Content Strategy – April 11, 2024
Developed by Dawna Mason, web content manager
Introduction
This report aims to review our website content and social media accounts and establish a strategy for the content we wish to publish. A content strategy is “a high-level plan that guides the intentional creation and maintenance of information in a digital product”(Kaley, 2022). By establishing a content strategy, we will optimize the content, location, and timing of the content to reach our target audience more e ectively.
This report will contain the following sections:
Key Messages and Purpose
Intended Audience
Personas & Scenarios
Competitive Examples
Website Content Strategy
Social Media Content Strategy
Managing Our Website and Social Media
Information Re-Use
Conclusion
Key Messages and Purpose
Since the o icial launch in April of 2005, Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn has been providing tasty kettle korn to the people of Kansas (and now Georgia) while also providing a business opportunity for Joe. The company has continued to grow each year, and we are committed to supporting Joe in his business endeavors and raising awareness for people with disabilities in the workplace.
The purpose of the Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn website is to:
Introduce people to Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn,
Tell people about Joe and Poppin’Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn’s roots,
Provide ways for people to purchase Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn,
Provide a calendar of events showing where Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn will be,
Provide fundraiser information,
Support a positive outlook on people with disabilities such as Autism and Down syndrome as employees and business owners.
Intended Audience
The website's intended audience is anyone looking to learn more about or purchase Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn. It is also anyone looking to support a small business owned by someone with a disability.
Looking a little deeper into who might be our target audience, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey done in 2021, the median age is 38.4, with 20.04% of the total population being aged 15 to 29 and 45.31% of the total population being aged 30 to 64 (Neilsberg Research, 2023). These age ranges are our most likely customers.
Creating personas of what a typical customer may look like helps determine exactly what our customer's wants, needs, goals, or expectations may be (Dam & Siang, 2024).
Personas & Scenarios
I have created 3 personas that identify the wants or needs of our target audience. Each has di erent goals and influences, and a di erent reason to connect with Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn.
Examples of scenarios our customers may experience:
Paige has 2 young kids at home, both under the age of 6. She frequently has playdates at the local park with her kids and a few friends with their young kids. The moms take turns bringing snacks for all the kids on their playdates. Paige recently discovered Poppin Joe's at a local festival in Brunswick. Everyone at the booth was very friendly, and she was impressed with the freshness of the kettle korn (it was being made fresh there at the booth) and the flavor variety. She purchased a few bags of various flavors to bring to the next playdate. After all the kids tasted the kettle korn, they begged to have it again for snack time. She was pleased everyone liked the kettle korn. As far as snacks go it is a healthier option than many things the other moms often bring for snack time, so she went to the website to look at the calendar to determine when the next festival is that Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn will be at.
Hunter is planning his next movie/game night with friends. He remembers seeing a post on social media about Poppin Joe’s. The pictures of the assorted flavors of kettle korn all looked delicious, and the comments on the post all seemed to be rave reviews. Hunter decides to get some of Poppin Joe’s kettle korn to serve at his next movie night, so he heads online to learn more about the company and find out where to buy from.
Evan learned about Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn during a work event that supported adults with Autism. Throughout the event, Evan hears di erent pieces of Poppin Joe’s story but does not get to hear the entire story. He loves supporting small businesses, especially those owned by or that employ people with disabilities. After the work event, Evan decides to go to Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn website to read Joe’s full story and learn how he can support Poppin Joe’s business. He is pleased to find out that Poppin Joe’s also o ers fundraiser opportunities, as he always seeks ways to raise money and awareness for the causes he supports outside of work.
Competitive Examples
There is a lot of competition in the gourmet kettle korn business. Poppin Joe’s is not the only small business that o ers gourmet kettle korn. To be successful as a business, we need to understand our market. By researching our competitors, we can learn what they are o ering, what they may be doing right, and what they may be doing wrong, and identify trends in our industry (Vegh, 2023).
The three companies I researched are:
Genelle’s Kettle Korn
Uncle Dave’s Kettle Korn
Jack’s Kettle Corn
Genelle’s Kettle Korn is a family-owned kettle corn food truck based in Southeast Kansas. They o er kettle korn and fresh squeezed lemonade.
Their website is outdated, and the products page does not show any of their products. They have a blog on their welcome page, but it has not been updated recently. Most of the ‘information’on their website appears in the photos section. However, most photos are blurry, not professionally taken, or repeated a few times.
The company changed ownership last year, right around when the website was last updated. The last blog post is about the ownership change. This is a good example of why updating all online accounts (website, social media, blog, etc.) is important to ensure that wherever a customer finds us online, they find accurate and up-to-date information. Below are screenshots from the last update on the website and information on the Facebook page, which led me to the conclusion that the company had changed ownership.
The company is more active on its Facebook page than on its website. Regular posts let people know where they will be set up along with pictures of their products. While the website is lacking, the Facebook page has 1.8k followers and the business is active and appears to be doing a decent job promoting their products.
They are also using professional-style photographs on their Facebook page now, which makes the company appear more successful and professional.
Uncle Dave's Kettle Korn is based in Virginia, so it is not as direct of a competitor as someone local. However, I included them in this analysis because their website is an excellent example of what I want ours to look like.
Their products page has clear, professional pictures of their kettle korn. Their“shop”page is set up in the way I propose we set up ours, with clear pictures of the product to click on to purchase. Once you click on the image of the type of package you want, you get a screen to select flavor and quantity.
Uncle Dave’s also o ers fundraising opportunities. I think they have done a fantastic job setting up their fundraiser page to provide information on fundraising with Uncle Dave’s and providing a fillable online form to request information.
Uncle Dave’s is very active on their Facebook and Instagram accounts. They also use professional-looking photographs and post often to let people know where they will be set up.
Jack's Kettle Corn is a food truck based in Kansas City. They o er kettle corn, freshly squeezed lemonade, Dippin’Dots, and cotton candy.
They do not have their own website, instead operating o a page under the Kansas City Food Trucks Association website. The basic information available on this page is contact information and a list of the products they sell. The page also has what appear to be clickable buttons (boxes beside“Fan Favorite For”), which even produce a di erent mouse icon when you hover over them. However, they do nothing when clicked. We want to ensure on our website that anything that appears to be clickable is clickable and does link to the proper place.
Their Facebook page o ers an option to text to join a newsletter and receive weekly notifications of location updates. This is a great idea and something we may want to o er with Poppin Joe’s.
Website Content Strategy
As my website analysis report pointed out, much of the website needs to be restructured. The information is not laid out well and does not make the site visitor want to stay and look at all the pages on our site. It also lacks the ability to fulfill some of their needs.
I am currently working on a style guide and website wireframe that I will have available within the next 2 weeks. For now, I have provided a content strategy for each page.
We will include the following pages on our new website, each page is detailed separately below:
Home
About Us
Products/How to Buy
Calendar
In the News
Awards and Honors
Reviews/Comments
Giving Back
Photos
Contact Us
Home page
The home page is the first thing people see on our website. We want to ensure we provide a good first impression and that visitors find the site appealing. If Paige, Hunter, or Evan do not see a way to meet their needs or find the website cluttered and not easy to navigate, they will not stick around long enough to view all pages or make a purchase.
The menu bar across the top will hold the navigational links to all the separate pages on our site. This will make it easy to see how to move around the site or find what they want.
However, we also want to briefly overview what Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn is about.
The current welcome page is unappealing in that it is too busy, with large pictures and little information on the page. A visitor must scroll a lot on the welcome page. We do not want this; we want a clean and appealing home page.
I propose we include a welcome note from Joe on this page, along with one or two professional photographs to portray the image of what Poppin Joe’s is about. These photographs would be much smaller in scale than the ones currently on the home page.
About Us page
The About Us page is where we tell Joe’s story. We want to appeal to the emotional side of our visitors and give them a warm fuzzy feeling about why they want to do business with us.
The current page has a good foundation story; however, I think it should be rewritten to portray the tone and voice we want for Poppin Joe’s (as discussed in my website analysis).
The information about supporting the troops in Iraq, the special news and honors, and the comments from customers that are currently on this page will be relocated to other pages where they are better suited.
The spotlight on“Autism Inspired: Poppin Joe’s”currently on the welcome page would be better highlighted on the About Us page.
We want to give the“why”behind Poppin Joe’s Gourmet Kettle Korn. And the best way to do that is to tell Joe’s story, including the Autism inspiration.
Products/How to Buy page
The Products/How to Buy page highlights our kettle korn. Here is where we will describe the assorted flavors we o er and provide pictures of all the flavors alongside the descriptions. We want to make the site visitor want to buy our products. This page allows the customer to buy our kettle korn online. The photos of the products should allow the customer to click on them to order, like Uncle Dave’s site mentioned previously. This page also provides information on purchasing it in person (at one of our events or retail locations) or over the phone.
Calendar page
The Calendar page is an interactive calendar showing where we will be with Poppin Joe’s, providing dates, times, and locations of the events we will be attending. Each date will be a hyperlink to a map of the exact location of the event. If a particular event has its own website or event page, we will also link to it to give the customer as much information as possible about the event.
The current calendar page has a list of events; however, they are not clickable links. The customer wants to be able to view these events or locations easily. If they do not already know where these locations are, they are unlikely to make the e ort to look the location up on their own.
In the News page
All news and media coverage goes here. We want to update this frequently to keep it fresh. The Special News & Honors currently on the About Us page would be better served here.
Also, this picture (below) should be featured at the top of the In the News page. Being featured on Good Morning America is definitely“In the News.”
Awards and Honors page
The Awards and Honors page highlights all the awards and honors Poppin Joe’s has achieved. We need to give more details about the awards and tell the visitor why we were honored. Provide links to the websites for the awards, if applicable.
The 2018 NDSS #DSWORKS Blake Pyron Entrepreneurship Scholarship winner, shown on the current welcome page, will be moved to this page.
Reviews/Comments page
This is the page where we will share the reviews and comments we have gotten from our customers. Customer testimonials are great marketing opportunities without it being too obvious that we are trying to sell our products. This page will also have a place for people to leave reviews/comments with a fillable online form.
We will move the“Comments from our Poppin’Joe’s customers”section, which is currently on the About Us page here. The format of the comments being shared needs to be changed, the font is currently ridiculously small and hard to read (see screenshot in the About Us section). We want to be proud of these comments and reviews. The font needs to be larger and easier to read.
Giving Back page
The Giving Back page would provide information on fundraising with Poppin Joe’s.
The current fundraising page does have a fillable form, which we will continue to use on this page. However, we also will share more information on how fundraising works with Poppin Joe’s (like Uncle Dave’s).
The current fillable form needs to be improved. We also need to be consistent in our expectations for reply. In one place, we tell people we will reply“generally within 24 to 48 hours,”and in another, we say we will reply“usually within 36-48 hours). This is inconsistent and does not make us appear professional or trustworthy. Instead, we should say that we WILL reply within 48 hours. Be confident and professional.
Also on the giving back page, we will feature our support for the Troops. It is currently lost in a small area on the About Us page. On average, Americans are very patriotic. We want to appeal to this patriotism. We should have more detailed information on our support for the Troops, including pictures of care packages we have sent as well as pictures of the Troops overseas enjoying our kettle korn.
Photos page
The Photos page will have a slideshow of all the photos we want to share. I propose updating this often to stay relevant and show that we are still active. Currently, too many photos are scattered across all the website pages, making it cluttered and hard to scan. I want to limit the number of photos on the other pages and concentrate on having most of the photos on this page.
The best use of this page would be to link our Instagram account to it and post frequently on Instagram, with the photos being automatically posted to the slideshow on the Photos page of the website from there.
Contact Us page
The Contact Us page is where we provide all our contact information with clickable links for our emails.
The current page references completing the online contact form. However, there is not a form available. We need to correct this by including a fillable online contact form that the visitor can fill out so we can contact them.
Social Media Content Strategy
Social media is by far the most popular way small businesses advertise now with“70% of small businesses”using it for marketing (Rico, 2023). Rico also points out that 55% of consumers have used social media to discover a new brand or small business. These statistics are the prime example of why we must be constantly active and engaging on all our social media platforms.
We have 2,000 followers currently.
We are doing a fantastic job of frequently posting to our Facebook account, including posts about where we will be set up and about Joe and disability awareness.
Each post includes at least one photo, which is important when posting to social media. Posts with photos or videos are 81% more e ective when reaching new customers (Rico, 2023).
Very few of our recent posts have comments, but for those that do, we are not engaging or commenting back on them. We need to engage and be active with our followers.
The Instagram link on our Facebook page is to Joe’s personal Instagram. We need to correct this to link to Poppin Joe’s business Instagram account.
We currently have 78 followers on Instagram. We need to promote our Instagram more, as Instagram is the #1 social media site where people can find new products (Rico, 2023).
We have only posted 3 times total on Instagram, with the last post being in 2013.
We currently have 77 followers on Twitter.
Our last post was in 2021 and it was a post from Joe’s personal Instagram page. Prior to that, the last post was in 2018.
We need to be active on all our social media accounts on a regular basis. Customers will not follow or engage without something to engage with.
I suggest we start posting at these intervals (at a minimum):
o Facebook: twice a week
o Instagram: once a week, more often when we are at events
o Twitter: once a week
Other actions we need to take with social media:
o Follow other accounts on Twitter and Instagram.
o Respond to comments on any of our social media accounts.
o Respond quickly to DMs to any of our accounts.
Managing Our Website and Social Media
My job as Web Content Manager for Poppin Joe’s is to create and execute a content strategy that gives our customers what they want, when and where they want it.
As we continue to grow, the need may arise to add opportunities for volunteers or interns to help manage the website or social media accounts. This could be a good opportunity to allow other adults with disabilities to collaborate with us while learning skills they can use to grow their potential.
Information Re-Use
Our social media needs to be updated frequently but any content posted can be re-used across all social media channels.
Most of the information on our website will remain fixed and consistent. However, whatever information is updated on the website will also be shared on all our social media accounts.
Conclusion
While completing the previously provided website analysis and this content strategy, I have learned a lot about our company as well as discovered our website visitors’needs. When compared to the personas I created, there are several areas in which we can be better.
I look forward to your feedback. Please let me know if you have any questions about the content strategies for our website or social media.
I look forward to implementing this strategy and promoting future growth for Poppin Joe’s!
References
Kaley, Anna. (2022, November 13). Content Strategy 101. Nielsen Norman Group.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/content-strategy/
Vegh, Kristin. (2023, May 31). How a Competitor Analysis Can Help Boost Your Business. Simply Business.
https://www.simplybusiness.com/simply-u/business-competitor-analysis-guide/
Neilsberg Research. (2023, September 17). United States Population by Age.
https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-by-age/
Dam, Rikke Friis and Siang, Teo Yu. (2024, February 8). Personas – A Simple Introduction. Interaction Design Foundation.
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/personas-why-and-how-youshould-use-them
Rico, Audrey Rawnie. (2023, October 2). 20 Social Media Marketing Statistics to Power Your Strategy. Fit Small Business.
https://fitsmallbusiness.com/social-media-marketing-statistics/