Term of the Week: Message Architecture

Why does a content strategist need to know this?

A message architecture has an impact beyond editorial engagement:

For these activities, you need to grasp the purpose of your content. Should it inform? Entertain? Resolve a problem? Should it represent an authoritative brand or say the brand is approachable? Content articulates those differences with guidance from the message architecture.

Consider a stately financial institution that develops thought leadership through dense white papers with charts detailing ongoing research. Deft jargon conveys industry fluency while creating a distance between the organization and clients. They don’t serve everyone, and their clients pay a premium. Here’s their message architecture:

You can employ this message architecture throughout an editorial and structural engagement. Use it as a yardstick to conduct a qualitative analysis: does instructional copy communicate these points or just meet functional goals? With a content audit, use the message architecture in a gap analysis: where is it weak? Perhaps the institution communicates expertise, but misses the premium nature of the brand. As you establish style guidelines, consider how content communicates these themes. As you structure repeated content types, look to the message architecture to determine ancillary elements to communicate the brand. But the first step is your message architecture.