Here's what I'd do in my first 90 days as a content marketer if your company (hopefully also my ideal company) were to hire me.
Most 90-day plans on the internet are too high-level. They make big promises without explaining much of the "how". I’ve made my plan freakishly specific because hiring in this economy is a huge risk. You deserve to know every last detail if that's what it takes to make the right decision.
You should also know that I'm not a dictator. I wouldn't just waltz into your company and execute this plan to a T. This is my general plan which I would adapt to your company's context.
This article won't make sense if you don't know anything about me. You can use this page to get some context first.
Background assumptions
You were to hire me for a brand-focused content marketing role.
I might own non-SEO channels and programs like organic LinkedIn, podcast, newsletter, big creative bets, thought leadership, original research reports...
My main job would be building (relevant) brand awareness, brand affinity, and engagement.
A part of my job might also be to evangelize your narrative and POVs.
You (as the Head of Content or Director of Content and Brand) would be my manager.
Your company has a product-market fit.
Your content engine is relatively mature. You already have at least a basic content strategy that works.
You also have a complete editorial calendar, at least for the current quarter. I might suggest improvements, but I shouldn't build a calendar from scratch right now.
High-level overview
Day 1-30
Day 31-60
Day 61-90
Day 1-30
Draw lines in the sand with my manager (you)
My most important relationship will be with you. It's always easier to create a healthy relationship from scratch than to fix an unhealthy one later.
I made that mistake at one of my previous jobs. When I first joined, I never said no to anything —working on weekends, working on Fridays until midnight to ship an urgent project, etc. Before I knew it, the team expected this from me all the time. It wouldn't have happened if I set boundaries from the start.
In my first week, I would set up as many 1:1 meetings with you as it takes (hopefully not many) to get us on the same page. By the time we're done with meetings, we would know things about each other like:
What can I handle on my own, and what should I get your approval for?
How do you communicate?
When are you available?
How will we handle content requests? Revisions? Approvals? Deadlines?
How often should we meet?
Which personal guidelines do you operate by?
What do you value?
I would document everything we agreed on in a Google Doc. It could be our reference point. As we'd work together over time, I would keep updating this document as my low-priority task.
You can read this article to get a sense of what it's like to work with me before I join your company.
Partially join in your everyday work
You probably use some software to organize your team's work, like Asana and Trello. Whatever it is, I would regularly log in to "stalk" your schedule and priorities, and then offer to help your brand and content team with something important they’re currently working on. I’d know what’s important because most teams tag it in their software. If you don't do that, then I'd simply ask.
My goal would be to earn your team's trust and respect by adding value ASAP. This could mean anything from creating your daily social posts to helping you organize a campaign. If your team were working on a major project, I'd take on light tasks that I could handle all on my own, even while I'm still completely new to your product and customers.
These light tasks of a major project could be:
Finding research insights that could make our article / whitepaper / e-book stand out
Repurposing our article into 3 platform-native LinkedIn posts
Writing subject lines for campaign emails
Designing a scroll-stopping thumbnail
That way, I wouldn't slow your team down by needing extra information.
Notice how I said I'd partially join in your everyday work. That was on purpose. I’d help, but I wouldn't let everyday helpfulness take up all my time and energy. Helping the lowest form of value-add. ChatGPT is helpful. So are interns. I'd rather be known for being impactful.
Impactful is exactly the kind of work I'd generally prioritize in those first 30 days — like my onboarding research and the projects that drive my KPIs. We would discuss how to protect this momentum initially.
"There's work, and then there's The Work. They are not the same." - Lauren Lang
Make friends across the GTM team
The insights from experts across your GTM team — especially from those closest to the buyers like sales — would make your content more relevant and effective. Plus, any company normally gets more out of content marketers when they drive shared GTM goals instead of operating in a silo. This is why I'd make friends across your GTM team.
But not across your entire GTM team, though. I don't think that's realistic. I'd rather build strong, collaborative relationships with 3-5 people than loose connections with 12. Although technically everyone is working towards the same goal, some folks are bound to be more relevant to my work than others. I would prioritize building relationships with them in my first 30 days. These contacts would probably be:
Sales leaders and SDRs to understand their sales process bottlenecks, the content they need to sell more, as well as their customer insights from the front lines
Product marketers to better understand how we frame the value of our product to different personas, the pulse of the market, and how we differentiate
Customer success lead to learn what our customers complain about and what gets them excited
It sounds generic, but the way I'd go about building relationships in my first 30 days would be getting on as many calls as I can, being a sponge, and showing genuine interest in these folks beyond their job titles. But trust has to be earned. I’d also offer to help whenever I can to earn it. In the long run, these relationships would serve 3 purposes:
Align my work with shared GTM goals and priorities. Give content the famous "seat at the table".
Collaborate with the GTM team members to create differentiated, more informed, and more relevant content.
Use their feedback to inform our editorial calendar, campaigns, and the content strategy.
I would never get the time and grace to build these relationships if I don't do it in my first 30 days.
That's just the starting point, though. Here's how I'd eventually collaborate with the GTM team members.
Collaboration principles I'd follow
"Be a strategic partner, not an errand boy." My relationships with folks across the GTM team should never be about fulfilling random requests. I’ve seen content marketers get stuck writing cold emails for sales, random articles for whoever asks, etc. They're basically doing other people's jobs while neglecting their own. I’d prevent this by clarifying how they can support content, and how I could help them achieve their goals in return. It should keep our relationships focused and valuable on both sides.
"Build rapport through routine."
Content collaboration should feel comfortable and normal to folks across the GTM team, instead of an inconvenience that strikes them every now and then. This is why I'd set up a routine with every GTM expert I collaborate with. For example, if I were to work with the CS leader as my subject-matter expert, I’d set up recurring meetings with them — weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. I could use these sessions to gather insights for content and check in on their goals and needs.
 "Minimize friction for GTM collaborators whenever possible."
If the GTM team members in your company rarely collaborate on content, the last thing I'd want is to make it even more cumbersome for them. I'd reduce friction whenever I can. For example: 1) If I were to regularly need their expertise to create content, I'd build a template process that fits how they prefer to communicate and answer questions. This might be something like sending them a fill-in-the-blanks questions document, instead of booking a meeting. 2) If the GTM collaborators were already involved in content, I'd make it easy for them to ask questions, request something, share inputs, ideas, etc. This might mean building a shared Google Doc that I regularly update. 3) If I were asking for their feedback on a content piece, I might share guidelines that could keep their feedback focused, relevant, and useful.
Learn about your product
B2B brand marketing has a stereotype of being cutesy, navel-gazing, or even disconnected from the product. If that's what you're expecting from me, let me be clear — I'm not that guy. I would prepare myself to make content that not only differentiates you and drives engagement, but also influences buying decisions. That's what effective brand marketing (content) is.
It's more than engagement-baiting social posts, memes, mascots, colors, logos, and forgettable SEO articles swept under the "brand awareness" rug. At its core, I believe effective brand marketing (content) starts with your product. It should always create mental associations with it — whether directly (e.g., "Here’s what our product does!") or indirectly (e.g., "Here’s the problem we solve for you!"). The content that communicates these associations should also be memorable, so that future buyers think of you first when they move in-market. These principles would guide nearly all content I'd create for you. That's why I would make it my personal goal to become your most informed marketer on the product, second only to those whose jobs revolve around it, like PMMs.
I’d spend 2 days diving deep into your product. Specifically, I would:
Watch you (or anyone in the team) use the product
Try the product myself
Request a personalized demo
Read every product page on your website
Watch up to 5 product-related webinars (more than 5 isn’t realistic)
Read your product updates on social, blog, and emails
Read your G2 reviews
Find any internal docs that map out the product’s value props, benefits, differentiators, and features for different personas, outcomes, and use cases.
I wouldn’t need anyone’s help. I’ve done research like this before using publicly available data.
If your product has content marketing use cases, that's even better! I could integrate it with my work. Using the product to learn while getting value would hit two birds with one stone. I did that when I worked for BrandOps. Once I’d gather all this info, I'd then write down what I understood in a Google Doc. Then, I'd talk to someone close to the product (ideally, a PMM) to confirm if I understood it right.
I would keep learning about your product over time, just not as aggressively as in these 2 days.
Learn about your customers
The more I'd know about your customers — and the more I'd actually apply those insights — the better, more relevant, and more resonant would your content become. But realistically, I wouldn't have enough time to launch a full-blown customer research program in my first 30 days. Instead, I’d use the customer data you already have, doing things like:
Listening to your sales calls and reading transcripts
With permission, analyzing your CRM for logged messages with your biggest closed/won accounts. I'd do the same for closed/lost accounts.
Analyzing support tickets to spot common issues and frequently asked questions
Analyzing your sales decks
Studying direct competitors' content (case studies, ads, value props) to see what pain points and outcomes they emphasize
Using tools like SparkToro to see what content people in our ICP read, which companies they interact with, and what resonates with them
Once I have this information, I would then ask you to step in. In my past roles (including freelance gigs), companies would give me customer insight documents that covered:
Priority segments we’re targeting (firmographics)
The biggest closed/won deals and what those companies have in common
The buying committee (who does the research, who uses the product, who champions it, etc.)
What they’re trying to achieve with our product
Buying triggers
Desired outcomes
Biggest pain points
Stakeholder personas, including:
Pain points (for each persona)
Goals (for each persona)
Objections (for each persona)
Jobs-to-be-done
What their buying journeys look like
Wants and needs at each journey stage
Why they chose our product over competitors'
How they research their buying decisions
I’d ask for a similar document from you. It doesn’t have to answer these exact questions, but it should be comprehensive. Given your growth stage, you probably already have something in your files.
But sometimes internal data isn't enough. If I were to notice you're missing key customer insights, or if the insights you have don't add up, then I might push for a mini customer research program. My plan would be to interview 2-3 customers from your ICP every week for the first 90 days, focusing on those missing insights. For example, I might ask:
What does their buying journey look like — and what gaps are we not closing?
What questions, needs, and concerns do they have at each stage?
What are their most important industry conversations — and how can we get involved?
How do they measure success in their career? How are they measured by?
We could make this a low-priority background task. Conducting 2-3 interviews a week doesn't sound like a lot, but it piles up. You could get fresh insights from around 30 customer interviews by the end of my first 90 days. Many B2B marketers don’t gather as much customer insight over their entire time in a role! These insights could make everyone's content better. Like I said before, I plan to make friends across your GTM team beyond just marketers. That's why I'd share these new insights with anyone who could use them.
As I'm writing this article, I’m interviewing at least 3 people in my ICP every week. So when I say I plan to do this, I'm not making baseless claims. This approach works.
Find ways to create standout content
How am I different from other content marketers? I know how to make standout content — whether differentiated, distinctive, or both. I'd help you and your team do the same. I'd start by exploring the resources and assets you could use — like talent, data, brand assets, etc. — to sustainably create standout content. This isn't about brainstorming standout content ideas, but things that could enable it. This also includes operational advantages that would make creating standout content abnormally easy.
Most content marketers obsess over subject-matter experts and expect them to do all the differentiating. To me, that's short-sighted. I imagine standout content like a system of elements you could use and combine. Expertise is just one element. I wouldn't stop there. I'd explore all your (realistic) options.
There could be 2 ways I'd explore this.
Top-down (ask about ALL the standout content elements to see which ones you have)
Bottom-up (focus on one element your company has, like original data, and explore ways to leverage it)
Suppose I were to take the top-down approach. You could expect me to ask you questions like:
Do we have the talent to create entertaining and emotional content (like Hockeystack did)?
Are we partners with the top 1% of industry experts and can we use them (like CXL did)?
Do we have any software for collecting original data quickly?
Can we leverage any brand assets (like mascots) to make our content recognizable?
I could finish exploring this in a day. Once I get the answers, you would then get a shortlist of ideas on how we could sustainably create standout content — given your resources, available standout content elements, and of course, your marketing objectives. We could discuss which idea to pilot later.
Here's an example of an idea you might get out of this process: "Our product can scrape data from thousands of eComm brands. What if we made it our unfair content advantage? We could use it to create original research reports. None of our competitors are creating them because it would take them at least 6 weeks to manually collect the same data we'd get in a few days."
Understand your current content strategy and align on way forward
Step 1: See how you split the strategy
Content marketing can have many faces. At most B2B SaaS companies, it only has two: SEO and lead-gen. The fact that you were to hire me for a brand role proves your strategy would be multi-dimensional. If we assume my role exists to drive awareness, engagement, and all things brand — I need to know where I sit in the bigger picture. Why else does content exist in your company? Why does each channel do? Who owns what? How do the KPIs differ? I'd need you to explain these nuances.
For example, Company X might launch a podcast as an "excuse" to interview buyers in their ICP. But Company Y might run a podcast to shift industry opinions — and optimize around completely different metrics. It always depends. Here's a hypothetical org chart that explains what I mean:
Once I know where I fit in, it would be easy for you to make the most of my strengths. Just to be clear, I’m not saying I should stick to rigid metrics in a silo just because I’m "the brand guy". Quite the opposite. The way we'd measure ground-level stuff like channels, campaigns, and tactics should always adapt to your unique strategy and context. But the way we measure my high-level impact should be consistent with my brand role — like improving brand awareness, engagement, and pipeline — and that, in turn, should tie to your strategic company priorities. I'm only saying this to make sure you'd judge me on the right metrics, instead of those that would push me away from what you hired me for.
Step 2: Study your content strategy and suggest improvements
I'd find your content strategy documents and study it. Once I understand it, I'd suggest ways to improve it. To start, I'd focus on studying the basics.
Who are we making content for?
How does content achieve our goals? For most B2B companies, content succeeds by helping the audience become better at their jobs.
Where do we meet our audience? What are our key distribution channels?
What do we talk about? What's our narrative, topic pillars, messaging frameworks, etc.?
How are we executing the strategy on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis? Show me your content calendar, topic groups, and cadence so I can integrate myself immediately.
I love how Superpath documented and organized the "how" of their content strategy:
Most B2B SaaS companies I've worked with had content strategies that didn't go beyond the basics.
"Our strategy is to share helpful content for [persona X and Y]!"
"Our customers love [topic X], so we will write a lot of content about [topic X]!"
In my opinion, there's absolutely nothing strategic about this. If you end up with marketing 101 decisions no one could ever disagree with, then you don't really have a strategy, but a glorified operational plan. "Strategies" like these don't give you an edge. You just end up following best practices. Of course you'll make helpful content for your buyers. Of course you'll write about the topics they care about. Who won't?
The real strategy starts once the fundamentals are clear. It asks and answers questions like:
What are the our biggest diagnosed challenges, and how will we overcome them?
How will we meaningfully differentiate our content?
How can we make our content hard to copy?
Many content marketers don't even ask questions like these, let alone answer them. But I would. For example, when I was at ButterDocs (a SaaS for content writers), a part of our strategy was comarketing with many content writers with big LinkedIn followings. We did it to make our brand appear bigger and more popular than it really is, so that we motivate our market to switch from a proven giant (Google Docs) to a new kid on the block (ButterDocs). That was a proper strategy because it:
a) Addressed a diagnosed challenge (content writers prefer a proven giant: Google Docs)
b) Declared a goal (get content writers to switch from Google Docs to ButterDocs)
c) Had a theory of how will we win (appear bigger, more popular, and more proven than we are)
d) Required sacrifice, coordination, and non-obvious actions that weren't easy to copy
Step 3: Learn how the content strategy reflects your business strategy
In my experience, rarely anyone creates a content strategy in a vacuum. The strategies from above shape it, like the GTM strategy, business strategy, and even your business model. I'd ask you to explain how your content strategy reflects them, so that I can understand the logic behind it.
For example:
If your category is new, then it explains why you aren't focusing on SEO.
If you sell a high-touch and high-ARPU product, it makes sense why you optimize for engaging your ICP over time instead of pumping up MQLs.
If your product value depends on human expertise, it makes sense why you lead with human faces in your content.
If your product is meant to be used as a unified platform, instead of a bundle of standalone solutions, then I get why you don't have a content strategy for each solution.
Get non-arbitrary goals and metrics
*This paragraph is inspired by Drew Spencer Leahy.
Great content does not automatically mean effective marketing. Just because audiences love your content doesn't guarantee they'll ever buy your product. I've read so many content strategies that say: "Our monthly goals are 20,000 website visitors, 2,000 newsletter subscribers, and 1,000 LinkedIn followers." When you don't know the context, these goals sound arbitrary. Sometimes they are. Sometimes the company puts content before the marketing principles it should serve. When that happens, they get engaging content with questionable business impact. Here's how I'd avoid that.
I'd invite you to a meeting to figure out what your content is supposed to achieve in the first place. Are you trying to build a brand? Accelerate demand? Penetrate a new market segment? Whatever it is, we would define it so we can measure content effectiveness against that end goal.
Then, we'd discuss how content supports your monthly, quarterly, and annual targets — whether they're business targets like pipeline or brand goals like improved recall. How would you set objectives, KPIs, and/or OKRs? Where would those numbers come from? How would you know these objectives and KPIs would lead to outcomes like pipeline growth? How would we prove it? Which activities would typically drive those numbers up? What are your resources and constraints?
Creative Business Company shared this custom funnel example. Instead of simply saying: "You must grow X traffic per month!" and leaving it at that, this model explains why website traffic is an important KPI for a fictional business, how it drives the end goal (new clients), and where the numbers came from.
I wouldn't expect you to have sophisticated models, nor would I expect you to use this same funnel template. All I would need is something that confirms:
Your content strategy is realistic.
Your content strategy supports the big picture.
My KPIs or OKRs will be data-backed, not arbitrary.
My business impact will be (at least reasonably) provable.
If these 4 points aren’t true, I'd do whatever it takes to make them so. If they are, we’d set my North Star goal(s), KPIs, and/or OKRs, and provide me with any resources you promised so I can start executing.
Align with your content operations
By this point, I would have learned your strategy and together, we'd have set clear expectations for me (my goals, KPIs, etc.) My next priority would be learning how your content team operates. The best way to learn would be executing a major project. But before we get to that, it wouldn't hurt you and I have a meeting so that I at least know what to expect. I would ask you questions like:
How does your team collaborate? How do you collaborate with freelancers?
How do you take content from ideation all the way to distribution and repurposing?
What systems do you have for making each piece of content feed into your brand story?
Which tools do you use?
Who reviews the work and who approves it? What are the typical deadlines?
What are your editorial guidelines? How do you enforce them?
How do you manage content after it's published, like updates, deletions, repurposing, etc.?
What's your content cadence?
How do you balance creating new content with repurposing and updating existing content?
Once again, I have to use Superpath as a great example of documenting systems. Among other things, they covered how often they publish different content types based on how tough they are to produce.
Superpath also branched their content production out to UGC and repurposed content, so that their team isn't always burdened to produce original content from scratch.
Travis Tyler, Sr. Social Media Manager at Motion (Creative Analytics) shared another great example of operational workflows. Here's how Motion takes their content from ideation to distribution:
You probably refined your workflows over time. There has to be a good reason why you use them. As much as I want to add value, I wouldn't make huge changes in my first 90 days. I haven’t been in the trenches with your team yet, so I'd hate to be that armchair critic who comes out of nowhere and starts reinventing the wheel. Some tweaks might happen — but only after I understand your ops from firsthand experience.
On the other hand, if you DON'T have any content workflows, I'd start by building the most important one. We'd first identify and prioritize it. Since I'm a brand guy, I have a bias for making sure you're not publishing one-off content that only makes sense in a silo. Instead, many pieces (not all) should either come from your brand narrative or tie back to it. If it were up to me, I'd figure this out first.
Here's an example of InScribe's content-narrative workflow (visualized by brilliant Tanaaz Khan):
By day 30, I'd have:
Drawn lines in the sand with my manager (you)
Contributed to your everyday work
Become familiar with your product and customers
Understood your content strategy and my place in it
Identified gaps and opportunities in your content strategy and suggested improvements
Started making friends across the GTM team (including non-marketers)
Gotten non-arbitrary KPIs and OKRs to focus on
Understood your content ops before taking on major projects
Found realistic ways to make your content stand out
SITUATIONAL: Launched a mini customer research program
SITUATIONAL: Built one important content workflow (if you don't have any)
Day 31-60
Get my first tangible win
Unlike the rest of my 90-day plan, this part is vague because I don’t know what that win would be. It might end up being something as simple as repurposing one of your most popular LinkedIn posts, or it might be contributing to a campaign you're running. I can't predict it from here. All I can do is promise that I’d prioritize something that's important, urgent, and relatively quick to implement.
If the win turns out to be more complex, my general approach would be:
Bring up a problem or a goal (e.g., "Based on what I learned, you're struggling with X.")
Propose a hypothesis (e.g., "Root cause X might be causing this. Let's run an experiment.")
Propose an action plan (e.g., "I'll do X, measure progress by Y, and complete it by deadline Z.")
Execute
Report on results
Become a competent domain expert
I divide expert content into 2 types: expert-assisted and expert-led. Expert-assisted content is where my knowledge (as the writer) drives the content piece, and I use experts to improve it. This could mean adding expert quotes to validate my points, sharing their stories, or featuring them as examples.
Expert-led content, on the other hand, is fully built around experts. A content writer becomes a translator of the expert's stories and insights. You can create expert-led content every now and then, but you can't rely on it all the time. Experts have jobs to do. This is why I'd become your competent domain expert — so that I can use SMEs to improve your content, instead of depending on them completely.
I would block at least an hour every day to:
Study the principles of your domain — find industry glossaries, 101 guides, and evergreen books
Read the biggest news outlets in your industry
Follow your industry thought leaders on LinkedIn and subscribe to their newsletters
Follow your competitors on social
I'd spend the period between day 31 and day 60 deliberately studying your domain, but then switch to passive learning after that. While I wouldn't become a genius thought leader, I would at least know enough to spot obvious insights in our content, pull richer insights from our SMEs, and depend on them less.
This is also why I rejected job opportunities from companies that sell to incredibly technical buyers (like sr. software engineers). I know when I'm out of my depth. I could never become an expert in these domains, not even in 3 lifetimes of studying them.
Run a content audit to improve the low-hanging fruits
I would run a content audit to (1) find easy but important things to address now and (2) find important things to address later. I’d approach it like a gardener. As content leader Ryan Baum puts it, gardening is about improving what you have instead of building things from scratch.
A typical audit takes 2-4+ weeks because it analyzes your entire content library and tries to fix a million things. There will be time for that later in my tenure. For now, I'd keep this audit lightweight. I would focus on select few low-hanging fruit problems, opportunities, and areas for improvement that tie to our KPIs.
A typical content audit also revolves around SEO — improving traffic, keywords, linking schemes, etc. Whenever I mention "content audit", most companies expect this. But since you were to hire me for a brand-focused role (which might be about things like engagement, thought leadership, brand awareness, etc.), my audit would reflect that. Here’s how.
STEP 1: Define our approach and what "improving content" means
I'd first ask if you've ever done a content audit from a brand POV before, and how you approached it.
If you have: I'd follow the same approach you used.
If you haven't: I’d propose and build a new content audit approach.
Suppose you haven’t done a brand-focused content audit before, and I have to create one from scratch. I would start by defining our end goal. While every content audit finds problems, opportunities, and ways to improve your content, we'd need to get specific about what "improving content" would mean for us.
For example, we might look back to our brand KPIs and agree that "improving content" would mean better engagement and maybe more reach. This would help me know what to analyze, instead of analyzing everything and hoping I bump into something useful.
STEP 2: Set boundaries to avoid slippery slopes
A content audit can easily become a bottomless pit. I have to set boundaries because there will always be more work to do. I've seen that happen so many times — a content marketer runs an audit to see what they can improve, and by the time they get to it, they're rewriting 6 articles, updating 10 e-books, and repurposing two research reports. It becomes another full-time job.
That's why I’d set an upfront limit on how many action items we'd execute in the end, based on how tough and time-consuming each action item is. For example:
Rewrite (max 1 content piece)
Repurpose (max 5 content pieces)
Update (2-5 content pieces depending on how difficult the updates would be)
Fix (max 20 content pieces)
Unpublish (max 20 content pieces)
Do nothing (unlimited)
STEP 3: Decide what to include
Once I understand what "improving content" means for us, I'd create a spreadsheet and define relevant KPIs and factors to analyze. For example, my spreadsheet might include:
Content title (if it's an article or a whitepaper)
URL
Format
Core idea
Topic pillar
Publishing date
Page views (for articles)
Time on page (for articles)
Scroll depth (for articles)
Bounce rate (for articles)
Social shares (for articles)
Reactions (for LinkedIn posts)
Comments (for Linkedin posts)
Shares (for LinkedIn posts)
Action item (Unpublish, update, rewrite, repurpose, fix, or do nothing)
Priority level (Do now / Do later / Consider later)
Action history (For completed actions, e.g., "Updated on 08/08/24")
I’d split this spreadsheet into tabs for each content format to avoid comparing apples to oranges. Each format would have its own (engagement) metrics. For example, I might look at comments for LinkedIn posts, but avg. time on page for articles.
STEP 4: Set benchmarks
I'd set benchmarks to define what good, bad, and average performance looks like for each format. If you already have your standard benchmarks, like historical performance data, I would use those.
If not, then I’d use your industry benchmarks.
STEP 5: Fill the spreadsheet with your (brand-focused) content
I've used tools like SEMrush to crawl and export hundreds of pages into .csv files. If you don't use SEMrush or a similar tool, then I’d manually fill the spreadsheet with content. You could expect some manual data entry from me anyway, as I’d also include content that tools can’t crawl, like LinkedIn posts (assuming you use them for brand awareness).
Since this would be a brand-centric content audit, not everything would be relevant. You should tell me which content pieces you consider "brand plays" so I only cover those. It wouldn't make much sense to optimize BOFU sales enablement articles for engagement. That's not their main job.
STEP 6: Focus the analysis on extreme trends and prioritize content
I'd start by looking at the KPIs from a bird's eye view to identify extreme performers and obvious trends, and then prioritize those. I would ask and answer questions like:
What's our top-performing content?
What are our weakest performers?
Which core ideas consistently resonate?
Here's why I'd focus on the extreme and obvious trends:
Extreme performers: You should normally do something ASAP about the pieces that are doing exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly (e.g., repurpose the top performers). The stuff in the middle can wait.
Obvious trends: Obvious trends are reliable and easy to act on. If I have to torture the data to find something useful, then the trend usually isn’t meaningful enough.
STEP 7: Analyze the prioritized content to decide what to do
I'd take the content I prioritized and dig deeper. I could analyze this on my own — but it would be great to have another talented writer help me out.
Each piece of content would be analyzed individually to answer questions like:
What made this content piece so engaging (or unengaging)?
What should we do with it?
How, exactly, could we improve it?
If it performed extremely poorly, is it even worth improving?
What do the top performers have in common?
Was it the length? The tone of our writing? Maybe our POV?
What can we take from high-performing pieces and apply it to others?
Once my analysis is done, each analyzed content piece would get one action tag in our spreadsheet : unpublish, fix, update, rewrite, repurpose, or do nothing. (Fix should mean something easy and quick, like updating a link.)
I’d also ask the team for feedback, especially if I were to suggest a big decision like unpublishing. But don't worry, I wouldn't just say: "Let's do X!" and stop there. You would get a proposal document explaining why I suggested each action item, the insights that support it, and how to actually execute it.
STEP 8: Prioritize action items
Each piece would get one priority tag in the spreadsheet: do now, do later, or consider later. Since it's my first 90 days and I want to grab easy wins, I would sort priorities by:
What's easy to do AND important (do now)
What's important (do later)
What's easy to do (consider later)
This shouldn't be my decision alone. We should agree if these priorities sound right to you, based on the insights I would share with you earlier.
STEP 9: Execute the "do now" action items
I'd go execute these action items. I plan to do it alone, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone joined me.
Once that's done, I'd return to the content audit spreadsheet and update the "Action History" field for these content pieces (e.g., "Repurposed to LinkedIn on 08/08/24").
To wrap this content audit up, you and I should discuss when to handle the "do later" action items that got left behind.
Build a roster of subject-matter experts
The root of universally bad B2B content? It doesn't contain any subject-matter expertise. Instead, the writer does "research" by Googling the topic, and then regurgitates the same generic and shallow slop your 20 competitors wrote. You don't need me to repeat why SMEs matter.
In my experience, there are 2 types of insights:
Focused insights about a specific topic. You get them by structuring expert interviews around targeted questions. Focused insights are usually ad-hoc, so you time these interviews for when you need to write something.
General insights are just that — general and universally relevant to your content mix. They're meant to be easily quoted, referenced, or repurposed across various topics. You can pull these insights from open-ended conversations with experts (e.g., a podcast episode) or source them from publicly available content featuring the expert.
And in my experience, there are 4 types of subject-matter experts:
Inside experts who either work for your company or are affiliated with it (e.g., your partners).
Industry celebrities who appear on every podcast, blog, and webinar. They are great for unknown brands that need the expert's visibility and authority way more than their insights.
The silent majority of everyday experts who do their jobs without much exposure or self-promo.
Niche experts who are usually hard to reach and overlap with the silent majority.
Establishing relationships with experts I can reach out to at any time would be my top priority. I'd start by inviting at least 3-5 inside experts to a casual chat, as they are the low-hanging fruit. But just because I'd be forming relationships doesn't mean I'd be wasting time. Aside from building rapport with inside experts, I would expect to walk out of these convos with some general insights to apply later.
By this point, I would have already done the content audit, so I'd know your company’s usual topics. Next, I’d connect with at least 3 niche experts for each major topic — way before we need any insights from them. I’d find them on LinkedIn and Twitter using relevant keywords, as well as in Facebook groups, Slack communities, HARO sites, and with tools like SparkToro. I’d get them interested in helping us out by putting together a pitch that highlights what’s in it for them. We could also offer them exposure, a gift card, or even pay an hourly rate. These initial conversations will help the experts understand our needs and show us what motivates them to collaborate.
These relationships matter to me because they determine our content quality. All other relationships are contextual. For example, are you a small company? Is your distribution weak? Are we not an authoritative source? If the answers are yes, then it would make sense to also connect with industry celebrity experts, so we could borrow their authority and visibility. This opens doors to comarketing opportunities like inviting industry celebrities to our podcast (if we have one), sending our experts to their podcast, featuring them in a blog post, and so on.
Improve and align with your narrative
You're a brilliant senior marketer. What I'm about to say isn't meant to condescendingly "educate you". I just want to clarify what I mean by a narrative, since everyone defines it differently.
To me, a narrative is the easiest way to differentiate your content. It's made of connected and unique perspectives you consistently share — whether about your buyers, category, or else — that influence how your future buyers think, resonate emotionally, and give buyers a reason to care about you. Unlike typical "how-to" content that’s only relevant for a moment in specific journey stages, a narrative stays relevant all the time, no matter where your audience is. But even though it's universally relevant, I think a narrative is best used to attract out-of-market buyers. This makes it a fantastic brand marketing device.
This is all very much unlike most sterile content out there that's built around SEO and feeding one-off campaigns. Neither have connected stories you can tie back to, nor any future to build on. That content might drive short-term results like leads, but rarely will anyone remember it. It's just another nameless helpful resource. There’s a time and place for this content... just not for brand-building.
This is where your company’s narrative comes in. You and the marketing leader (likely the VP of Marketing) would expect a calendar invite for an hour-long group meeting. I'd want to align with 4 sides of your brand narrative: category, product, customer, and cultural narrative. If you already have your brand narrative defined, great — our group meeting would help me better understand them. If not, we would develop them together using the following framework. It works from inside out: what does YOUR COMPANY believe? Here are some of the questions I'd ask you:
Although a narrative starts with your genuine beliefs, it should also reflect your positioning. If product positioning is about making your product the clear choice for ideal buyers, then we'd create your narrative by expanding on it.
Define what you want to achieve with the narrative
Understand the broader context in which you operate in (e.g., a stagnation in your industry)
Decide your positioning in that context (e.g., you're the one leading the change in your industry) --> this should ideally reflect your product positioning
Prioritize which parts of that narrative will you communicate in your content as POVs
As for the fourth step, maybe you already have workflows for that. If not, I'd help you build one (as I mentioned earlier in this article). Content marketers Obaid Durrani and Todd Clouser shared a framework that explains how a narrative shows up in content:
But a narrative does more than make your content distinctive. There are different types of narratives, based on what they're meant to achieve. Creating each would require a slightly different process.
a) A narrative for changing minds
Buyers might need to believe certain things before they can buy your product. Your content should promote those beliefs (or POVs). Together, they make up a narrative. Cognism explained it brilliantly:
b) A narrative for brand positioning clarity
If your content covers everything from "Best tools for [use case X]" to "What is [thing]" articles, don't be surprised if buyers aren't sure who you are and what you sell. A narrative creates clarity. It gives you a consistent story to tell over and over again. This improves on the traditional topic pillars that organize your content internally, but leave an unclear and disjointed impression on the market externally.
c) A narrative for brand awareness and recall
Marketers often confuse brand discoverability (e.g., buyers can easily find you on Google) with brand awareness (e.g., a buyer knows who you are) and brand recall (e.g., a buyer remembers your solution when they're about to enter the market).
Nobody built awareness and recall on apathy. I don't believe it can be done solely with helpful, but forgettable and hyper-rational "how to" content. While it has its place (like supporting the funnel and SEO), brand awareness content needs to trigger emotions and be memorable. Having a narrative makes it clear what you stand for and against. You attract those who resonate with you and repel those who don’t. Either way, you make them care.
Start the projects that move my KPIs (and/or OKRs)
I'd hate to fall into checklist work. There will be time for that later. For now, I'd want to work on projects that move my KPIs — and I'd need them going up yesterday. I'm no Michael Jordan, so I wouldn't expect to make slam dunks straight out the gate. But if I were to start executing early, I'd have time for trial and error before I get it right.
When I was at BrandOps, I had a system for ranking tasks by:
Important AND urgent
Important
Urgent
Daily routine tasks (like posting on LinkedIn)
Neither important nor urgent (like tweaking cold email copy)
I would prioritize tasks that are either just important or important AND urgent. If the team is already working on that, I’d join them. If not, then I’d set priorities and get your permission to start executing. Again, I don't know what those tasks will be from where I'm sitting right now. All I can do is promise I'd push to work on those projects, no matter how difficult they might be.
By day 60, I'd have:
Got my first tangible win
Become your competent domain expert
Launched a brand-focused content audit
Built a process from scratch (if needed)
Documented key insights from the audit
Applied low-hanging fruit improvements that move my KPIs (and/or OKRs)
Planned important improvements to make later
Started building a roster of subject-matter experts
Aligned and improved on your brand narrative (if you have it)
Helped you define a brand narrative (if you don't have it)
Started working on projects that move my KPIs (and/or OKRs)
Day 61-90
*Maintain projects that move my KPIs (and/or OKRs)
*Keep building a roster of SMEs
Fully join in your everyday work
By now, I've built momentum with my KPIs. I completed all my onboarding research, and since I partially integrated myself over time, I now have enough time and know enough to become fully involved in your content team's daily work — on top of important projects I'm already working on.
I listed this under the Day 61-90 plan, but it's possible I'd fully join in your every day work way earlier.
Show my impact with a report
Like every serious company, you probably have some system that tracks what everyone is working on. Sometimes this gets lost in the daily grind, and managers mentally screen it out. That's why I'd put together a report for you. I'd do it to make my impact in the first 90 days clear and undeniable.
Out of respect for your time, this report would focus on a 4 key areas:
My KPIs
Where my KPIs were when I first started
Where they are now
What I've done to improve them
I'd also briefly mention other ways I've made an impact. For example, how I launched a customer research program and applied those insights to score quick wins.
By day 90, I'd have:
Fully integrated myself in your everyday work
Made significant progress with my KPIs (and/or OKRs)
Built a roster of subject-matter experts we can count on
What's next for you
If you’re excited about hiring me for a FT content marketing role focused on anything "brand", then let’s talk! Book a call with me here.
If your open role aligns with my ideal position, even better. You can see what I'm looking for here.
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