Content Strategy for ICES Foundation
My experience with Fundación ICES and its digital content strategy was one of the most comprehensive and engaging – and oddly entertaining – that I’ve undertaken in recent years. It involved applying concepts derived from social communication, journalism, and digital marketing, in a sort of combination with techniques and skills from the IT world, which posed a huge challenge and at the same time a great opportunity.
Like any content strategy, I began the journey at the beginning: getting to know the brand. Fundación ICES is an institution that assists local governments from a technical perspective. It helps them set objectives, design public policies, train their agents, and leaders. But it is also an institution that creates and sells online courses for individuals interested in the subject matter.
This dual profile required a series of important definitions that can only be made with the structural basis provided by research and diagnosis. This first step was very important because it allowed us to conclude that Fundación ICES needed a Comprehensive Communication Plan, a new Visual Identity Manual, a Voice and Tone Manual (where the brand’s discourse is outlined), and digital presence, which translated into the development of a website and the relaunch of its virtual campus.
To achieve results in each of these areas, I had to delve into the brand and its interests, objectives, and possibilities. This served to present an integrative solution that could respond to the generation of content for its various needs.
These are some of the points that were part of the strategy and that I presented as part of the solution to their different objectives:
- Identifying brand-associated concepts.
- Defining target audiences.
- Crafting overarching messages for each audience.
- Introducing new social media formats.
- Creating and curating website content (with SEO implementations).
- Designing graphical assets.
- Implementing paid media campaigns for course sales.
- Establishing a content calendar.
- Developing tutorials to facilitate online course purchases.
The experience was extremely enriching for several reasons. Firstly, it involved the use of tools such as Meta Ads, Meta Suite, Adobe Suite, MailRelay, and WordPress for the creation and implementation of the final pieces derived from the content strategy. Secondly, we were able to observe and measure the real impact it had on its users and on the brands associated with Fundación ICES, which was enormously rewarding.