Why the best content teams are hiring strategists, not just writers
Around the world, over seven million blog posts are published daily. Whether it’s a personal post or company-owned, there’s a lot of content flying about. This means that if you have something important to say, quality isn’t enough – your content also needs direction.
Impactful content is a combination of things. Whether we’re talking about a blog post, an event script, a white paper or a social post – everything you put out there into the world requires a foundation of having something important to say. But to succeed, it also needs the right format, timing and execution so that your message isn’t just going out into the ether but is well-crafted, reaches readers and hits KPIs.
We’ve written before about the science behind content and how content creation isn’t simply a case of “write some words” – or get AI to. And this is why the best content teams aren’t just hiring great writers – they’re hiring great strategists.
Hold on, isn’t AI replacing content teams?
According to research, 81.6% of digital marketers believe content writers will lose their jobs because of AI. After all, ask ChatGPT to write an article about any given subject and it does a decent enough job, if you don’t look too closely at least. But the question is: are you really content with “okay I guess” content?
Like many roles, content creation is being impacted by AI, but it’s not being erased. AI represents a huge time-saving opportunity for writers. It is a core part of the future of the creative process because it helps streamline and elevate content written by humans without replacing them.
More recently, there have been examples of copywriters who initially lost their jobs to AI being rehired to make AI-generated content sound “more human”. This is emblematic of the ongoing tussle between writers wanting to own every line and AI being implemented to cut costs. Those lines in the sand will be different for each company, but the truth is that your message will always resonate better when you can trust what you’re reading, seeing or hearing. Trust still needs a human touch, meaning content strategists will become more important than ever.
And here’s the critical thing: AI can’t know or find things that haven’t been published online yet. That’s where a great content strategist steps in, uncovering fresh angles, sourcing new interviews and helping clients realise they’re sitting on incredible untapped data, insights and stories that no algorithm could ever surface.
What is a content strategist?
Content strategists are often compared to content writers, but their impact goes beyond writing the assets themselves and includes delivering:
- Comprehensive content strategies
- Cross-functional integration/collaboration
- Deep brand work, including value prop, tone of voice, style
- Performance metrics and optimisation
Content strategy is the high-level planning and decision-making process. It involves understanding your audience, defining goals, determining what types of content to create, when to publish, and how content fits into broader business objectives.
Strategy includes competitive analysis, content auditing, establishing brand voice, mapping content to customer journeys, and measuring success. It’s the “why,” “what,” and “when” of content.
And it doesn’t stop at blogs either, but can take any number of shapes:
- Event scripts
- Email nurtures
- Research papers
- Infographics
- Spotify playlists (yes, we create branded playlists)
This really widens the timeline and scope of content work so it’s no longer one and done when a Google Doc is sent over to the client. Instead it is a broader strategy that works towards goals and is the responsibility of more than one individual – and one GPT.
Let’s use a blog post as an example. Content strategy means that your plucky blog isn’t unprepared when it goes up against those other 6,999,999 published on any given day. Instead it’s part of a broader strategy, whether a series, a product launch, or a quarterly calendar, that gives it added clout and is tethered to other content pieces that work in tandem, and reaches the audience it’s supposed to.
What does a great content strategist bring?
A great content writer will deliver great writing. But the reason content teams are hiring strategists is to bolster this offering with relevance, timing, evolution and effectiveness.
Whether you have one or not, you should want to tick every box of a content strategy checklist that includes:
- Your brand voice
- Your messaging and positioning
- Your audience persona
- Your KPIs
- Your competitors
- SEO
Great content strategists do this for clients and the results, from individual campaigns to wider strategies, speak for themselves.
Think of strategy as the architect’s blueprint and creation as the construction work. Strategy determines that you need a blog series targeting new customers to drive awareness, while creation produces those specific blog posts with compelling headlines, engaging copy, and proper SEO optimisation.
The most effective content operations integrate both seamlessly. Strategy without creation is just planning that never materialises. Creation without strategy often results in content that looks good but doesn’t serve clear business purposes or reach the right people at the right time.
Campaigns don’t succeed out of luck, they are planned, thought out and produced in close collaboration with the clients.
How to find the right strategist for you and what you have to say
Great content strategists are an extension of your team. To understand your brand at a granular level and to work with your teams as though they’re sat next to you (which we often are), content strategists must work cross-functionally with comms, marketing, design, content, the C-Suite and more.
This is about access to the right information, spokespeople, opinions and data to ensure that whatever we deliver is in your voice, fits your timings and scales with your business.
This means that the right strategist is someone committed to turning out high quality work that gets results. Someone who iterates, goes on a journey with you and exceeds your expectations so you can exceed those of your colleagues and customers.
It’s also someone you get on with. Someone you’ll want on your team who loves content, loves strategy and wants to go to bat for your business with everything they’ve learned and done to date. If you’re thinking content strategists sound pretty damn good, then good news – we’ve got lots of them at Archetype.
