Having a knowledge base content strategy as part of your business operations is more important than ever. It is, in its simplest form, a proactive approach towards knowledge-sharing and self service support across many forms.
Developing a knowledge base content strategy can allow organizations to share information with stakeholders quickly and comprehensively and break away from traditional knowledge silos.
Leveraging the knowledge of your organization has tremendous benefits; it provides:
- faster access to information,
- higher customer satisfaction through self-service support,
- and scalability to keep up with business growth.
Crafting a knowledge base content strategy can be easier than ever if you follow the right steps!
Components of a Successful Knowledge Base Content Strategy
If you want to create a successful strategy for your knowledge base content, there are a few components that you should consider.
Establishing Goals and Objectives
Creating a helpful knowledge base for employees or customers is an essential part of a developing self service channels. Goals and objectives for these kind of platforms need to be established in order to most effectively provide helpful resources.
- For an internal knowledge base, helpful resources should be tailored to the everyday employee, providing guidance through high priority tasks while maintaining department specific information.
- On the other hand, an external knowledge base provides helpful insight into customer pain points and often makes the job of a customer service representative easier by quickly connecting them with helpful resources.
Setting up goals and objectives for both internal and external knowledge bases helps ensure that they support the respective team in their work tasks as efficiently as possible.
Identifying Target Audiences
Identifying a target audience is key when preparing a knowledge base content strategy. When done right, customer support teams can use a customer persona to create deeper customer relationships, build trust, and gain loyalty.
While both internal and external knowledge bases should be considered as part of the process, each customer type will have unique needs and require varying engagement levels.
Doing research on customer behavior and preferences can help identify who your buyer personas are in order to develop content that resonates with them more effectively.
By leveraging customer personas during the content creation process, you can ensure that the most pertinent and impactful information reaches its respective audience.
Measuring Success
When it comes to knowledge base articles, it's important to measure the impact and success of your resources. This means tracking metrics such as usage and engagement, as well as evaluating usability.
Tracking article performance helps to gauge efficacy, identify gaps or areas that need improvement, and inform strategy. By measuring knowledge base content, it becomes easier to understand how users interact with it since knowledge base articles are often used as users’ first point of reference for troubleshooting on their own.
Considering this data is an essential part of knowledge base management and we will be delving into more detail about how to do so in this article.
Developing Quality Content
Having a style guide specifically tailored to a knowledge base can be invaluable when it comes to producing quality content. It will ensure that the information being presented is conveyed in the most effective way, maximizing its usefulness for readers.
No matter how exciting or engaging the topic, if it’s not presented clearly and logically, your readers won’t be able to take advantage of the great content you’ve created.
Setting guidelines for different content forms makes it easier to maintain a consistent voice, as it helps keep writing uniform across writers and topics.
Having rules for article structure also helps by making sure information is always presented in a consistent format, making it easier for users to locate what they need quickly and accurately. And with clarity come accuracy, so readers can trust that any facts or figures provided in your knowledge base are correct.
Style guides can also speed up production by providing key rules and principles for content creators to follow.
Using Appropriate Platforms and Tools
Using knowledge base software is the most important part of staying on top of knowledge management. Not only does it provide structured access to knowledge but it also helps consolidate knowledge into one central location for easy sharing.
Implementing appropriate platforms and tools can help ensure knowledge remains easily discoverable and up-to-date through automation processes, tagging, and search filters.
Knowledge base software allows teams to set up and share knowledge within their organization so everyone has what they need, when they need it.
By equipping teams with a knowledge base system that is tailored to fit their specific needs, organizations empower them to become more informed, efficient and more effective decision makers.
Put knowledge to work
Knowledge base software for lightning-fast customer support and effortless self-service.
Trusted by 2,500+ companies
Types of Content to Include in a Knowledge Base Content Strategy
Creating a comprehensive knowledge base requires a thoughtful approach to choosing the best types of content and balancing different elements.
This section will explore some of the most important elements that should be included in your knowledge base content strategy.
From simple FAQs to more visual content, we'll discuss all the important forms of cohesive content that you'll need to include in your knowledge base for success.
Textual Content
When it comes to constructing your knowledge base content plan, self-service content should stand out as a priority. This refers to the resources such as how-to articles and FAQs that help provide users with self-support options rather than having to contact support teams personally.
By doing this, you can ensure an efficient and reliable function that requires minimal manpower from workers and provides quick answers to customers.
Not only does it make things easier for everyone involved but it can potentially drive down your costs associated with customer experience in the long term.
Visual Content
When creating a knowledge base content plan, it's a great idea to include visual elements such as videos and images.
Embedding helpful instructional videos into knowledge base articles allows users to quickly access solutions and can help break down complex topics into digestible chunks.
Visuals can make an article more engaging, and adding screenshots or illustrations helps to bring context to the words on the page. Images also provide an opportunity for branding your help center and putting your own unique stamp on knowledge base content.
Merging text with visuals is a great way to make customers feel comfortable navigating the knowledge base and will help them find what they're looking for more quickly while increasing engagement with the brand.
Measuring the Effectiveness of a Knowledge Base Content
Once you have a knowledge base content strategy in place, it's important to measure its effectiveness in order to ensure that your knowledge base is working as efficiently as possible.
Establishing Performance Metrics
Measuring the effectiveness of a knowledge base content is an important step creating for any customer support or self service resources. It allows you to track metrics and results, which can be a source of valuable insights that drive key decisions.
To truly make use of this data, organizations should establish performance metrics such as:
- the number of visitors,
- amount of time spent on each page
- and the rate of engagement with the content.
With these metrics, businesses are able to draw correlations between their knowledge base content efforts and their overall objectives in order to create better experiences for customers and improve their bottom line.
Tracking Progress
One way to track progress over time is to measure articles and how they map onto the pain points of your audience. When article ideas resonate with users or you see a spike in article viewership, it indicates that the article was successful.
This may offer insights into what kind of article ideas will work better for future publications, as well as whether changes should be made to article content.
Additionally, looking at comment threads or customer feedback surveys can help pinpoint which topics are driving engagement and customer satisfaction.
Utilizing Analytic Tools
Knowledge base solutions like KnowledgeBase are proving to be invaluable tools for companies, who want to organize knowledge in a way that is both intuitive and accessible.
As knowledge management becomes increasingly vital, insightful analytics become an important tool. Reporting features allow you to measure the effectiveness of knowledge base content, identify the most helpful articles and track user visits, so you can create content which is more effective.
Thankfully, KnowledgeBase has built-in features which help you gain insights quickly and a Google Analytics integration which makes it easier to track and use data about your content performance.
With these incredible insights in hand, knowledge base managers can truly maximize their content's potential by focusing on creating effective resources tailored to specific users' needs.
Put knowledge to work
Knowledge base software for lightning-fast customer support and effortless self-service.
Trusted by 2,500+ companies
Strategically Deliver Your Self Service Content
Creating an effective knowledge base content strategy is essential for any business. With the right knowledge base solution and a deep understanding of your user's needs, you can craft knowledge-rich resources that meet customer expectations and encourage engagement with the brand.
Measuring performance metrics, tracking progress and utilizing analytics tools are all vital steps in understanding how your help center resonates with customers and how to make it even better.
By following these best practices, knowledge base managers can create knowledge resources that are both invaluable to users and beneficial for businesses.
Good luck!
