Why Content Needs a Strategy

Have you ever seen someone’s job title as a “Content Strategist” and thought about what they do?

It is exactly what it sounds like: a content strategist specializes in content strategy. It is not necessarily the person who creates the content, but the one who helps “organizations provide the right content, to the right people, at the right times, for the right reasons” (Casey, 2015).

“Content strategy defines content purpose, then guides planning for the creation, publication, and maintenance of that content.” – Casey, 2015

The Blueprint

Content strategy began as a practice focused on organizing information and supporting user understanding. The origin of this idea can be traced back to 1945 with the publishing of Vannevar Bush’s article, As We May Think, where he proposed the Memex, a device where an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility” (Bush, 1945). The technology was not available at the time, but the idea of strategically organizing a large body of information sparked innovation. (Bailie, 2020).

Over the next few years, companies, such as The Hughes Aircraft Company, developed their own processes to structure their content and workflow. Then, in 1980, the American National Standards Institute published the first working draft of the Standard Generalized Markup Language, allowing large amounts of information to be stored digitally and easily shared. Organization was further developed with the invention of Lotus, a software program that introduced context-sensitive help, broke up task-based topics, and let users press F1 for help. Software such as Adobe RoboHelp and MadCap Flare was introduced in 1992, providing content that users could reuse across platforms. (Bailie, 2020)

In 1998, companies began hiring content strategists, and the first content strategy book was released in 2002, which discussed multichannel publishing. The University of California, Berkeley operated a research center for document engineering that examined electronic publishing, business process analysis, and business informatics to ensure processes made sense to users. (Bailie, 2020)

With the development of the internet, software and strategies have evolved to improve content usability and management. Strategists began prioritizing user research in 2009 to make evidence-based decisions. These advancements have built on each other to shape what content strategy encompasses today. (Bailie, 2020)

The four quadrants of content strategy are:

Substance – what content should be produced
Structure – how the content is organized and displayed
Workflow – how the content flows through the organization
Governance – how the organization makes decisions about the content

(Casey, 2015)

Strategy Gives Purpose

Content strategy is necessary for a company to succeed in connecting with its intended audience. A business cannot just decide to make content and hope it sticks. A strategy ensures you understand your consumer and produce valuable content in a timely, budget-efficient way. (Casey, 2015)

When a content strategist begins their work, they audit the company’s current content and identify issues that could be improved. These issues become opportunities which are then presented to a company’s stakeholders by arguing:

The claims
The grounds of the argument supported by data
The warrant of why this is relevant
Further analysis backing this claim
Examples of similar situations
The rebuttal where you lay out the budget and risk of doing and not doing the work

This argument is how content strategists get companies to buy in to the changes they are proposing. (Casey, 2015)

Time and budget are the biggest factors considered when proposing any project. Is the estimated result worth spending time, money, and resources on? It is important to not only quantify the costs of completing the project, but also what it will cost in missed opportunities. (Casey, 2015)

After the client buys into the project, the strategist prepares by creating a detailed outline that clearly states the project goals, key milestones and timeline, expected deliverables, budget, tasks for each team member, the review process, and the communication plan. By clearly stating the strategy and process, it becomes easier to manage the workflow and track the project’s success.

Progress Never Stops

Content strategy is still evolving and will continue to evolve. AI technology continues to automate and increase efficiencies for many standard practices. It is integrated into software and can generate ideas, images, and distribute content (Morrish, 2026). Strategists also rely on AI to provide user insights and analyze data to optimize their content further.

At its core, content strategy “guides the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content” (Halvorson, n.d.). This is done by organization, optimization, and advancement. Even before the term “content strategy” existed, companies recognized the value of organization and ways to make their workflows more efficient.