What is a Content Strategy and How to Create One

A content strategy tells you what topics you should focus on, what formats are ideal for your audience, and which channels will yield the best ROI. 

For example, for a company selling accounting software, their core topics can be related to finance management, cost tracking, and resource optimization. If they are targeting B2B enterprises, the long-form articles for their website and short-form videos for social media may be the right format and channels for them.

Content strategies are not frameworks. Pillar-cluster, topic matrix, funnel-based (TOFU-MOFU-BOFU), etc., are content marketing frameworks. Unfortunately, many misconstrue them as strategies, which they are not.

You can leverage any framework to your advantage to execute a content strategy. It is true that some frameworks are more advantageous than others depending on the circumstance, but you can mix and match.

In the rest of this chapter, let’s look at how you can build a content strategy centered around your brand.

Find your brand’s current positioning

Some topics, formats, and channels are prioritized over others when determining a content marketing strategy, depending when where your business currently stands. If you just entered the market, you should give more importance to long-form articles and actionable social media content.

If you are mid-level, you can invest in digital PR to boost your credibility. Large, established enterprises can focus on thought leadership and premium educational content to expand their brand’s identity within their industry.

The easiest way to know your company’s current positioning is to look at the volume and quality of customers you have. Sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. 

There’s nothing wrong with having a handful of customers because every business starts from somewhere, and every business goes through rough phases. But you need to acknowledge it to ensure your content strategy kicks off right.

Here’s the general rule of thumb:

• Just starting out: Website content and fundamental social media posts.

• A few customers: Long-form articles and diverse social media content (infographic, text-based, etc.)

• Mid-level: Videos and thought leadership blogging

• Established: Invest in digital academies and educational hubs

It also depends on how you much resources you have. If you have substantial time or money, it’s better to go all-in on content because it’s money in the bank. Not all of them will perform the way you would like, but they will elevate your execution, which is more valuable down the line.

Start with an article-based strategy

Long-form articles are foundational for your brand’s marketing strategy. These assets require you to do in-depth research and demonstrate your knowledge. The associated article-writing process is also beneficial for improving your understanding of your own offerings, business, and audience.

Moreover, detailed blog posts often generate other creatives, such as checklists, infographics, or images. They can be distributed across the web to maximize content ROI.

The conventional article writing strategy for companies starts with identifying 2-3 core topics for your brand and generating titles for each topic. Then, you discuss internally to prioritize the lot and start picking them off one by one.

The agile approach is slightly different. It requires you to write what you want to tell your audience, usually in one sentence, and create topics around it.

For example, if you want to say “Our product is the best in X niche,” then you can generate titles by asking investigative questions. This will generate multiple great topic ideas immediately.

Of course, the statements might be complicated depending on what you wish to say, but the approach remains the same. Let’s say you are selling accounting software. 

You might want to say, “Accounting software is key for maintaining compliance during auditing.” Here, too, you can ask investigative questions like “how an accounting software do that” or “how do I use accounting software to do that” to generate engaging title suggestions.

Distribute through backlinks and social media

Backlinks are critical to improve search visibility. This includes traditional search engines, such as Google and Bing, and AI-powered search tools, such as Perplexity and ChatGPT. Note that they are often paid, so you have to budget for them accordingly.

Common ways of getting backlinks include:

• Guest post contributions

• Educational/thought leadership pieces for respectable publications

• Third-party listicles

• Branded communities and forums

Ensure that each backlink is contextual for delivering an optimal content experience to your readers. It means the article it is mentioned in, the sentences around the link, the anchor text, and, most importantly, the publication. All of them should be absolutely relevant to your brand.

Next is social media. These are now becoming a staple because social media posts, whether they are from YouTube (yes, it is a social media platform), LinkedIn, X, or Instagram, are getting indexed.

It is better to start with one platform with the basics. My personal recommendation to most B2B brands is to post one text-based post per day for each working day on LinkedIn. This will help you improve faster while getting some traction even at the start. 

Obviously, you can put your content distribution strategy on steroids by investing in videos and whatnot. Long-form articles can serve as idea centers for videos, allowing you to build on existing foundations. You can also create short videos, infographics, webinars, or do a podcast.

However, only do what you can do consistently. Distribution is content. Literally. You promote existing content pieces, such as product or service pages, through content, such as articles, short videos, LinkedIn posts, X threads, guest posts, and infographics.

Without consistency, none of the distribution channels or methods will yield good results, both in the short and long term. It is better to stick with the basics, such as articles, link building, and text-based LinkedIn content, and do them well than do the fancy stuff sporadically.

Measure brand alignment, output, and iteration

One of the biggest mistakes marketers and content creators make is measuring their campaign’s efficacy via content performance metrics. The number of views, likes, comments, and shares isn’t the right indicator of marketing success.

While it is true that content pieces that perform well drive more value for the organization, it doesn’t mean that the ones that perform moderately or even poorly don’t give any returns.

In some cases, content pieces that perform moderately earn you more and better leads because they resonate with the right folks.

Content marketing teams, therefore, should focus on the following metrics:

• Brand alignment: Is the content piece centered around your brand? Does it elevate your credibility? This is the most important of the three. If an article isn’t related to your business’ core offering or values, it doesn’t matter how viral it goes.

• Output: How much volume are you putting out in a given time? It is a tangible metric that reflects the efficiency of your content operations. The more, the better. Especially if you are starting out, because it will help you test the waters. Quality will come with time.

• Iteration: What did you learn from the previous campaign? Were there any roadblocks? How will you tackle them? No content strategy is perfect. At the same time, they must get progressively better in terms of output and brand alignment.

I focus on the above three indicators because those are the things you can control. Additionally, it sets up a system that naturally enhances your content quality over time. A focus on brand alignment is key to learning how your products or services stand out. A higher output is pivotal for understanding the audience better. And iteration ensures consistent progress.

Wrapping up: The timeline for your content strategy

One month. This includes everything from ideation to distribution and analysis. The timescale is appropriate to assess how well or poorly your execution went. Try to publish 4-5 long-form articles and 2-3 LinkedIn posts for each article in a month. Anything after that is a bonus.

Note that link building takes time. Collaborating with publishers to get your content and links approved can take from weeks to months. Hence, treat this as an ongoing effort.

Always spend the last day or two analyzing how the month’s execution went. Again, focus on the controllables. The results will eventually come if you constantly iterate while maintaining consistent volume.

The improvements, in many cases, will be minor. It might be adding or removing a small step in your creative process. It could be elevating how you validate content ideas. Perhaps you have discovered another peculiarity about your offerings, which uncovers new topics.

As long as these tweaks are in the right direction, you are good to go.

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Next Chapter: Content Topics That Move the Marketing Needle

Previous Chapter: Content Marketing Challenges for Lean and Agile Teams

Index (with Prologue): Content Marketing 101: For Lean and Agile Teams