3 Unique Content Strategy Examples

• Admin

Over the years, I’ve created content strategies for companies like Google, Algolia, DocSend, and many more. No matter how big the company or how complicated its product, the content strategy always boiled down to answering three straightforward questions. These questions are adapted from the legendary book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. They’re designed to: identify the problem that needs solving; surface any unique strengths you can use in your strategy; and pair your problem with the right type of content for the job

1. What challenges do you want to overcome?

Most companies have the same core problem: they need more customers, and they need more money from those customers. But every company is unique, and solving that problem usually requires overcoming a host of more specific challenges, like: Building a sales pipeline from scratch. Many newer companies turn to content to build demand for their product when there wasn’t demand before. Stopping reliance on advertising. It’s common for businesses to rely on paid advertising as their main source of customers, but at a certain point, it starts becoming too expensive to maintain. Getting more sales from existing traffic. In other cases, companies might generate plenty of traffic but struggle to convert those visitors into paying customers. Reducing customer churn. Some companies have plenty of visitors and leads, but struggle to keep people around once they become customers. Each of these challenges (and many others) can be helped by content. Crucially, the more specific you are with your diagnosis of your challenges, the easier it becomes to work out a solution.

What’s the difference between the Gemini apps and Gemini models?

Google, proving once again that it lacks a knack for branding, didn’t make it clear from the outset that Gemini is separate and distinct from the Gemini apps on the web and mobile (formerly Bard). The Gemini apps are clients that connect to various Gemini models — Gemini Ultra (with Gemini Advanced, see below) and Gemini Pro so far — and layer chatbot-like interfaces on top. Think of them as front ends for Google’s generative AI, analogous to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude family of apps.

2. What leverage can you exploit?

The best content strategies include leverage: your company’s secret weapon, something that makes content easier to create, or helps it perform better. Virtually every company has some type of leverage to use: Unique data. Many companies have access to unique data from their users or products. Personal brands. Others have the benefit of well-known founders or team members with big social media followings. Team expertise and skills. Some teams have unique experiences that can be turned into unique content (like our very own Patrick Stox, a.k.a. Mr Technical SEO). Network of experts. If you’re lucky to know lots of smart and brilliant people, you can include their experiences and perspectives throughout your content (like First Round Review, and their articles penned by seasoned startup founders). Recognizing and using your unique strengths is the key to creating a content strategy that can’t simply be copied by your competitors.

3. Which types of content can overcome those challenges?

There are plenty of content types, from search content to sales enablement, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Building the right content strategy is about choosing the right type for your specific challenges. For example, Search-optimized content is perfect for building a predictable source of website traffic, month over month… but it might not help to reach senior execs or founders who don’t Google common problems. Thought leadership content (like opinion pieces or research reports) can be great for generating word-of-mouth discussion and backlinks, but usually suffers from “spiky” traffic that doesn’t grow predictably each month. Sales enablement content (like case studies or gated content) helps to close sales deals, but it’s rarely interesting to the casual reader, and does little to attract new visitors to a company.