website content strategy - krista jacksonwebsite content strategy. krista ... so the website content...

Running head: WEBSITE CONTENT STRATEGY 1

Website Content Strategy

Krista Jackson

AET/552

December 14, 2015

Dr. Dennis Morrow

WEBSITE CONTENT STRATEGY 2

Abstract

Common knowledge suggests that most companies have a company website with their

information. The extent to the content that a website shares on their website are up to the

company and the designers. The website content can be detrimental to success in a company,

especially if the website is their main source to their product or service. SoundCloud is an

example of the website content being their main source of their product and services offered.

Each company focuses on their target audience when they are designing the website content, like

Coca-Cola, for instance, uses different websites for different countries in their language. The

content must show the objective and primary message the company is trying to convey to their

audience. If they consumer does not know the objective and primary message, then it will be

hard to figure out the website, and why the visitor should be on the website. The website content

focuses on their communication to whom, why, what, when, and where. Lastly, the website

communicates through their own style, approach, and tone to attract their target audience. The

content of each website will determine if the website is successful for the company.

Keywords: Coca-Cola, communication, Mental Floss, objective, primary message,

SoundCloud, target market, and website content.


Website Content Strategy

The content on a website is what will make a visitor stay on the website, and visit the

website more often. If a website wants to be effective, they need to know how to present their

image and content in a manner that gets the audience's attention. The strategy the company

chooses will determine how effective their website is for viewers. An effective website will

advertise their product or service well, but the content and how they present themselves will

determine their effectiveness. So, website content must be attractive and get the audience's

attention immediately when they go to the website. Coca-Cola, SoundCloud, and Mental Floss

all have interesting and different ways of attracting attention with their website content.

Coca-Cola

Target Market

The main target market for Coca-Cola is that they cater to business to consumer (B2C)

and business to business (B2B). Their market is worldwide and on their website an individual

can click any tab to show their website for another country in their language. They are a big

market with years of experience. Coca-Cola's target market extends in many directions across the

globe because of their website content. They target everyone in every demographic, and they do

not have a specific target market that they go after. The age range of individuals that drinks

Coca-Cola are ages 12 to 30 (Coca Cole targeting and positioning, 2012). They market globally,

so they respect and encourage diversity and different cultures. The rest of the demographics are

too similar to find more on their target market. They want to sell their product to everyone in

every country.

Objective


Coca-Cola’s website content shows they want visitors to see the history of their brand.

They want visitors involved when they go to their website, and their main objective is to get the

consumer to drink only Coca-Cola. They are a classic brand and enjoy brand loyalty because of

their long standing in history. Their website content shows that they want to keep visitors on

their website interested and interactive. The longer someone stays on the companies website they

will become more interested because of the content, brand, image and message of Coca-Cola.

They use music, videos, and many articles to keep visitors on their page. The more interested

people are in Coca-Cola, and then the more likely they are to drink their soda if offered a choice.

Primary Communication Message

Coca-Cola communicates their primary message to their audience that they are classic

and have been around for a long time. Their homepage has the message, “Coca-Cola Journey.

Refreshing the world, one story at a time.” (Coca-Cola Journey, 2015). Their history and length

of time making the sodas is an important aspect of their message. They are also showing how

they are global and diverse as a company for their customers everywhere. They promote

"happiness" and make it seem to like Coke brings people together and makes them happy (Coca-

Cola, 2015). They want loyal customers, and new customers to become loyal to their classic

soda.

Effectiveness and Justification

Coca-Cola’s website is effective in the sense of reaching their target market, objective,

and relates their primary message to customers with their website content. Coca-Cola markets

globally, and they have a section to pick what country they are in to see the website in their

language. The websites look a little different in style in each one, so the website content goes as

far as making sure they are marketing specifically for that country, language, and area. The


different websites show they are diverse and respect different cultures. Anyone can look at the

other websites, and the website will offer to translate the website text. They all lead to the same

message of happiness and history. All of the websites use text, images, and graphics effectively

to catch the consumer’s eyes. They use social media on all of the websites, and they do

sometimes differ on if they have the site. In the United States, they have all of the social media

sites, which are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google +, and Flicker (Coca-

Cola Journey, 2015). There is just a plethora of material to look at on their website, that a person

with a lot of time could get lost for hours for a few days. They have enough content, but it is all

organized to easy to get to any information. It was a surprising and impressive website, and it

was definitely effective in keeping their audience interacting and addicted to being on their

website.

Company Communication

Coca-Cola’s website content shows who, why, what, when, where, style, approach, and

tone of communication. The communication subject of “who” is the audience and stakeholders

who will be looking at the website for the information about Coca-Cola. The communication

subject of “why” is the purpose of the website, which is to advertise their long standing brand of

Coca-Cola. The communication subject of “what” is the website content that they present to

understand the "why" of the purpose of the website. The communication subject of “when” can

be when the website content was created, last updated, and daily or monthly changes they make

to the content. Coca-Cola is using “when” on their website by advertising the holidays. The

communication subject of “where” are the different channels you can reach their information.

The website content, social media sites, and other information are the “where” that Coca-Cola

uses. The communication subject of “style” is how they stylize their website content, logo,


message, photographs, and graphics. Coca-Cola uses the same style of text as the classic version

on their sodas on their website. Their text for their message on the website is more current than

their brand name. The style of the website makes it easy to navigate by the visitors. Their

photographs, logo, and graphics are stylized for each different country, and to attract their target

audience. Their style is what makes their website so successful. The communication subject of

“approach” is a direct approach to their audience with the website content and information. They

use an approach to reach audiences globally with their website, and they use social media,

television and word of mouth in their approach for their Coca-Cola brand. The communication

subject of “tone” is the personality, emotional appeal, and consistency in their website content.

Coca-Cola's personality and emotional appeal are the histories of the brand and their primary

message of happiness to their audience. Their tone is consistent throughout all of their website

content. Coca-Cola has a happy and inviting tone that still embraces history.

SoundCloud

Target Market

SoundCloud target markets are a business to consumer (B2C) and business to individual

(B2I) with their company. Their target market is also worldwide in the music industry.

Individuals want to download their personal music they made, and consumers want to listen to

the personal music. Ages 16 to 64 seem to be their consumer age range, but there were not very

many specifics on their statistics (Keane, 2015). The website look is more for the age range of 13

to 45 because of the page layout of their design. SoundCloud's website has photos of younger

individuals in this age range along with popular music trending right now. The photo had people

of different ethnicities, and this shows that they encourage diversity. They want to target anyone

who is a music listener or makes music digitally.


Objective

SoundCloud's objective is to get consumers to use their streaming digital music website

to listen to music. Another objective of their website content is for artists anywhere to upload

their own music. The place to type in an artist is right at the beginning to the homepage because

their objective is to get visitors to their website to look through the music. Once they have a

visitor looking at artists and music, then the visitor is more likely to stay on the page longer. The

aspect of the product being free adds to the idea of helping visitors stay on their website.

SoundCloud just needs their potential customers to start interaction with the website to get them

interested and knowledgeable about their product.


SoundCloud communicates their primary message to their customers that they offer free

music and downloading music to their website. Their homepage tells consumers, “Find the music

you love. Discover new tracks. Connect directly with your favorite artists.” (SoundCloud, 2015).

They want to offer free music to customers, and a free place for customers to download their

music. The people that are downloading their own music get a chance to get their music out

there. The people who listen to music for free give the downloading artists a better chance of

getting their music popular. They help artists and consumers with digital music.


SoundCloud’s website is effective for the product of offering digital music for free and

downloading their own music as artists. They attract their target market; accomplish the

objective and primary message in their website content. To be honest, they could use a better

webpage and navigation, but it is still effective for their audience. They keep their website

simple, so they are not bombarding new visitors to their website with too much text and


information at once. They change their homepage photo at the top often, and they show the

diversity in users and artists in the photographs. They use text, a search bar, and photos

effectively to attract attention with their website content. They advertise their app that you can

download on your phone, but they do not advertise their social media websites on their

homepage. The customer may have to have an account to see the social media they use for their

content and advertising. They look like they are advertising to the younger generation with their

look and simplicity, and their target audience is in that range, so the website content reaching

their target audience in an effective manner. They may need to change some parts of their page

so that they can get more visitors’ attention, but overall the website content is effective for their

audience.


SoundCloud’s website content shows who, why, what, when, where, style, approach, and

tone of communication. The communication topic of “who” are the audience and the

stakeholders of SoundCloud, and their website content addresses the information, message, and

their target audience. The communication topic of “why” is the purpose of the website, which is

to offer free music and a place to download music artists made to get viewers. The

communication topic of “what” is the content they place in the website, so the “who” can

understand “why” they have this website. The communication topic of “when” relates to when

SoundCloud was created, updated for the year, and daily or monthly changes they make to the

website content. They use the communication of “when” for the photo on the homepage by

changing the photo often. The communication topic of “where” are the channels they take for

website content. “Where” SoundCloud’s content is located is on their website and social media

websites they use for advertisements that are not visible. "Where" the content is on each page,


and how it is used for the organization; helps the navigation for the audience. The

communication subject of “style” is how they stylize their website content, logo, company name,

message, photographs, and graphics. SoundCloud’s name and logo are simple, the text is easy to

read, and the logo is a simple graphic of a cloud. Their message and photographs for the target

audience are stylized in a pop culture way for their website content. The communication topic of

“approach” is a direct approach for website content and information on their music platform.

They use the website, social media, and word of mouth approach to communicate with their

target audience. The communication topic of “tone” is the personality, emotional appeal, and

consistency in their website content. SoundCloud's personality is for the younger generations,

and they have an emotional appeal for artists to have a place for audiences everywhere to listen

to the music they have made. They are consistent and simple with the message in their website

content. SoundCloud's tone is confident and helpful with their primary message.

Mental Floss

Target Market

Mental Floss has a target market of business to consumer (B2C) and business to business

(B2B) because it is a magazine. They market their magazine to consumers to read, and

businesses to buy and sell their magazine. On their website, they have a target market globally

between the ages of 18 to 44 as their market (mentalfloss.com, 2015). Their website looks like it

was made for the younger generation, and people who are active in social media. Their target

market is people who want to read interesting and new facts, and attain random knowledge of

something that interests them.

Objective


Mental Floss's objective is to get consumers to buy their magazine and to get customers

to visit their website for articles to read. They want to market to more intelligent individuals that

want to read articles that are informative and fun at the same time. The homepage has so many

articles to click on that once you get to the website they want you addicted. Once the consumer

starts clicking the articles they will want to click on more. Mental Floss sets their website up

where individuals will stay on their page longer. The visitor is more likely to come back to

Mental Floss's website because they want to read more articles and random knowledge. They

keep their audience wondering what content will be on the website the next day.


Mental Floss’s primary communication message is that they are a magazine, and they

want customers to read their magazine and visit their website. The about section of the website

explains that Mental Floss is more of an intelligent magazine. They try to give articles to

exercise the customer’s left and right brain (Mental Floss Inc., 2015). The difference of their

magazine is the articles they present, and this is how they want to reach their customers as a

primary message.


Mental Floss is effective in the sense of meeting their target audience, objective, and

primary message with their website content. It is not completely obvious at the first look over

that the website is for a magazine, but looking in the about section helps someone understand

their concept better. Other than that issue; the rest of the website is effective for their audience.

The use of photos and text to click on articles helps them target their younger audience because

of the visuals and the interesting article. The page looking full and slightly chaotic with text is

helpful in a way for their audience because of Facebook. Facebook has a lot of articles to click


on that bring you to websites to keep clicking on different articles to read. They use social media

on their homepage, and they include Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The numerous articles on

a wide range of topics help to keep people interested and interactive with the website. Visitors

are more likely to stay on the page longer because of the way they set up their content. It is a

website meant to be addicting with knowledge for the left and right brain.


Mental Floss’s website content shows who, why, what, when, where, style, approach, and

tone of communication. The communication sense of “who” are their audience and stakeholders

for the website content. The communication sense of “why” is the purpose of the website and

website content presented to the “whom.” Mental Floss wants to show “why”, which is they

want to offer a magazine and website with interesting articles for their audience. Their website

content addresses the objective and message to the “whom” of the target audience. The

communication sense of “what” the content of website magazine articles is, so the "who" can

understand the "why." The communication sense of “when” relates to when Mental Floss was

created, updated for the year, and content changes daily or monthly for current events. The

communication sense of “where” is the location of the website content, information, and current

events of Mental Floss. They use their website and social media for their content, and the social

media websites they offer are on the website homepage. The communication subject of “style”

is how they stylize their website content, logo, message, photographs, and graphics. The name is

the logo in a way, and it is stylized to get the audience's attention with the first word bolded. The

content, navigation areas and photographs are random and all over the place. It looks

disorganized in an organized manner; just like their audience they attract with intelligence. Their

minds usually work in a similar manner, so it keeps them interested in the erratic style of articles.


The communication sense of “approach” is a direct approach to their audience with their website

content and information in their magazine. They use the approach of social media, website, and

word of mouth to attract their target market. The communication sense of “tone” is the

personality, emotional appeal, and consistency in their website content. The personality of the

website is scattered just like intelligent people, and an emotional appeal of knowing more

information leading to feeling smarter. They are consistent with their tone in random articles to

read on their website. Mental Floss's tone is erratic and informative, so it makes the information

interesting to the audience.

Conclusion

Website content is an important aspect of having a successful website. Coca-Cola,

SoundCloud, and Mental Floss all have their different approaches to how they deliver their

primary message and objectives to their target market. Their communication styles each differ

making them each successful in their own way. The website content is pertinent to each company

that has a website because it determines their traffic to their website. The differences each

company has does help to communicate their website content.


References

Coca Cola targeting and positioning. (2012, November 16). Retrieved from Blogspot:

http://softdrinkcolawar.blogspot.com/2012/12/coca-cola-targeting-and-positioning.html

Coca-Cola. (2015). Retrieved from Coca-Cola: http://us.coca-cola.com/home/#

Coca-Cola Journey. (2015). Retrieved from Coca-Cola: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/

Keane, J. (2015, February 17). Is SoundCloud becoming more popular than Spotify? Retrieved

from Paste: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/02/is-soundclous-more-

popular-than-spotify.html

Mental Floss Inc. (2015). About us. Retrieved from Mental Floss: http://mentalfloss.com/about-

us

Mental Floss Inc. (2015). Mental Floss. Retrieved from Mental Floss: http://mentalfloss.com/

mentalfloss.com. (2015). Retrieved from quantcast: https://www.quantcast.com/mentalfloss.com

SoundCloud. (2015). Retrieved from SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/

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