How to Fill the Gaps: A Content Auditing Exercise

Is your team making content for your audience?

Have you ever been in a situation where you are scrolling through your team's social media posts, browsing the latest news articles, and you begin to ask yourself, “Who is this content actually for?" 

If you are not sure who the intended audience is, you’re not alone. Many communication teams fall into the trap of creating content because they think they should, not because they know exactly who needs it and when. This can result in a scattered approach that is confusing and difficult for your team to maintain. The end result then leaves your audience unsatisfied.

You can’t satisfy everyone with every piece of content

You have many audiences, and you cannot satisfy them all with every piece of content. Working in higher education means you have a lot of stakeholders to appeal to. Think about who interacts with your website: 

• Prospective undergraduate students
• Graduate program seekers
• Parents
• Alums
• Current students
• Donors
• Faculty
• Staff
• Community members
• High school counselors
• Research scientists

Each group has different needs, behaviors, and expectations. Check out our post on audience research for more on this subject.

When you try to make one piece of content work for everyone, you end up with bland, generic messaging that no one connects with. Your homepage feature image with vague copy about "excellence" and "research" is trying to speak to everyone and therefore is speaking to no one.

The good news is that you don't have to satisfy everyone at once. You just need to be strategic about who each piece of content is intended to serve.

Finding and filling the gaps your audience needs

Your goal as a communicator is to find and provide the information your audience needs. You can do this by identifying the gaps in your current content library.

• What questions are prospective students asking that you're not answering?
• Where are parents getting stuck in understanding your scholarship process?
• What information do transfer students need that's buried three clicks deep or doesn't exist at all?

These gaps are where you can find opportunities to plan for strategic new content. When you can anticipate what your audience needs before they even ask for it, you build trust and move them more smoothly through their journey.

But how do you know what questions to answer? You can't find the gaps until you understand the journey.

Every audience member has their own journey

A high school junior researching colleges takes a completely different journey than a working professional considering an online graduate program. A first-generation student navigates the application process differently from someone whose parents both attended your college. An international student faces unique challenges that domestic students typically don't encounter.

A customer journey map visualizes the path your audience takes from first discovery of a need, through awareness of your offerings, to enrollment (and beyond). It identifies the stages they move through, the questions they have at each stage, the emotions they experience, and the touchpoints where they interact with your program.

For a traditional undergraduate prospect, the journey might look something like:

• Awareness: "I need to start thinking about college." (high school student)
• Consideration: "What schools might be a good fit for me?" (researching multiple programs)
• Evaluation: "Is this the right school for my goals?" (comparing finalists, visiting campuses)
• Decision: "I'm ready to apply/enroll." (submitting applications, choosing from acceptances)
• Enrollment: "What do I need to do before I start?" (orientation, registration, housing)

But a graduate student's journey looks entirely different:

• Awareness: "I need additional credentials to advance my career."
• Consideration: "What programs align with my professional goals and schedule?"
• Evaluation: "Can I afford this? Will my employer support it? What do their assistantships look like? What's the return on investment?"
• Decision: "This program fits my life and career path."
• Enrollment: "How do I balance this with my job and family?"

Your content should meet them where they are

Once you've mapped out your audience journeys, you can see exactly where your content needs to connect with them. Now you can target content specifically for different stages in their journey.

Awareness stage content:

• Social media posts showcasing campus life and student stories
• Blog posts about choosing a college or deciding to pursue graduate education
• Video content that gives a feel for your campus and programs
• Content that answers "what should I look for in a university?"

Consideration stage content:

• Program-specific pages with clear descriptions
• Virtual tours and campus visit information, easy to find and sign up for
• Student testimonials organized by major or program
• Comparison content that helps them evaluate options

Evaluation stage content:

• Detailed financial aid, scholarship, and assistantship information
• Career outcomes and alum success stories
• Academic support services and resources
• "A day in the life" content specific to their intended major

Decision stage content:

• Application guides and deadline information
• Admitted student events and next steps
• Direct calls-to-action to apply or schedule a conversation

Enrollment stage content:

• Onboarding checklists and orientation schedules
• Housing and dining information
• Course registration guides
• Community-building content to get them excited

Each stage requires different content types, different messaging, and different calls to action. And that’s just for one audience!

How to find your gaps: the content audit

The good news is you probably already have pieces of this content created on your website! To find the gaps in your content, you need to audit what you already have. A content audit sounds intimidating, but it's really just a review of everything you're putting out into the world. 

Step 1: Inventory your content

Make a list of all your content assets. This includes:

• Website pages
• Blog posts
• Downloadable resources (guides, brochures, worksheets)
• Video content
• Events/workshops
• Podcasts or audio content

(P.S. the CALS/LAS web team can help procure your list of website pages.)

Step 2: Assign the audience it serves

For each piece of content, identify the audience it is intended for.

Be specific. Not "students," but:

• Prospective undergraduate students
• Current sophomores
• Parents of first-generation students

You might find that some content tries to serve multiple audiences. This may be a red flag, so review it thoroughly from each audience's perspective to make sure it's an effective communication tool. Some content may not seem to serve any of your listed audiences at all (an even bigger red flag); purge these from your website.

Step 3: Note where it fits in the journey

For each piece of content, identify where in the journey map it appears (awareness, consideration, evaluation, decision, enrollment).

• Is this Awareness Stage content that introduces your offering?
• Consideration Stage content that helps them research?
• Evaluation Stage content that addresses specific concerns?
• Decision Stage content that encourages action?
• Enrollment Stage content that prepares them for arrival?

Step 4: Note the gaps

Look at your audit and ask:

• Are there audiences you're not creating content for at all?
• Are there stages in the journey where you have almost no content?
• Are you creating tons of content for one stage while neglecting others?
• Are there questions your audience is asking that you're not answering? (To find out, check the Site Search section of your analytics report to see what is being searched for.)
• Are there gaps in how the content connects, disrupting the flow of the audience’s journey?

The gaps you find will become your content roadmap. Instead of guessing what to create next, you'll have a clear, strategic plan based on actual audience needs.

Next steps - start small

Start with one audience and one journey stage where you know there's a problem. 

If you are getting a lot of questions from parents about financial aid during campus visits, this may be a result of a gap in your evaluation-stage content for the parent audience. Create a comprehensive financial aid guide specifically for parents and see how it performs.

If you notice that transfer students are dropping off during the application process, that might indicate a gap in decision-stage content that specifically addresses their unique needs and concerns.

Once you start thinking in terms of audiences and journeys, content creation will shift from frantically producing more content to strategically filling the gaps that matter most to your audiences.