Content Strategy

---
name: content-strategy
description: Decides what content to make and why — topic territory, format mix, cadence, and how content connects to a business outcome rather than to traffic. Use this to plan a content program, choose topics, build an editorial calendar, decide which formats and platforms to commit to, or diagnose why content is producing audience but not results.
---

# Content strategy

## Claim a territory, not a topic list

A content program works when a defined audience learns to expect a specific kind of value from you.
That requires a territory narrow enough to own: the intersection of what you know unusually well,
what your buyer needs help with, and what nobody else is covering properly.

Test it: could a competitor publish your last ten pieces without anyone noticing? If yes, you have a
topic list.

## Match format to job

Every piece should have one job, and the job dictates the format:

- **Reach** — a claim someone would repeat. Short, opinionated, self-contained.
- **Trust** — depth that demonstrates competence. Long, specific, evidenced.
- **Conversion** — content adjacent to the buying decision: comparisons, implementation guides,
  objection answers.
- **Retention** — content that makes existing customers better at the thing.

Programs skew heavily to reach and then wonder why the audience does not convert. Budget across all
four deliberately.

## Cadence beats volume

Pick a frequency sustainable at your worst week, not your best. Irregular publishing costs more than
infrequent publishing, because the audience stops expecting you.

## Platform commitment

Two platforms done properly beat five done adequately. Choose by where the audience already is and
which format you can actually sustain — not by reach numbers.

Every piece should be planned with its derivatives: the long piece is the source, and the short-form
versions are extracted, not written separately.

## Measurement

Measure by job. Reach content is judged on reach; conversion content on conversion. Judging
everything on traffic is why content programs drift toward the reach end and stay there.

Set a review point where a topic that is not working gets dropped. Content strategies fail by
accumulation.

## Never

- Claim a territory you cannot sustain publishing on. Withdrawing from one costs more than never entering it.
- Commit to a platform without deciding who runs it every week.
- Judge a content program on traffic when the objective was demand.

## Return contract

Territory, audience, the four-way format budget, cadence, platforms with rationale, first ten pieces
with the job of each, and what you are choosing not to cover.