located in the high-tech capital of the South, Atlanta, GA, Hannon Hill continues to deliver high-quality content management solutions. Its products enable users to easily update their websites through an easy-to-use web interface so users can maintain up-to-date, accurate and meaningful website content while decreasing associated costs. Hannon Hill’s WCM solutions provide core content management capabilities for management of online information. Our solutions have been implemented in all types of industries, including higher education, health care, real estate, energy, government, hospitality and publishing. We provide a comprehensive tool set that provides all the necessary modules to manage the complete content lifecycle. Hannon Hill is now in its eleventh year of operation. Product sales and overall revenue have increased steadily in each year of operation. Most of our annual revenue is re-invested in product development. The majority of our business is generated through strong client references and by

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offering numerous informational resources. Because we do not conduct expensive advertising and marketing campaigns, our customer acquisition costs remain well below the industry average, enabling us to focus above average resources on research and development, customer service, and support. Hannon Hill is large enough to be completely financially secure, yet small enough to ensure a high degree of personal attention. We pride ourselves on superior customer service and satisfaction, and believe this approach is the best way to ensure our continued long-term viability.

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20 Content Strategy: Considerations for Higher Education.……………………….………….

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Private Colleges & Universities Belmont University Bowdoin College Brandeis University Chapman University Concordia College Duke University Eckerd College Emory University Gardner-Webb University Gonzaga University Harvey Mudd College Hawaii Pacific University Lindenwood University Lycoming College McMurrry University Northeastern University Northwestern University Pomona College Reed College Reinhardt University Rollins College Sarah Lawrence College Southern Wesleyan University Union College University of Detroit Mercy University of Hartford University of Richmond University of Rochester University of Scranton Vassar College Wentworth Institute of Technology Wesleyan University Yale University Library Public Colleges & Universities Auburn University California State University Clemson University

2

College of Charleston Florida International University Indiana University James Madison University Johnson County Community College Lamar University Miami University Michigan State University North Carolina State University Northern Illinois University Northwood University Oakton Community College Pellissippi State Community College Purdue University Saint Cloud State University Salt Lake Community College Sierra College Texas A&M University The College of William and Mary United States Naval Academy University of Alaska Southeast University of California, San Diego University of Houston University of Montana University of New Mexico University of North Alabama University of Ontario Institute of Technology University of Texas, Arlington University of Wyoming Virginia State University Winston Salem State University University Health Centers Emory Healthcare Medical College of Georgia Health System

3

Texas A&M Health Science Center University of Utah Health Sciences Center Graduate Schools & Specialty Programs Carnegie Institute of Technology Georgia Tech College of Management Harvard Graduate School of Education Michigan State University College of Law New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary The Julliard School Union Presbyterian Seminary University of Miami School of Business University of Texas College of Liberal Arts

Research Centers San Diego Super Computer The Scripps Research Institute International Colleges and Universities George Brown College Langara College McMaster University Queen’s University School of Business University of New Brunswick University of Regina University of Saskatchewan University of Victoria University of Western Ontario Zayed University

Partial List of Cascade Server clients

Higher Education (160+ Colleges and Universities)

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21 Content Strategy: Considerations for Higher Education.……………………….………….

Partial List of Cascade Server clients (cont’d)

Government & Non-Profits

Technology

Healthcare

General

1

Beaufort County, South Carolina Brookhaven National Laboratory Charleston County, South Carolina City of Irving, Texas Colorado Secretary of State Delaware Department of Education East Baton Rouge Parish Library

2

EngenderHealth Federation of American Scientists Florida Department of Health Heartland AEA Lion’s Club International Los Alamos National Laboratory National Futures Association

3

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sandia National Laboratories Texas A&M Foundation Texas General Land Office United States Naval Academy YMCA Toronto

1

Autograff, Inc. Caffeine Continental Resources Cramer Online

2

Mediagrif Nexant PowerPlan Consultants Sapien Information Systems

3

Servigistics, Inc. Silverpop Techcom Trion World Network, Inc.

1

American Thoracic Society Citizens Memorial Hospital Emory Healthcare

2

MCG Health Systems Midlands Choice Network Health Plan

3

St. Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta Texas A&M Health Science Center University of Utah Healthcare

1

ARAG Associated Wholesalers, Inc. Basin Electric Power Cooperative Becker Professional Education Business & Decision Costco Travel

2

Kahala Corp Lighthouse Publishing Milliman Northern Life Perillo Tours Pacific Bioscience Laboratories

3

Royce Funds SCOREGolf The Williams Companies, Inc. Universal Air Travel Plan Vacation Internationale WestJet