A content strategy decides whose problem you will help solve, what you can contribute and how that work supports the business. Use the free template below before filling a publication calendar. Copy the fields into your own document and replace the prompts with decisions your team can act on.
Free content strategy template
Business objective and planning period: Priority audience and buying or usage situation: Reader problem we will address: Evidence that the problem exists: Our useful contribution or distinctive evidence: Topics included: Topics deliberately excluded: Formats and why they fit the task: Distribution routes we can actually maintain: Desired reader action: Success measure and data source: Available hours, budget and required expertise: Production owner and factual reviewer: Maintenance owner and update triggers: Review date and decision to be made:
Keep uncertain statements visibly separate from evidence. “Customers struggle to choose a plan” is an assumption until you can point to enquiries, interviews or behaviour that supports it. You can still investigate an assumption; do not present it to the team as an established fact.
A filled example for a bookkeeping software company
The following is a fictional example, not a reported customer result.
| Field | Example decision |
|---|---|
| Objective | Help new trial users complete their first invoice during an eight-week pilot. |
| Audience | Solo service businesses using the product for the first time. |
| Problem evidence | Review onboarding questions and trial-user interviews before confirming the scope. |
| Contribution | Annotated product screenshots and a worked fictional invoice. |
| Scope | Creating, checking and sending an invoice in this product; no personalised tax advice. |
| Distribution | A help article linked from onboarding and relevant support replies. |
| Measurement | First-invoice completion and related support questions, using consistent event definitions. |
| Review decision | Keep, revise or replace the explanation based on observed friction and feedback. |
Turn the strategy into a small set of briefs
In the example, the first brief is an illustrated invoice walkthrough. A second might answer a recurring question about correcting a draft. Neither brief should become a general article about entrepreneurship merely because that topic is popular. Check whether an existing help page can be improved before creating another URL.
For each brief, identify the missing information, the evidence or demonstration required and the person who can verify it. Then estimate the work. If available expertise is the constraint, reduce the initial scope rather than scheduling articles that nobody can review.
Choose an evaluation that matches the purpose
Compare equivalent groups and periods where possible, and record other changes such as a new onboarding screen. If invoice completion improves after both the article and the product interface change, the article alone cannot receive all the credit. Qualitative feedback can still reveal which explanation needs work.
Review the strategy when the audience, offer or evidence changes. Review an individual article when its instructions become inaccurate. These are different jobs. A stable strategy does not mean every old page remains correct.
Once the decisions are clear, organise production with the blog planning workflow and estimate resources with the content marketing cost example.
