content-strategy

Overview of content-strategy skill

What the content-strategy skill does

The content-strategy skill helps turn a vague content marketing goal into a structured plan: what themes to cover, which audience questions to answer, how to map content to the buyer journey, and how to prioritize what to publish first. It is designed for planning content, not just drafting articles.

Who this is best for

This content-strategy skill is a strong fit for:

• B2B SaaS and service teams building or fixing a content program
• marketers with scattered blog ideas but no prioritization method
• founders who know their product well but need a content roadmap
• agents that need a repeatable framework instead of a one-off brainstorm

The real job-to-be-done

Most users do not need “more content ideas.” They need a decision system:

• what content supports traffic, authority, or leads
• which topics fit each buyer stage
• where to focus limited writing capacity
• how to balance searchable content with more shareable thought leadership

That is where content-strategy is more useful than a generic prompt.

What makes this skill different

The repository gives this skill more structure than a casual brainstorming prompt. It explicitly asks for business context, customer research, current-state inputs, and content goals before planning. It also pushes toward:

• 3 to 5 content pillars
• buyer-stage mapping
• keyword opportunities by stage
• a mix of searchable and shareable content
• a prioritization framework, not just a topic dump

When not to use it

Do not reach for content-strategy if you mainly need:

• an SEO audit of existing pages
• social-first content planning
• copy for a single article or landing page

This skill is about deciding what content program to build, repair, or scale.

How to Use content-strategy skill

Install context and where this skill lives

The GitHub skill is in skills/content-strategy inside the coreyhaines31/marketingskills repository. If you use a Skills-compatible setup, install from the repo and then invoke the skill when planning a content strategy.

A common install pattern is:

npx skills add https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill content-strategy

If your environment uses a different skill loader, add the folder from the same repo path manually.

Read these files first

For a fast install decision, read:

1. skills/content-strategy/SKILL.md
2. skills/content-strategy/evals/evals.json
3. skills/content-strategy/references/headless-cms.md

Why this order:

• SKILL.md shows the actual planning workflow
• evals/evals.json reveals what “good output” looks like
• references/headless-cms.md is only relevant if CMS choice or content modeling affects the strategy

Start with product marketing context

The content-strategy skill specifically checks for .agents/product-marketing-context.md or .claude/product-marketing-context.md. That matters because weak strategy outputs usually come from missing positioning, audience, and product context.

Before prompting, either provide that file or include the same substance in your request:

• what you sell
• ideal customer profile
• category and alternatives
• main pain points
• buying triggers
• product differentiators
• primary business goal for content

Minimum inputs the skill needs

You can use content-strategy with partial information, but output quality improves a lot when you provide:

• business type and audience
• current content state: no blog, stale blog, flat traffic, random topics
• goal: traffic, leads, brand awareness, sales enablement, thought leadership
• customer questions and objections
• known product use cases
• distribution constraints: team size, budget, publishing cadence
• any existing domain authority or channel strengths

Without these, the skill can still generate a framework, but prioritization will be generic.

Turn a rough goal into a strong prompt

Weak prompt:

• “Help with content strategy.”

Better content-strategy usage:

• “Use the content-strategy skill. We sell expense management software to finance teams at 50–500 employee companies. We have no blog yet. Goal is pipeline-qualified traffic, not vanity traffic. Build 3–5 content pillars, map topics by buyer stage, suggest a searchable vs shareable mix, and prioritize the first 10 pieces using a scoring framework.”

That prompt works because it gives:

• market
• audience
• current state
• business goal
• required deliverables

Ask for outputs that change decisions

Good content-strategy usage is not just “give me ideas.” Ask for artifacts you can act on:

• content pillars
• buyer-stage topic map
• priority scoring
• first-quarter calendar
• recommended formats
• gaps in current coverage
• assumptions that need validation

This is how the skill becomes operational instead of inspirational.

Suggested workflow for first use

A practical first run:

1. Share business and audience context.
2. State the current content problem.
3. Ask for pillars and buyer-stage mapping.
4. Ask for prioritization of the first 10 to 20 ideas.
5. Ask for a realistic publishing cadence based on team capacity.
6. Only then request individual briefs or outlines.

This sequence prevents a common failure mode: generating polished article ideas before deciding what the program is for.

What the skill tends to produce well

Based on the repository signals and evals, the content-strategy skill is most reliable at:

• strategy from scratch
• fixing a content program that feels random
• connecting topics to audience questions
• balancing SEO-driven and thought-leadership content
• creating a sensible initial roadmap

It is less about advanced keyword clustering tooling and more about strategic planning.

Use the prioritization model, not just topic lists

One of the most useful repo signals is the scoring approach in the evals:

• customer impact: 40%
• content-market fit: 30%
• search potential: 20%
• resources: 10%

If you use the content-strategy skill without a scoring request, you may get a long list of plausible topics with no ranking logic. Explicitly ask it to score or tier ideas so the plan survives real resource limits.

How to handle existing content

If you already have a large blog, do not only ask for “new ideas.” Tell the skill:

• how many posts exist
• whether traffic is growing, flat, or declining
• what themes already dominate
• what conversion paths exist
• what feels redundant or off-strategy

This helps the skill shift from ideation to cleanup: consolidating pillars, identifying gaps, and reducing random publishing.

When the CMS reference matters

The included references/headless-cms.md is relevant if your content strategy depends on structured content, reusable content types, or multi-channel delivery. It is especially useful when:

• marketing and engineering are planning content architecture together
• you need programmatic pages
• content models affect editorial velocity

If you only need topic planning, you can skip this file initially.

content-strategy skill FAQ

Is this content-strategy skill better than a normal prompt?

Usually yes, if your problem is strategic. A generic prompt often returns disconnected topic ideas. This skill pushes the model to gather context first, build pillars, map to buyer stages, and prioritize output. That creates a plan you can defend internally.

Is it suitable for beginners in content marketing?

Yes, especially for beginners who need a framework. The skill gives structure around goals, audience questions, and planning logic. The main requirement is that you can describe your product and customer clearly enough for the model to reason well.

Does it work for content-strategy for Content Marketing teams with no blog yet?

Yes. In fact, the evals explicitly cover a “starting from scratch” case. That makes this a good content-strategy guide for teams launching a first content program and needing pillars, cadence, and initial formats.

Can it help if we already have lots of content?

Yes, but frame the problem as strategic drift, flat traffic, poor coverage, or weak alignment to buyer needs. The skill is more useful for reorganizing a content program than for doing technical SEO diagnosis on hundreds of pages.

Does content-strategy replace keyword research tools?

No. The content-strategy skill can identify keyword opportunity areas and map them by buyer stage, but it does not replace dedicated keyword datasets, SERP analysis, or performance analytics. Use it to define where to investigate, then validate with SEO tools.

When should I not install content-strategy?

Skip content-strategy install if your only need is:

• article drafting
• social post generation
• page-level SEO audit
• editorial style rewriting

Use it when the hard problem is deciding what to create and why.

How to Improve content-strategy skill

Provide sharper customer research

The fastest way to improve content-strategy output is to give real buyer language:

• questions asked in demos
• common objections
• trigger events
• “why now” moments
• alternatives customers compare you against

This moves the skill from generic themes to commercially relevant topics.

Separate business goals from traffic goals

Many weak outputs come from mixed objectives. Say whether content is meant to drive:

• top-of-funnel traffic
• lead capture
• sales enablement
• category education
• brand authority

A content strategy for demos is different from a content strategy for reach.

Give constraints the model can plan around

Do not hide operational limits. Tell the skill:

• how many pieces you can publish per month
• whether SMEs are available
• whether design or original research is realistic
• whether you can support videos, templates, or only articles

The content-strategy skill improves when it plans within constraints instead of assuming an ideal team.

Ask for pillar quality, not pillar quantity

A common failure mode is broad, overlapping pillars. Ask the skill to make each pillar:

• tied to a customer problem
• distinct from the others
• wide enough for multiple formats
• close enough to your product to support business goals

If pillars are fuzzy, every downstream topic will be fuzzy too.

Force stage-by-stage mapping

If the first output feels random, ask the skill to reorganize topics by:

• awareness
• consideration
• decision
• implementation or post-purchase

This is one of the clearest ways to improve content-strategy usage, because it exposes missing stages and overinvestment in top-of-funnel content.

Improve the first draft through gap questions

After the initial plan, ask:

• Which pillar has the strongest customer pain and weakest current coverage?
• Which topics are likely to attract the wrong audience?
• Which ideas are high search volume but low buying intent?
• Which 5 pieces should we publish first if we only have 6 weeks?

These follow-up questions usually produce more value than asking for 50 extra ideas.

Use examples of strong and weak topics

If you already know what your team considers on-brand or off-brand, include examples. The skill will infer editorial boundaries faster and avoid drifting into content that gets attention but not qualified interest.

Validate strategy before scaling production

A good content-strategy skill output should lead to small tests first:

• publish a few pieces from different pillars
• measure qualified engagement
• see which stage converts into next-step actions
• refine the scoring model

Treat the first plan as a decision aid, not a frozen annual roadmap.