[Content-first] Solutions

Content Strategy

Before your organization gets all excited about producing and distributing content, lay down some ground rules, create a playbook and invest in your content strategy. Buzz-word aside, content strategy shapes digital and print solutions by sharpening your brand messaging, reducing iteration cycles and streamlining content-related costs.

Sustainable Content

Many digital content projects are based on grandiose content plans that are not sustainable. What is your true content budget? How many stakeholders will need to approve content? Does your site infrastructure support a steady stream of new content, and what is your strategy to make sure the best-performing stories aren’t buried? This is where a sustainable content strategy begins.

Content Management

If you’re running a content-heavy project, hiring, managing and paying writers will take more time than your boss will probably imagine. Our content editors are a rare breed of editor and cross-discipline project manager.

Here’s a peek at their to-do list:

• Manage budgets, editorial calendars, style guides
• Manage writers, edits, and stakeholder approvals
• Collaborate with design team and developers
• CMS upload

Content Development

When it comes to content development, no subject is beyond our Rolodex. We’ve spent the past 15 years managing writers, from bestselling authors to technical journalists to teen magazine superstars. We also have award-winning videographers and producers on speed-dial voice command. Forget missed deadlines and off-strategy story submissions—our content is ready to launch and built to last.

Our brand stories come in the form of:

• High-end corporate editorial
• Technical writing
• Web copywriting
• Video & multimedia series

Design

You can have Gore Vidal write all your content, but if that content lands on a site or newsletter with shoddy visual identity or a wonky user experience, your brand is going to take a hit. We design for the content instead of stuffing it in as an afterthought. This translates to a better experience for your user and measurable results for you.

Web Design

We design to be useable, remarkable and memorable. The proper marriage of design techniques and web technologies creates an amazing user experience. 960 grids, font marriages, tooltips, illustrations and animations are all a part of our pixellriffic arsenal.

Print Design

Print still holds a place near and dear to our hearts, and we have awards to prove it. While some agencies are web-only shops, we believe some stories are better told on paper. Magazine redesigns are our main focus, but we occasionally take on extra-special print collateral projects.

Print-to-Web Integration

The days of repeating your print content verbatim online are o-v-a. Today’s users expect a different content experience online, and publishers are racing to catch up. We build comprehensive strategies to promote content/advertising/actions across these mediums. In addition to full-boat redesigns, our editorial team can improve editorial synergy, increase subscriptions and deliver a healthy print-to-web experience.

Development

We dig deep into CMSs, create standards-compliant CSS/HTML/PHP and Javascript and when things get heavy we .net. From functional specs to prototypes, we build [content-first] digital solutions.

iPad/iPhone Development

Today’s development cycle starts with mobile—not the web. As mobile apps become the standard for content consumption, the challenge becomes a balance of restraint and functionality—a balancing act we embrace wholeheartedly. We work in Monotouch and C#.

Front-end Coding

We create standards-compliant CSS, HTML, PHP, Javascript and all the other wonderfulness that makes the web spin true. (Just don’t ask us to support IE6.) Our [content-first] approach pays special attention to forms, reusable templates and editable CMS sections. Change is constant—we make it easy.

Application Development

Websites and applications are very different animals. Applications require a solid understanding of how hardware capabilities work in harmony with innovative software techniques. Platform agnostic, performance tuned. Our core competencies reside in .net, SQL and C#.

CMS Implementation

Sites without a CMS are like cars without wheels. Our content strategy and code team can perform a full CMS assessment and implementation across all platforms. (But boy do we love WordPress.)

Consulting

Not everyone is ready to launch into a full gut/rehab and not everyone needs to. We’ll help you identify what’s working, what’s broken and outline a plan to fix it. We’ll also share best practices for change management and get the process rolling. All in manageable 20-hour chunklets.

Customer Experience Review

Our strategy and design teams will deliver a comprehensive review with a fresh, outside perspective. With our Customer Experience Review, you’ll get a business assessment, content strategy and new wireframes with attributed documentation. Usually a 4–5 week engagement.

Content & Site Review

A full content strategy and site review will arm you with clear usability improvements. We will deliver a deep content strategy assessment and comprehensive site improvement suggestions. Usually a 2-week engagement.

Site Review

This one-day content strategy and site review will get you started on your redesign. We will deliver a site overview—a great primer when deciding on whether to re-design or start from scratch. 8 hours.

Tailored Workshops/Speaking

We welcome the opportunity to share everything we’ve learned through energetic, tactile workshops and presentations. Eat Media Principal Ian Alexander will keep your audience awake and taking notes.

Topic include:

• Everything I Know About Content Strategy I Learned from Hip-Hop
• Everyone’s a Publisher and Now I’m Scared
• And plenty more