From silos to strategy

Home Our Work Case Studies From silos to strategy

Summary

Created a content strategy that helps teams produce audience-centered content supporting both patient needs and organizational goals
Positioned the content and website as a transactional engine designed to increase conversions using the latest in search optimization techniques
Uncovered a gap in workflows and shared documentation, leading to a documented, robust content strategy and more integrated, sophisticated workflows across content creation, publication, and syndication that drive efficiency and ROI

Sound familiar?

Your organization produces mountains of content, but teams are creating it from different perspectives. Marketing focuses on one goal. News and communications focus on another. Digital teams have their own priorities. Internal stakeholders’ demands are constant and without strategy.

Teams have content demands and are trying to fulfill their roles in aligning business strategy to content creation and management. How does the PR team work alongside the digital team? How should user experience support the content journey? How does marketing ensure service lines are being supported by video, graphics, and content marketing channels?

That was the challenge facing UC Davis Health. Talented teams were producing quality content, but the organization had outgrown its existing framework — which was working well but had started to plateau as potential patients’ information consumption habits changed. They needed a unified content strategy that connected audience needs, content planning, and business goals across a growing, complex operation.

Aha Media helped us build integrated workflows for content creation, publication, and syndication. Across our team, we are now more aligned and working from the same strategy, which has made a real difference in how efficiently we operate – and more importantly, in the results we are seeing from our content.

Steve Telliano

Assistant Vice Chancellor

Results

The goal was to uncover what was working and what could be improved. Beginning with a robust discovery, Aha Media Group delivered a comprehensive editorial toolkit designed to help every content creator at UC Davis Health produce strategic, consistent, and audience-focused content.

What Aha Media provided:

Content journey maps identifying audience questions, motivations, and content needs across the decision-making process
Organization-wide voice-and-tone guidelines to ensure consistency across channels and content creators
Content format recommendations tailored to audience preferences and communication goals

The result was a shared content strategy framework that empowers teams to produce content more efficiently, improve audience relevance, and connect content efforts to organizational objectives.

How we got there

Together, UC Davis Health and Aha Media built an editorial toolkit designed for daily use, including audience insights, content planning guidance, messaging frameworks, and content format recommendations.

This project moved in 3 phases.

Phase 1 was an extensive discovery that included:

Stakeholder interviews to uncover gaps in content planning, audience understanding, and strategic alignment across departments
Analysis of SEO, AI-assisted search, and social media performance
Competitive analysis of similar organizations

In phase 2, we developed a comprehensive editorial toolkit featuring 5 audience personas, content journey maps, and voice-and-tone standards to align content creation across teams.

In phase 3, we designed a workflow that bridged siloes, defined structured meeting cadences, and provided documentation for marketers to discuss strategy with internal stakeholders.

Content journey mapping

UC Davis Health already had content personas. For every persona, we developed content journey maps that documented audience questions, decision-making behaviors, and content needs across awareness, consideration, and action stages. These maps gave content creators clear guidelines for delivering the right information at the right time.

Workflow and governance

Swimlanes, meeting cadences, measurement tools, and documentation were necessary artifacts to ensure this engagement was successful. Structure creates freedom; clear, documented guidance gives the team the necessary tools to accomplish strategic comms and content work.

Ready to knock down some walls?

Executive teams need discovery, analysis, and a business case to develop a strategic roadmap for content strategy and workflow. By engaging in discovery, Aha Media delivered just that to UC Davis Health, laying a foundation for organizational alignment and change.

Once content teams share a clear understanding of their audiences, messaging, and goals, creating strategic content becomes more efficient and effective. A documented content strategy and workflow enable your organization to produce consistent, audience-centered content that supports measurable business outcomes.

Let’s talk