Published January 29, 2025

There are many ways to execute content on behalf of people and brands. If I were to visualize all those ways, it'd be an overly busy infographic. It'd probably leave you feeling like this.

I don't like feeling like that. One way to combat that feeling is to apply structure — not in a way that restricts you but in a way that sets you free. Constraints increase innovation and creativity. There's a reason they're sometimes called "beautiful."

So, we applied some structure around what should be in a good content strategy and here’s what we discovered.

➡️ There are table stakes in any content strategy. These include things like your ideal customer and the channels via which you will reach and engage those customers.

➡️ And then there are the elements that do the hard work of setting your band apart. The hero in this pod is your brand’s (in this case an executive is a brand, too!) core beliefs.

Let’s start with the table stakes. These can be bucketed into three at a high level.

The Table Stakes in Any Content Strategy

Your ideal customer and what your content should achieve with them. Get specific here. We like to ask the question: who do you want to be a hero to and for what? It sometimes makes introverted clients uncomfortable, but that’s ok.

For example, at Carve, we don’t define our target on a vague notion of any potential organization that has the budget to do PR. We develop content that helps the in-house marketing and PR person (with an emphasis on growth-stage B2B and B2C companies) demonstrate their value, get better at their jobs, or think about something differently. The ultimate goal is to reinforce Carve as an expert, relatable, and trustworthy partner.

It’s okay if others are engaging, too – the potential recruits, other agency players. A rising tide lifts all boats and you end up in the position of leader versus follower.

Just make sure that the content you’re creating targets the ideal reader. Ask yourself:

What do they want to learn or solve instead of what do we want to talk about?
What do you want your core target audience to think of when they think of you?
How will your audience understand you “get” them?

That's why so many good content ideas are generated from interactions with customers. If one has a question or POV, they're probably not the only one with the same thought. Find ways to address those topics publicly and build dialogue.

Your anchor topics and how you can slice and dice them. Anchor topics are the two-to-four topics you want to own in the market. I’ll admit, “topics” is a boring word. It's meant to be. It’s the stuff that doesn’t change and that’s helpful to stay focused and honest.

Here are Carve’s Anchor Topics. We’d approach these topics broadly, and also narrow them down.

Let's take Sustainable PR as an example. It’s a term we coined for an always-on approach to PR that focuses on the times between the tentpoles to drive opportunities in the absence of news. We incorporate the term in a lot of what we produce. There’s a reason it’s a leading traffic driver to our site.

We might create an initial “definitive guide” post and then write a follow up on industry awards or the perfect media brief. We might interview a journalist on a LinkedIn Live about their media relations tips and tricks, explore all the ways content and PR teams should collaborate to create opportunities, or post a funny meme about following up with the media.

Think of each content pillar as the center of its galaxy, with planets big and small surrounding it, representing all the possible ways to cover the topic. This approach allows you to surround the topic from different angles and helps with organic search.

Just make sure you're prioritizing editorial SEO. Instead of writing to a keyword, write for your ideal reader and optimize your work after the final draft. The Google and AI gods will thank you for creating useful instead of copycat content – until there’s another tech disruption.

Your channels and consistency across them. Overall, we recommend focusing on a few anchor channels, making sure all of them have some form of original content (nothing should be a distribution channel only), and spreading out their frequency so that it’s doable and effective.

Here’s how we think through channels and frequency deeper:

Choose Anchor Channels: You need at least one channel that allows you to develop ideas over time. Social should be always on to appease the algorithms and reinforce messages; blogs should be less frequent because they should be focused on long form POV. Also, make sure you are building an email list through at least one channel. You don’t want to be at the mercy of the platforms.
Consistent Quality Over Frequency. What’s the point of frequent content if it’s frequently subpar? I respect John Bonini’s recent take on this. AI is owning the “how to” content landscape. Sure you can do it quickly, but so what? What will it get you? Moving forward, quality is going to be more and more about “how you” content – your approach, your experiences, your observations, your data/insights, etc.
Effort vs Payoff: Resources are limited so what’s going to have the most impact and how can AI help? Don’t join the hot-new-channel bandwagon unless you have a great reason to or an idea of how you’ll attack it, including what you’ll need to eliminate from your current content workload if resources are limited.
Seasonality/Timeliness: What are your big franchise moments throughout the year and how should you surround them? One social media post isn’t enough if you have a new proprietary research study or conference you’re hosting. Those sorts of initiatives require a separate strategy and workflow.
Multimedia is a Must: Experiment with formats. One idea may be repurposed several ways – a blog can be three social posts and an infographic, or one appearance on a panel can lead to written Q&As with the other panelists and a short video highlighting the event takeaways. One-time-use only content is an inefficient use of resources.
Build on What Works: Launch something small, and grow from there if it works. For example, we started a How’d You Get That Hit video series on Carve’s LinkedIn feed. We went behind the scenes on how we landed a big media hit. Video views were encouraging so we created a separate LinkedIn multimedia newsletter dedicated to it.

PRO TIP: You can read more content frequency thought processes in this Content Marketing Institute article that included excerpts from my conversation with Ann Gynn.

Through it all value consistency. We've found that clients often think of content as a campaign with a beginning and end or a stop-gap measure between other initiatives. The reality is that content is a way of doing business. If you can't do it consistently, then you probably shouldn't be doing it at all.

At the same time, the goal isn't to "churn out" content. It's to connect with your core target audience in a way that leads to awareness and a desired action or opinion – even if they don’t become customers right away. They may down the line, or they may influence someone that does. And, yes, you need some level of repetition to build that awareness.

A recent Wynter survey showed that mental availability is the foundation of many purchase decisions, with 79% of B2B buyers mentioning the importance of “brand fame” in their product shortlisting process. I know this particular study is focused on B2B but the sentiment is universal. A quick read of Byron Sharp’s most bookmarked points about brand salience will prove this.

You need to stay in front of your buyers when they’re out market, so that when they’re in market, you make that list.

Core Brand Beliefs Set You Apart

Fact: All the anchoring and organization in the world doesn’t make your brand interesting. What does is a POV. And you need to document that POV in your content strategy.

We refer to it as “core beliefs.” Core beliefs are overarching statements that articulate the way you approach your business and/or a better way forward for your industry. They show that you have a good reason for existing because you offer something thoughtful and useful.

To be worth capturing in a strategy, core brand beliefs should be:

Specific – Is it tangible enough to strike a chord or are you being vague?
Unwavering – Does your core audience know exactly where you stand on the issue?
Unique – Can your core competition authentically say the same thing?
Defendable – Can you engage in a lively conversation on the topic, including examples of when your organization has shown off this core brand belief?
Relevant to your core target audience or your company values. For it to be a core belief of your business, it needs to have the potential to impact the business in a positive way.
Externally focused – Core brand beliefs aren’t a time to say how awesome you are.

Below, I’ve shown how we think through these elements through the lens of one of Carve’s core beliefs:

Carve Core Brand Beliefs: 📣 Opportunities are greater than media placements. 📣

Specific – This statement is specific to media placements and also provocative. Should a PR agency really admit that anything is more important than coverage?

Unwavering – We are taking a stand. The truth is without opportunities, you’ll never have placements. And when you think of placements as opportunities instead of one-and-done pieces of coverage, you open the door to more in the future. That could be more coverage with the same reporter, the chance to take part in a panel discussion being moderated by the reporter, or even taking that same coverage to secure opportunities in other non-competitive outlets.
Unique – Our core competition might be able to say the same thing but by the time they get around to it we would’ve surrounded the topic so they’d be playing catch up.
Defendable – We have plenty of examples showing how we’ve turned one placement into multiple opportunities, and thinking around how to structure your organization and processes to capture those opportunities.
Relevant to your core target audience (or your company values). The idea of opportunities over placements gives clients a peak under the tent on how we approach our business. It’s not a more, more, more coverage mentality. It’s thoughtful, and shows we think, care, and look at the big picture.

Externally focused – “Nobody gets you covered like Carve” isn’t a core belief. It’s an unsubstantiated pat on the back.

So, if you’re charged with developing a content strategy, how do you nail down your organization's core brand beliefs? A lot of this has to do with being voraciously curious.

Listen, read, and absorb. If it’s a core belief, there’s a good chance you’re not making it up from scratch. It already lives in some shape or form in executive memos, decks, campaigns, and more. Train yourself to spot these when you hear them. If it’s repeated often or sounds “catchy,” it’s worth paying attention to. Run the statement by the six criteria above to see if it passes the core belief test.
Don’t neglect what others say about your brand or exec, too. External statements can be very powerful since they already come with a level of credibility, and the person that said it could even be considered for a next-gen media ambassador partnership.

Interview the right internal execs. Maybe one statement just made it shy of passing all six of the criteria. Dig in on that in your next conversation with leadership and try to get some answers…or ask questions that get to other core beliefs. Study ways to ask questions so that they’ll get to a POV instead of just corporate messaging. There is a big difference between those two, and to the people you’re trying to influence that difference will be blatant.
Suggest new ways of expressing popular ideas. You are in marketing, so it probably means you have a creative eye! Maybe you’ve been drawn to an idea you’ve heard but not the way it’s been delivered? Workshop it with your team and see if you can get to a better place with it. And then run it by the decision-makers to get their take.

PRO TIP: Many of the ideas in our How to Be and Expert Ghostwriter article – from being a thought partner to connecting the dots – will be helpful in identifying core brand beliefs, too.

You aren’t meant to have many core brand beliefs. Three to seven is the right amount. Add them to your content strategy, write them on your white-erase board, and save them to your Evernote notebook. Use them, test them, and extrapolate on them in your content.

Also, check them periodically. While I was writing this article I realized some of Carve’s documented core brand beliefs didn’t fit the criteria I outlined above so I edited some and deleted others. And this again is why writing is thinking. It’s been proven again and again. And that’s one of my personal core beliefs.

Content Strategy: The Table Stakes and the Core Beliefs