Content Marketing, Layered Messaging, and Web Writing

CSD’s website is the source of truth, or anchor, behind our brand and all our communications campaigns. It is the source families use to find bus routes, check school calendars, register for school, apply for special programs, check their children’s grades and assignments, learn about important dates, sign up for parent-teacher conferences, and find contact information for their children’s teachers. Without our family of websites, we couldn’t adequately advertise job openings or meet our legal obligation to post annual budgets, and Board of Education and School Community Council agendas and minutes. But it has many parts, and to understand how the departmental web pages are meant to function, it's important to understand the bigger picture of our communication efforts.

marketing-funnel.png

Content Marketing Funnel

  1. AWARENESS - Ads, web stories, news coverage, short videos, social media posts, fliers, posters.
  2. CONSIDERATION - Video tutorials, student success stories, program or employee spotlights, landing page.
  3. CONVERSION - Application forms, enrollment/registration portals, events and workshops.
  4. LOYALTY / ADVOCACY - Student/employee testimonials, influencer social media posts, contests, parent newsletters.

Layered Messaging

  • INTERNAL: Notify the Board, Directors/Coordinators, Principals and employees/Front Desk personnel.
  • EXTERNAL: Skylert/Peachjar to students/families, publish story at canyonsdistrict.org and decide if needs to be pushed to school sites.
  • AMPLIFY: Pitch to media, amplify on social media, ads, insertion in municipal newsletters
  • PRINT: CSD2U, postcards, flyers, posters
  • OTHER: Events, school marquees, e-letters, PA announcements, podcast, CSDTV

Golden Rules of Web Writing

  • BRANDING: What is the first thing you want your visitors to see? What sets you apart, makes your department tick?

  • KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE:  Are you a department that mostly serves employees or are you public-facing, or both?

  • KEEP IT SIMPLE, SCANNABLE:  Put your most important information up top, keep it short (paragraphs should be 70 words or less), and use bullets, lists, subheadings, and callout boxes to break up content, and guide the reader to what’s important. Use common language, nix the jargon, and use an active voice targeted at 7th-9th-grade reading.

  • LAYER CONTENT: Use hyperlinks to allow the visitor to expand on their knowledge with a deeper dive to content elsewhere on the web.