What is a Content Strategy? And Do You Really Need One?

Where once a hastily written article might have caught the eye of your customers, today’s audiences are coming face-to-face with a landslide of diverse content. 

AI-generated snippets, interactive guides, thought leadership debates, scaling communities… Let’s be honest… things have gotten pretty noisy.

It can be hard, therefore, to know what actually needs to be done.

What’s worth your time?

And what does “good” look like?

In this article, we’re breaking apart what a content marketing strategy is, why it matters, and what the gold standard can deliver. Trying to figure out how to stay connected with your customers? Then keep reading.

We’ll answer: 

• What is a content strategy? And do you really need one?
• What should a content strategy include?
• Case study: who’s got it right?

Let’s start with the big one.

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What is a content strategy? And do you really need one?

Content marketing has evolved dramatically over the years. Today, it's a recognised discipline with the potential to fuel brand recognition, cement customer loyalty, and even drive revenue. But to do so effectively, your content needs a strategic approach that considers the goals of your business, the appetite of your customers, and the sky-high hurdles potentially lying in wait.

For companies looking to add content marketing to their arsenal, a content strategy is absolutely essential. This is one scenario where throwing stuff at the wall, and seeing if it sticks, isn’t necessarily the best approach. 

Why - you ask?

Well, let’s take just one form of content: blogs. According to research, an estimated 7.5 million blogs are published each day, piling on top of the already 600 million blogs that exist on the internet.

With that eye-watering figure firmly in mind, it is fair to wonder how a single article is read - let alone found by the right reader.

Fortunately, that’s where content marketing comes in. With a bespoke strategy in place, that blog will have the right topic, tone, and distribution, to land on the desk of those who need it most.

Pretty nifty, ey?

Your content marketing TLDR? You can’t please everybody, so you better make damn sure you please the right people.

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What should a content strategy include?

A content strategy - at its basic - should include: 

• Goals and Objectives: What do you want your content to achieve? Do you want to build brand awareness? Retain customers? Generate leads?
  
• Target Audience: Who is your content for? Which pain points do they experience that your content can uniquely ease?
  
• Content Types and Formats: What type of content does your target audience engage with most? And, based on your goals - which kind of content will bring you closer to your mission? For example, your audience might devour blogs - but when it comes to opening their wallets - perhaps it’s a deep-dive report that triggers a conversation?
  
• Content Distribution: Where does your audience spend most of their time? Which channels do they trust most? 

Beyond these foundations, your strategy will also want to consider things like:

• How are your competitors performing? What are they doing? What’s working - and what isn’t?
• How is your market evolving? And - crucially - how is the market of your end customer evolving?
• Which market trends have the potential to shift attitudes within your market? Are you prepared to ride that wave?
• What are your unique differentiators?
• What are the potential threats to your business? 

Once you’ve developed a strategy - backed by research, data, and industry analysis - you’ll be able to start creating a laser-focused content marketing that truly speaks the language of your customers. 

Let’s take a look at one example - often considered the gold standard when it comes to carefully considered content marketing. 

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HubSpot: High-value educational content, for an interminably curious audience

Founded in 2006, HubSpot is a stand-out CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform that provides software and tools for marketing, sales, customer service, and content management. Today, HubSpot serves 284, 000+ customers worldwide, including the likes of Headspace, Discord, and Yamaha.

When it came to developing its now impressive reputation, HubSpot focused on providing its users with valuable content that understood their needs, empowered them to take action, and eased their pains with unique-to-HubSpot material. This approach was so successful that HubSpot coined the now ubiquitous phrase - and technique - Inbound Marketing. 

This approach focused on attracting, engaging and delighting customers with helpful content - rather than out-of-place ads, or material that was “selling hard” before a customer was ready. This focus formed one of the core tenets of a functional content marketing strategy today: provide more than you take.

This approach led to HubSpot’s ecosystem of content marketing - all backed by a strategy with finely-tuned goals. Their successes came from:

• High-Quality Educational Content: From blogs to eBooks, to whitepapers, webinars, free courses, and more.
  
• SEO and Keyword Optimisation: HubSpot dominated their market, with in-depth and continuously evolving SEO research, alongside structured content design to improve their ranking on Google.
  
• Lead-Gen Through Gated Content: Free templates, guides, eBooks - you name it! HubSpot relied heavily on gated content to fill its pipeline without an overly “salesy” approach.
  
• Diverse Content Distribution: HubSpot met their users where they were - repurposing material into social posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, email marketing, free courses, and more!
  
• Data and Personalisation: HubSpot has a handy advantage here, as a CRM that can track user behaviour, divide customers into niche groups, and deliver those same groups with targeted context.
  
• Freemiums as Content: In addition to its value-led material, HubSpot went one step further, with free tools like its website grader and email marketing tools. This helped to broaden their pipeline to include free users who would later convert into paid.

This customer-focused, SEO-driven, education-first, and consistent-above-all approach combined into traffic, millions of keywords, and a market cap of $37 billion as of 2025. 

Did you know? HubSpot can do a lot more than track your customers, from pipeline automation and forecasting, to email tracking, sales automation, lead nurturing, campaign management, and much, much more. As official HubSpot partners, we can help you integrate the platform to ensure you’re getting the absolute most of the much-loved CRM. Head here to discover how.

Support with your content strategy

‍Winging it with content might’ve worked once, but as we've seen in today’s noisy world, a solid strategy is the real game-changer. The right approach will get your content in front of the right people - without the guesswork.

Ready to make your content work for you? Discover how we help B2B companies earn the spotlight.