Content strategy: the questions we get asked most

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. The questions about content strategy that come up most often on our calls.

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

Do we need to care about this?

Content is usually the reason launches slip. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets.

How do we know it is working?

Less content, kept current, beats more that goes stale. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

What this looks like day to day

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about content strategy before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Less content, kept current, beats more that goes stale — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.