Strategy is bottomless; it is always changing dependent on goals, new stakeholders, market forces, and other miscellaneous items. As web strategists, we need to be able to understand the environment in which strategy develops.
Links from E8: The Flexible Strategist
Hey guys, here are some of the links that we talked about in Episode 8: The Flexible Strategist (Strategy Talk with Matt O’Bryant)
- Hot Jar: https://www.hotjar.com/ – heat maps, analytics, conversion funnels
- Treejack by Optimal Workshop: https://www.optimalworkshop.com/treejack – information architecture testing
- 20 Second gut test: https://clearleft.com/posts/354 – getting a feel for your client’s design aesthetics.
Enjoy!
Book Recommendation for Episode 7
In an upcoming episode – E7: The Art of Asking Good Questions, I reference a book called Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo. It lists out all these different great exercises you can do with your clients, but they also talk about asking questions. You can find the book here – Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, RuleBreakers, and ChangeMakers. But you can also check out their website, which is another awesome resource here – gamestorming.com
People are great pattern makers and great pattern users, but they are horrible pattern breakers. Get your clients outside their everyday environments and everyday thinking – check out this book.
The 3am Writer
In follow up of the April 5th episode with Aileen McDonough (it’s an awesome episode, btw!), I wanted to share a few things. Aileen is the owner of 3amwriters.com where she consults on content strategy, creates website content, and more. But here is a book recommendation that she gave:
The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz – a simple strategy to grow a remarkable business in any field.
I also want to share a tip that Aileen shared in the podcast episode:
The Rule of 3 – 3 is the magic number in content. In any list of things, 3 things are the best number of things to have for power, rhythm, humor, emotion. Think about phrases you know that are 3 things (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness). Also, any topic can yield 3 different angles. Drill down into your idea, blog post, or topic.
Stay tuned for more episodes
Strategic Account Plan Template
A strategic account plan template for all the Account Managers out there. This will help in understanding accounts in more detail and finding better ways to serve them. Feel free to use this as a guide to shape better client accounts.