A content strategy is a simple plan that answers three questions: who are we talking to, what are we going to say, and what do we want them to do. Without one you end up deciding what to post at nine in the evening, which is how accounts drift into posting whatever is easiest. With one, every post has a job, and you can tell at the end of the month whether it did it.
Content pillars, in plain words
Pillars are just the three or four subjects you post about, chosen on purpose. For a dental clinic they might be treatments explained simply, patient results, the team and the place, and answers to the questions people ring up and ask.
The point of pillars is that you never again stare at a blank calendar. You are not inventing a topic, you are picking which of your four subjects it is this week. It also stops the account becoming all one thing, which is what happens when every post is an offer and people tune out.
Every post needs a job
There are really only four jobs a post can do: get reach, build trust, teach something, or ask for the sale. A healthy account does all four in rotation.
Most struggling accounts do only one. Either everything is a sales post, in which case engagement dies, or nothing is, in which case you have a nice audience that never buys. Balance is the strategy.
What you get from us
Audience definition
Not demographics for the sake of it. What they are actually worried about, and what would make them choose you.
Your pillars
Three or four subjects with examples, so anybody on your team could pick up the plan and use it.
A monthly calendar
What goes out, when, on which platform, and what each post is for.
Hooks and angles
A bank of opening lines and post ideas so nobody starts from a blank page.
What we measure
The two or three numbers that actually matter for your goal, and what we change if they do not move.
Strategy before spending
Running Meta ads at an account with no strategy is pouring money into a leaky bucket. People click the advert, look at your profile, find it confusing or quiet, and leave. The strategy is what makes the profile worth landing on.
Common questions
How long does building a strategy take?
Usually one to two weeks, including the free audit and a conversation with you, because the useful detail lives in your head and not in your analytics.
Can I use the strategy myself?
Yes. It is written so you or your own team can run it. Plenty of clients take the plan and execute it in house, and that is a perfectly good outcome.
How often should the strategy change?
Review it every quarter. Small adjustments monthly based on what performed, bigger changes when your offer or your market changes. Rewriting it every month means it was never a strategy.
Do I need a strategy for every platform?
No. Pick the one or two platforms where your customers actually are and do those properly. Being mediocre on five platforms is worse than being good on one.
What the finished strategy looks like
It is a short document, not a deck designed to justify a fee. Usually five or six pages, and every page is meant to be used rather than admired.
Page one is who we are talking to and what they are worried about. Page two is your pillars with real examples. Page three is the monthly calendar. Page four is a bank of hooks and post ideas so nobody ever starts from a blank page. Page five is what we measure and what we will change if it does not move.
You can hand that to a freelancer, to a member of your team, or back to us. It is written to be readable by somebody who has never worked in marketing.
The mistake almost everybody makes
Most businesses build a strategy around what they want to say. The ones that work build it around what the customer wants to know.
Those are rarely the same thing. A clinic wants to talk about its new equipment. The patient wants to know whether it will hurt and what it costs. A restaurant wants to talk about its philosophy. The diner wants to see the food and know whether they can get a table on Friday.
Answering the customer’s question is less flattering and far more effective. It also makes the content easier to produce, because you already know the answers. You give them on the phone every day.
Get the plan first
We build the strategy from your free audit, so you can see the thinking before you commit to anything. Read how we work.