Communicating Audit Results Effectively
When it comes to finalizing and handing off the results of an audit, a poor handoff can lead to poor outcomes. You want the hard work you put into the audit to actually lead to content improvements—not sit on a (virtual) shelf, unusable and unused.
As you emerge from the depths of your content audit, armed with insightful findings and strategic recommendations, the journey is far from over. Now, your task is to present this wealth of information in a way that not only captures attention but sparks meaningful action. This handoff of results is a crucial step, where analysis becomes actionable insights. Analysis is critical, but if you can’t communicate your results in a clear and useful way, it isn’t enough.
Analyzing Results, Finding Patterns
After days, weeks, or even months of meticulous content evaluation, your audit has likely unearthed specific, tactical fixes for individual pages. Before plunging into the minutiae, though, take a step back. Look beyond the individual pages; sort, filter, and identify patterns.
For example, you may find that content for a specific audience is outdated or certain steps in the customer journey lack adequate content. Uncover clusters of issues by sorting and filtering your audit worksheet based on your criteria to matrix the results and find these clusters. Starting with this broader perspective provides meaningful insights for long-term content and process changes and you can address clusters collectively to streamline the fix process. See this previous post on discovering and using patterns in your audits.
Once thematic findings are extracted, sort and filter your recommendations. Make sure you understand the specific criteria leading to each recommendation so that you can accurately interpret the implications, assess the level of effort required for revisions, and prioritize based on qualitative issues against business goals or user needs. Categorize fixes, estimate the time required, and identify potential systemic problems. This analysis not only guides revision work but also uncovers areas needing additional attention, such as training and documentation.
Armed with these thematic findings, the next step is to articulate your discoveries to diverse audiences of stakeholders. Crafting a narrative that connects qualitative insights to objective recommendations is crucial. Describe the impact of your findings, linking observations to measurable business impacts.
Communicating Your Audit
By the end of your audit, you've become the content expert, armed with a comprehensive strategy for future actions. If you're the site's business owner, implementation may be straightforward. However, presenting to an audience of stakeholders who may not have the full context and haven’t been directly involved demands a strategic approach.
The challenge lies in distilling your audit data into a compelling narrative that not only informs but persuades. In effect, you need a content strategy for your audit materials that takes into account the project goals, the context and resulting analysis, and the audience (the why, what, and who).
Your content strategy for presenting the audit findings should include:
Identify your audience, context, and message: Tailor your message to your audience's needs and the context they have for the project and outcomes. Stakeholders across different functions have distinct needs. Executives require a higher-level understanding, while the editorial team needs page-by-page details. Identifying these nuances and communicating them appropriately to the audience ensures that your message will land effectively.
Choose an effective delivery mechanism: Opt for a presentation style that resonates with your audience, considering factors such as their familiarity with the project and their preferred mode of information consumption.
Present in a timely way for decision-making: Present your findings in a timely manner, aligning with project decision-making processes. Time sensitivity ensures that insights remain relevant and actionable. Delaying the communication of your results may not only dilute the urgency of your recommendations, but also increases the likelihood that some details may be lost, particularly if any of the team members are no longer available to draw upon for their contributions to the effort.
Focus on persuasion: A content audit yields a plethora of information, not all equally persuasive. When presenting findings with the aim of driving change, carefully select data points that resonate with your audience. Showcase recommendations that save money, drive sales, or enhance internal efficiencies. Use compelling visuals, including numbers, charts, and diagrams, to emphasize key points.
Articulate the significance of your findings, showing why specific issues matter and linking your observations to measurable business impacts. Balance your narrative by highlighting both strengths and weaknesses, and keep in mind that gentle guidance tends to elicit a more positive response from stakeholders.
Prioritize action: Break down your recommendations into short-term wins and long-term fixes, creating a roadmap for improvement. This not only maintains momentum but also engages stakeholders in the improvement process. Align your results with business priorities, aligning your content strategy with overarching goals, to reinforce the case for necessary changes and to guide prioritization.
Presenting the Findings
Final presentation of audit results may take different forms depending on the business and team. If it’s a small team that has been involved and informed from the outset of the project, it may not require any sort of formal presentation. A consultant handing off a project to a large team will likely do a summary presentation and a more expansive document that provides the full narrative of the project, with an executive summary, discussion of any overall themes that emerged, and any specific observations related to content performance against business and user goals as well as any section- or content-type specific recommendations.
A content audit presentation is a narrative that unveils your findings, balancing summary and detail. Understanding your presentation's goal is crucial for sharing information effectively. Tailor your approach based on your audience's background and familiarity with the project.
Executive sponsors: Summarize findings, outline the project scope, and provide general findings and recommendations. Include any information that will aid decision making about next steps, particularly if they require budget.
Broader team: Offer more detailed insights, catering to business owners, user experience and content teams, and the technical team. Your audit will have discovered both strengths and weaknesses. Acknowledge positives along with challenges. Help the teams understand the implications of the findings both for their immediate action and the longer term.
Oral storytelling sparks conversation, while a written version provides a deeper dive for your audience. Your presentation should have a clear goal, whether it is initiating a project, sparking dialogue, or obtaining resources.
Elements of an Audit Delivery
Your audit spreadsheet is a valuable source of detailed information to demonstrate what was done and support your analysis. But it is not on its own a hand-off. While great for data collection, spreadsheets can overwhelm and obscure your message. Instead, opt for a written audit document enriched with illustrations and examples, supplemented by a slide presentation; provide your spreadsheet as backup documentation. In your written report and slide presentation, use data visualizations, such as pie charts, if possible, to enhance comprehension and transform information into analysis.
In a typical audit project, I hand off:
Audit report: Your content audit document serves as a comprehensive summary and guide, starting with an overview of the project and addressing the objectives, methodology, general findings, section-by-section assessment, recommendations organized by audience, section, or content type, and a proposed plan. Regardless of the site section or owner, aggregate content types for an apples-to-apples comparison. An audit is nearly always an exercise in crossing and connecting those organizational “silos,” and the presentation of your results can be illuminating for those content teams accustomed only to focusing on their own silo.
Decision-making presentation: Distribute the document beforehand, ensuring attendees read and come prepared for a detailed discussion. Your presentation should include a clear call to action, specifying what is expected in terms of time and resources. Note that despite the popularity of heavily-designed, minimally-worded slide decks, keep in mind that as a leave-behind, they still need to convey information and serve as a later reference. If you simply must have the slides themselves be minimalistic, put the details in the notes and provide those as well.
Recommendations and next steps: Summarize recommendations, in both your audit report and your presentation, making them measurable and time-based. Provide budget estimates, propose milestones, and outline decisions that will need to be made and by whom.
Supporting materials: Here is where your spreadsheet comes into play. Hand off your complete audit sheet, including tabs explaining the audit’s scope, methodology, criteria and their definitions, and a guide to the meaning of the various columns of data. This sheet will be the reference for the analysis that you summarized in your report and presentation and generally becomes the actual worksheet for the tracking of the audit fixes.
Audit Presentation Essentials
Provide context and explain methodology
Summarize the current state
Describe the future state
Analyze the gap between current and desired states
Discuss risks and opportunities
Provide next steps and recommendations
Planning for Long-Term Change
To ensure that your audit results and the improvements that you recommend aren’t just a one-off fix, plan for long-term change by instituting content governance as an ongoing process. The content audit isn't a snapshot but a starting point for a continuous journey. What you and your team have learned about the content and how it is created and maintained should lead to recommendations not just for the short-term content fixes but modifications to your tools, processes, and standards to ensure that you are addressing the overarching quality issues. Part of your governance plan is ideally a rolling inventory and audit, conducted at a meaningful interval based on content types and lifecycles, as part of a feedback loop for ongoing improvement.
Summary
Delivering your audit is an art that goes beyond data collection and analysis. It involves presenting your findings in a compelling manner, supported by well-thought-out recommendations. Carefully select and present data, keeping your audience and desired outcomes in mind.
Mastering the art of presenting your audit ensures that your efforts culminate in tangible actions and improvements. With strategic communication, you can prove the value of your content audit and pave the way for subsequent enhancement projects.