About the Marketing Platform Project

The State of Iowa has been building, with the help of an external vendor, a standardized enterprise Marketing Platform. 

The Iowa Marketing Platform is a custom Drupal CMS platform designed for organizations and state agencies that require a content model and design system different from the one provided by the DX platform. The websites involved in the Marketing Platform Project have unique branding and content needs that cannot be accommodated by the DX platform. The new platform will provide a customized content model and designs. Participating agencies will create engaging content and maintain distinct branding elements while using a shared, standardized system with a focus on accessibility, and plain language.

Project Goals

• Create a new content model and design system that allows sites to create compelling content and maintain distinct branding elements

• Develop needed features to benefit all agencies

• Build a stable, reliable platform to ease ongoing support and maintenance

• Supply a consistent, easy to use content entry interface

Platform Goals

• 10-15% - Reduction in Site Content

• 83% - Accessibility Score in Monsido

• 8th Grade - Reading Level

• 93% - Quality Rating in Monsido

Demo Dev Stand-Ups

On every third Thursday of the month at noon, Lullabot will hold “Demo Dev Stand-Ups.” In these stand-ups, Lullabot will  demo the progress and what is happening behind the scenes. Join the fun during your lunch hour to listen in and see what is going on. Program Manager Jessica Van Heuveln has sent a calendar invitation to all marketing stakeholders. If you missed the invitation or want to participate, please contact Jessica Van Heuveln.

Timeline

Marketing Platform Kickoff and Launch Timeline

Differences between DX and Marketing

Guidance to help Iowa stakeholders determine whether a site should be hosted on the DX platform or on the Marketing platform.

Schedule at a Glance

A week-by-week overview of what to expect as you prepare to bring your marketing site onto the Marketing Platform.

Pre-kickoff

Agencies will:

• Review project background and training material
  • About the Project
  • Accessibility and Inclusivity
• Review Monsido reports for your site and fix:
  • Spelling and grammatical errors
  • Broken links
  • Text links with “click here” language
• Unpublish any old or outdated content and documents on your existing website.
• Identify website roles.

Week 1

Design + Strategy Kickoff: A meeting led by Lullabot to provide details on the process, guardrails, and participation, metrics, and next steps to launch the marketing site.

Lullabot will:

• Deliver content inventory/audit spreadsheet and content audit guide.
• Deliver project checklist, which outlines agency next steps.

Agencies will:

• Start your content audit.

Week 2-3

Agencies will:

• Attend Navigation & Style Spectrum Workshop (60 minutes)
• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Continue working on content audit.

Lullabot will:

• Attend Navigation & Style Spectrum Workshop (60 minutes)
• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Begin building the content matrix, based on navigation we created in our workshop together. The content matrix is a spreadsheet that acts as a sitemap for your new site.

Week 3-4

Agencies will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Attend Design Review Meeting (Zoom Mocks) (60 Minutes)
• Continue working on content audit.

Lullabot will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Attend Design Review Meeting (Zoom Mocks) (60 Minutes)
• Continue building the content matrix.
• Deliver writing for the web guide, Iowa style guide, and website best practices.

Week 4-5

Agencies will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Attend Content Matrix Delivery Meeting (60 minutes)
• Continue working on the content audit and content development

Lullabot will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Attend Content Matrix Delivery Meeting (60 minutes)
• Deliver content type page tables

Week 5-6

Agencies will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Attend Design Review Meeting (Sample Pages) (60 Minutes)
• Continue working on the content audit and content development

Lullabot will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Attend Design Review Meeting (Sample Pages) (60 Minutes)

Week 6-10

Agencies will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)

Lullabot will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Design built in CMS

Week 10-12

Agencies will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Content development and content entry

Lullabot will:

• Attend Office Hours (30 minutes each week)
• Content development and content entry

Dom DoIT will:

• Content development and content entry

Launch Week

DOM DoIT will:

• Point your  domain to the new Pantheon site.
• Implement the redirect plan.
• Archive the original website. Site archives are decommissioned after 30 days. After this, you can access a public archive of your old site at Archive.org.