Five Pillars Is Too Many
Five content pillars feels safe. It is the opposite of safe.
When I audit a marketing team's content strategy, I almost always find four or five "pillars" written down. Sometimes six. Each one gets equal weight in the calendar, equal time in meetings, equal expectation of return.
And none of them work.
Why more is less, in this case
A pillar is an investment decision. It says: we will concentrate effort here, and not there. Five pillars violate that definition. They become categories instead of choices.
The consequences are concrete:
No pillar gets the cadence required to build an audience.
Freelancers ping-pong between themes and never develop a tone of voice.
The monthly review becomes a collection of weak signals instead of one clear direction.
After six months, the team can't say what they're known for.
A marketing team with five pillars doesn't have a positioning. It has a spreadsheet.
Three works
Three pillars forces hierarchy. One dominant theme (40-50% of output), one supporting theme (30%), one experimental (20%). Anywhere outside that ratio, it breaks.
One dominant theme means that six months in, your audience associates you with that theme. That's what positioning is. Five-pillar companies don't have positioning. They have content categories.
How to choose the three
Not by asking what you'd like to be known for. By asking three concrete questions:
Where is your team's strongest internal expertise? The pillar where your team is strongest is the pillar you can sustain longest. Sustainability beats ambition.
Where is the competition thinnest? A pillar every competitor is also pushing won't differentiate you. Find the angle that's underclaimed.
Which pillar moves people toward buying? Brand pillars can support, but at least one of your three has to make a potential buyer think they know the answer to my problem.
Three pillars that score on those three questions = a working content strategy.
What about the pillars you cut?
Don't erase them. Park them. Make a separate list called consider later. But what goes into production runs through three. A team that wants to bring back the fourth or fifth pillar is a team that never actually made the call.
The hardest part
Cutting feels irresponsible. It feels like throwing away something that might have worked. That feeling is the signal that you're about to do strategy, because that's what strategy feels like to people who haven't done it before. Mostly loss.
What you get back, after you cut, your audience's attention on one clear story, is worth more than what you gave up.
What about employer branding?
I would say that the only exception to this rule would be employer branding. It doesn't have to be a pillar. It can be an always-on topic whenever it feels relevant.
So please, keep posting your behind-the-scenes photos, accomplishments of your colleagues and alpaca-walk-retreat collages.
You might ask
What if our offer is genuinely wide? Offer and pillars are different. A law firm can have ten services and three pillars (e.g., what we do differently, making complex matter readable, behind the practice). Pillars are angles, not product lines.
What if different audiences need different pillars? That's usually a sign you're trying to serve too many audiences at once. Choose a primary audience. Build three pillars for her. Secondary audiences get pillars later, after the first audience is working.
How often do you revisit the three? Once a year, I’d say. Or sooner, if you feel like the pillar’s story is told and is starting to feel repetitive.
