The three content marketing strategies we’ve outlined aren’t mutually exclusive, but you’ll increase your chances of success by focusing on just one. Trying to tackle more than one at a time will spread your efforts thinly, reducing potential gains.

To decide which strategy is best for your company, start by answering these two questions:

• What kind of content would your potential customers be most interested in?
• What kind of content can naturally segue into a pitch for your product?

From there, you can decide which strategy is appropriate.

We’ve also developed a framework to help:

1. Search interest: Is there high search volume for your product?
2. Product shareability: Do users find your product shareworthy?
3. User content: Do users create content using your product?
4. Data and research: Does your brand have access to proprietary data? Alternatively, does it conduct industry research?
5. Emotional appeal: Does your product or brand create a strong emotional impact?
6. Thought leadership: Do you or your team have lots of industry expertise to share?

Based on our observations, here’s how most successful B2C companies use these factors to choose a content strategy:

And here's the framework for ecommerce:

Let's also take a look at how the framework applies to B2B companies:

More on each part of our framework below.

Search interest

You can tell how much interest there is in a topic by how often people search for it in Google, which is measured as monthly search volume. The higher the search volume of a specific keyword, the more interest there is—and usually, the harder it is to create high-ranking content about it.

Keyword research tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Ubersuggest provide data about search interest. You can also use Google Trends to track real-time search interest.

What counts as “high” search interest? Here’s a breakdown of how we classify keywords based on search volume.

• High: More than 1,000 searches per month
• Moderate: Between 100 and 1,000 searches per month
• Low: Under 100 searches per month
• Nonexistent: No search volume exists for these highly niche phrases

Note: A low search volume for keywords doesn’t rule out SEO potential. A low search volume may instead mean that you’re in a very specific niche with less competition—a big SEO advantage.

But if your product is so novel that no one’s searching for it, SEO probably isn’t a good investment. The lack of search interest may mean it’s better to shoot for virality.

Product shareability

Shareability describes how “shareworthy” something is. It’s what makes customers decide to share something with their friends, and it’s usually more common in ecommerce. (Things that can be photographed or recorded are easier to share.)

But some software products are shareable because of a unique design or innovative use. Examples: Dropbox and Evernote were highly shareable when they first launched because of their novelty at the time.

When a product is more shareable, it usually has more potential for creating viral content.

User content

Some companies naturally encourage users to create content as a part of their product experience—for example, people write book reviews on Goodreads, create graphics in Canva, and record video in Loom.

Since this content can be repurposed for marketing campaigns, these companies have an advantage in UGC strategies. Otherwise, companies must work on getting users to create content.

Data and research

Some companies have exclusive access to data. Example: Zillow has data about all of the properties listed on its platform. This information is a goldmine that can be repurposed into meaningful content.

Similarly, if your company conducts research, it can use this information for content marketing. The robo-investing platform Wealthfront does this by publishing research reports on investing and personal finance.

Emotional appeal

You can put an emotional spin on just about any product, but some products carry more emotional appeal than others. This may be because of the product’s purpose or if your brand has a unique mission. Whatever the reason, a product with more emotional appeal lends well to viral content campaigns.

Example: The guided meditation app Headspace’s mission is to improve customers’ health and happiness. It makes a case for mindfulness to appeal to anyone feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

Thought leadership

Many companies share their expertise to build their brand reputation, usually in niches where customers ask a lot of questions. Example: Duolingo publishes articles about language learning from its team of learning scientists.

Strong thought leadership and expertise on your team sets your brand up for editorial content strategies. You can use this in-house knowledge to create top-notch content, either for SEO or more shares.

Additional considerations

Besides the factors above, also consider these three questions to decide which strategy is best for your company:

1. Which strategy can I realistically produce quality content for? Think about your time, money, and bandwidth. Some types of content are more resource-intensive than others; for example, producing excellent videos usually requires quality software and expertise.
2. Which strategy can I consistently produce quality content for? Content is a game of consistency. It's impossible to scale a company off the backs of just a couple great pieces of content. This can work to get initial traction, but if your goal is long-term growth then be sure you can put out great content consistently.
3. How will I differentiate my content? Since many industries are saturated with content, you’ll need to find ways to make yours stand out.
4. How do my target users consume content? Think about your target audience—their favorite content channels and formats—and how you can create content that matches these preferences.

Remember to focus on one content marketing strategy at a time. Mastery in one area will go much further than dividing your attention across multiple channels.