The Three Questions Every Content Strategy Answers

When I ask a marketing team what their content strategy is, nine out of ten answers come back as a list of channels and formats. LinkedIn, blog, newsletter, video.

That isn't a strategy. That's a tooling list.

A working content strategy answers three questions. In this order:

1. What are we saying?

The substantive claim. Not what you produce, what you assert.

"We are the physiotherapist for runners with injuries." That's a claim. "We are a physiotherapy practice in Ghent." That's a listing.

Most marketing teams skip this question. They go straight to question two or three. The content that follows is competent and unmemorable, relevant to no one in particular.

To have a claim is to say something a reasonable person could disagree with. If nobody could disagree with your claim, you don't have one.

2. To who?

Specific enough that you could picture the person.

"Runners between 40 and 60 going for their third marathon and trying to avoid the mistake of the first two", that's an audience. "Active people", that's wishful thinking.

The narrower the audience, the sharper the content can be. Wide audiences produce wide content, and wide content persuades no one in particular.

3. Why?

Not why we make content. The real question: why would this specific person listen to us in particular?

The answer determines tone, format, and channel. An audience that reads you because they're hunting for a concrete solution to a specific problem behaves differently than an audience that wants to be entertained or inspired.

Why this order matters

Starting at question two or three, which is what most teams do, produces content that's well-targeted but says nothing. Starting at question one forces a position. Only once the position is fixed can you tell who it's relevant to. Only once you know that, can you tell how to deliver it.

What an evening of work can do

One evening, with your marketing team and a whiteboard, on those three questions, that can be a transformation. Not because the answers are hard. Because most teams have never spoken them out loud.

Everything that comes after, channels, formats, calendar, is execution. Important, but secondary.

You might ask

What if our answer to question one changes?

Then it wasn't a claim. It was an assumption. A real claim shifts at most once a year. If it's shifting more often, the previous version wasn't considered enough.

Does the claim need to be controversial?

Not controversial. Sharp enough to exclude someone. A claim that's attractive to everyone isn't a claim.

How long does it take to answer the three?

Half a day together, then three or four weeks to let it settle and test. A team that thinks it's done within one meeting hasn't pushed hard enough.