How To Win The Content Strategy Game: 17 Must-Haves For Every Brand

Forbes

23-05-2025

Content drives modern brand growth, but only when it's treated as a strategic asset. To stand out, brands need more than clever headlines—they need deep audience understanding and a purposeful structure for their content. Success comes from creating content that's discoverable, shareable and tied directly to business goals.
As the members of Forbes Agency Council know, building a content marketing strategy that does all of that is more challenging than ever, as AI tools, short-form video platforms and an emphasis on first-party data are changing the game fast—and simultaneously introducing innovative paths for reaching a brand's marketing goals. Below, 17 members share essential tips to help brands use content to compete, connect and convert.
Understand your market deeply. Who are they? What are their pain points? What kind of content resonates with them, and how do they prefer to consume it—via articles, videos, podcasts or social posts? Understanding your audience helps shape content creation, distribution and measurement strategies while maximizing reach and impact. Without it, it's guesswork and won't perform. - Rory Holland, CSTMR Fintech Marketing & Design Agency
A must-have in content marketing today is brand integration into curated lists—'Top 5 Summer Activities in X City' or 'My Travel Must-Haves with Toddlers,' for example. Done through influencers and user-generated content, it blends naturally into relevant content, boosts search visibility and reaches wider audiences by focusing on consumers' needs, not just the brand. - Aurelie Sauthier, Made in
A must-have in today's content marketing strategy is a smart, intentional and strategic distribution plan. Great content is only as effective as its reach. By aligning owned, earned and paid channels—social, email, SEO, media and partnerships—brands can extend visibility, spark engagement and drive measurable, lasting business impact. - Christine Barney, rbb Communications
Use your newsletter to disseminate all of your published content—articles, social media, upcoming events, blogs, tips and tricks, and more—to your customers and prospects. Keep it short and simple, with links to everything. Encourage engagement via content requests. Send it out quarterly. Make it visually interesting. - Eyal Danon, Ignite Advisory Group
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Discipline is essential; in terms of brand voice and brand behavior, you must have a ruthless grip on why you're doing content in the first place. Content marketing is a tactic, not the goal. Don't chase a fear of missing out or publish content just to stay busy, unless you're aiming for SEO or AIO (AI optimization). Anchor content to your brand's differentiators and audience's needs. Be social, entertaining, informative, present—whatever you please—but never at the expense of your purpose. - Shanna Apitz, Hunt Adkins
It's not just about pumping out content anymore. It's about saying something that actually matters to your audience. For us, content that stands out starts with clarity: What's the position we're taking, and why should our audience care? That POV becomes the filter for everything else: format, tone and distribution. Without it, even the best-looking content gets lost. - Jacquelyn LaMar Berney, VI Marketing and Branding
A documented ICP is essential for most brands today, as it provides clarity around audience needs, preferences and pain points, ensuring every piece of content created aligns strategically with audience interests and leads directly to measurable engagement. Without it, you're wasting a lot of time, energy and dollars hoping for the best. - George Arabian, NVISION
A central online archive for premium content is a must-have for modern brands. It serves as a single repository for all assets, articles, videos and graphics, ensuring a consistent brand voice and allowing for rapid content distribution. This system boosts team coordination, enables quick repurposing and supports an omnichannel strategy to drive sustained audience engagement. - Vaibhav Kakkar, Digital Web Solutions
Short-form video is essential in today's content strategy. Platforms like TikTok, Reels and Shorts thrive on quick, punchy content that's easy to digest and shareable. You don't even need a pro setup—smartphones make it easy to create authentic, scroll-stopping content. It's one of the fastest ways to boost visibility and engagement and is a great way to build a community. - Jason Hall, FiveChannels Marketing
Content mapping is essential to engaging buyers and, ultimately, driving conversions. A strong content strategy aligns your content with the buyer's journey (using your buyer's persona) to provide the right information to your audience at the right time, helping to move your prospects through the funnel—wherever they may be in that journey. - Jennifer Friese, Protiviti
The creation of blog content stands as an essential practice that delivers value. Blogs simultaneously establish authority and trust while operating as a content engine. A well-written blog drives traffic and engagement, and posting consistently prompts Google to crawl your site more often. Each blog can be repurposed into social content and emails and serve as ammo for your sales team. - Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy
The use of AI tools to create AI-based content is on the rise and will continue to be in the future. With it becoming easier to make content with AI tools and without involving a person, it will become rarer for brands to put themselves or other real people front and center in their video content, and those who do will earn more trust than the majority of their AI-using counterparts by being authentic and human. - Tony Pec, Y Not You Media
A must-have today is a strong focus on creating evergreen content. High-quality, timeless resources not only drive consistent organic traffic, but also build lasting authority, helping brands stay visible and relevant long after the initial push. - Boris Dzhingarov, ESBO Ltd
Marketers must structure their content in a way that's easy for AI bots to access and pull information from. That means writing clearly, using strong subheads, incorporating conversational language and keeping content updated regularly. Aligning with Google's E-E-A-T criteria helps signal credibility, relevance and recency. Brands that make these content shifts will show up for their audiences. - Starr Million Baker, INK Communications Co.
As we move toward a clickless internet, leveraging AI influencers who tell a brand story is gradually becoming the new norm. These influencers might be human replicas, as seen in H&M's recent campaign with digital avatars, or fictional characters. Another portion of the content should provide brand visibility to AI agents. Adjusting your content strategy to these new realities should be the focus. - Oksana Matviichuk, OM Strategic Forecasting
In some cases, content from employees can be an effective tool for both attracting clients and building the company's brand as an employer. They can talk about the processes of working on projects, the corporate culture of the company and so forth. Such content from employees is perceived as authentic and honest. - Michael Kuzminov, HypeFactory
Calls to action aren't just content enhancers, they're strategic growth levers. They guide buyer behavior, drive engagement and create a direct line from interest to revenue. Without them, content loses momentum. The right CTA fuels pipelines, informs smarter decisions and demonstrates marketing's role in driving value. - Amy Packard Berry, Sparkpr