Content has always been paramount to marketing a successful business, and this is truer than ever in 2025. Leadership teams across industries are acknowledging this reality and strategically reallocating their budgets to support content marketing efforts. Every content marketing plan demands a blend of strategy, execution, implementation, and ongoing management. This is where the qualitative and quantitative come together to drive business growth. It truly is a significant undertaking.
Since the CEO has the final say regarding effective content marketing strategies, C-level executives must understand how content marketing impacts the business and where the audience will most likely encounter the company’s brand messaging. This CEO’s guide to content marketing covers the basics of content marketing, how it impacts overall business strategy, and the decisions C-level executives need to make to ensure the effectiveness of an overall content marketing strategy.
What is Content Marketing?
Content is a form of media, and at its core, media is a means of communication. Media can come in many formats: print, digital, social, or news. All of these media are meant to reach a large number of people in a short amount of time.
Unlike traditional media, content is less of a declaration and more of an invitation. Most content aims to educate, entertain, or inspire in hopes of attracting people whose values align with the brand’s values. For example, Nike does content marketing extremely well. When taken seriously, a brand’s approach to content marketing can result in consumers not only purchasing products but also adopting attitudes that create an attachment to the brand.
A CEO’s Guide to Effective Content Marketing Strategy
CEOs contribute to content marketing strategies at the highest levels, determining the attitudes and values the brand wants to convey. Here’s what an effective content marketing strategy entails.
Content Creation
Content creation refers to the production of media. In today’s terms, this usually refers to content created for digital platforms, especially social media, but it can also refer to print media. Creating content requires constant attention to what’s relevant to your target audience and the ability to create content promptly. If it’s late January, the marketing department at a company that sells women’s dresses should be hard at work planning and creating content highlighting Valentine’s date night looks.
When content creation is done well, it can completely differentiate a brand from its competitors. Ideally, the marketing team develops a style so distinct across assets that no matter where a viewer sees the content, they recognize that it’s from the brand. Brands achieve this with familiar elements such as consistent fonts, photography styles, specific sounds, or other stylistic choices made over time.
After marketing presents multiple options, CEOs often get the final say on major branding decisions. Though CEOs don’t need the expertise to make these decisions independently, they do need to take ownership of how these decisions impact the overall business strategy.
CEOs also influence decisions about hiring and resourcing the marketing team. Though relying on multitalented marketing professionals to execute the entire content marketing strategy is tempting, content creation is labor and time-intensive. For a content marketing strategy to succeed, the marketing team needs the people and resources it needs, as well as top-down support for its strategy.
Content Distribution
Each touchpoint with a consumer is an opportunity for a brand to leave a lasting impression. So, businesses must have a comprehensive content marketing strategy encompassing multiple streams of content distribution.
For larger companies, a content distribution strategy often includes daily social media posts on each relevant platform (LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, and BlueSky), weekly email newsletters, and banner advertising. From there, the marketing team needs to tailor each piece of content so it’s different from platform to platform.
Yes, delivering a consistent brand experience is essential, but it’s also crucial to understand how users are interacting with each content distribution channel. For example, prioritizing long-form videos on X is a bad strategy, while long-form videos are ideal for YouTube. It’s most effective to determine where the brand’s target audience spends the most time and work on those channels first.
Of course, all of this requires budgetary allocations. CEOs will need to support the content marketing strategy by making decisions about ad spend on each platform, how to allocate that budget per platform, and which platforms will get the most spend.
Why is Content Marketing so Important Now?
With an increasing abundance of options for goods, services, and information, standing out from the competition has never been more crucial. People are bombarded with hyper-targeted content every day, and traditional advertising strategies are no longer enough to attract customers. That’s why every business needs a highly honed content marketing strategy that focuses as much on beliefs and values as it does on information about the brand.
Large-scale awareness used to be enough to win the advertising battle. The brands with the most name recognition and the highest campaign budgets could dominate the market. Now, consumers require more to win their patronage.
Buyers want to know not just what a company sells but also what it stands for. For example, since the summer of 2020, consumers have increasingly pressured brands to align their actions with their stated values, demanding that their workforces genuinely reflect the principles they promote. Consumers are more intentional about the brands they support via their purchases.
Content marketing helps companies stand out amongst the crowd and attract their target audience. The messaging, the images, the talent featured in video content, and even the content distribution method can communicate why a person should choose one business over another.
What Kind of Content Marketing is Right?
To succeed, CEOs must know their audience and let the audience guide the content marketing strategy. The perfect content mix will heavily depend on the prevalent attitudes of your consumers. If your customer base is strictly Gen Z, print ads in the classifieds will never reach them.
This is where many CEOs who are used to traditional advertising get stuck. They want to stick with the marketing strategies that have worked for decades, and that’s understandable. However, if these strategies reach anyone, it’s likely not the target audience. So, CEOs who want to execute effective content marketing strategies must adjust.
Social Media Content
Social media content is one of the most popular forms of media right now. Businesses have the opportunity to showcase their unique brands to millions of users on platforms like LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, and BlueSky. The content published by a business speaks directly to who it wants to be, what it provides, and what it values. How your content team curates your social presence will help newcomers decide at a glance if they want to follow along and learn more.
The content formats available on each of these platforms are constantly being updated. For example, Instagram began as a photo-sharing app and has now expanded into a short-form video platform. The marketing team must stay on top of these updates. The business’s discoverability and growth potential on social media platforms will suffer if the team doesn’t take advantage of the latest features as they drop.
Businesses that want to remain relevant must adapt their content marketing strategies to changes as quickly as possible to maintain engagement and growth rates. For CEOs, this might mean having to approve new ad spend or higher budgets for content creation at a moment’s notice. Though these decisions are tough to make, try to remember that content marketing has a major impact on increasing the bottom line as well.
Short-form and Long-form Videos
Short-form video still dominates the internet, especially on social media, but long-form video is making a comeback. An effective content marketing strategy needs to encompass both kinds of videos, tailored to each platform.
A makeup company might use short-form videos to show off finished looks or record time-lapse videos to make a 30-minute-long tutorial video into an Instagram or TikTok-worthy clip. The same brand could utilize YouTube videos to walk users through complete makeup tutorials, do behind-the-scenes peeks at events where celebrity makeup artists used the makeup, or interview beauty content creators.
Infographics
Content doesn’t always have to be for entertainment; it can also be informational. Infographics are the perfect medium for education and can be an essential part of a brand’s content marketing strategy.
For example, during the summer of 2020, the Fifteen Percent Pledge used graphics to raise support for demanding that major retailers carry more Black-owned and founded brands. At the same time, the CDC published infographics and animations to disseminate pertinent information about hand washing and other disease prevention techniques.
For companies that serve as informational resources, infographics can be an affordable and shareable way to spread information and awareness. Mental health professionals utilize this strategy to attract clients and offer mental health assistance to those who may not be able to afford private sessions. As long as the graphics educate or entertain, they can make great content.
Blog Posts
Blogs are an excellent way to share information about a business and establish it as a trusted authority in its industry. Search engine algorithms love consistent, optimized blog posts, so blogs can help companies get found via search engines.
Plus, the extended format lets a company give the reader insider information about the brand. Depending on the industry, blog posts can also be an excellent way to establish a company as a thought leader, which can significantly impact the business’s credibility.
Newsletters
Newsletters are one of the most effective ways to reach customers who have already demonstrated their interest in the business by opting in. Once someone subscribes, the company can contact them until they opt out. If the business has an effective content marketing strategy for its newsletter, then customers won’t want to opt out.
Newsletters are an effective way to educate customers about the business, inform them about upcoming events or sales, raise awareness about new products and services, and sell existing products and services. Most newsletters contain a mix of content aimed at education, community-building, and sales.
Newsletter platforms collect data to demonstrate how successful the content was. Businesses can tailor their content based on performance data. Sometimes, newsletter services even offer the option to A/B test the subject line or content itself for more insight into what grabs the subscriber’s attention.
Effective Content Marketing Requires Buy-in
The marketing landscape has changed dramatically in the past two decades, and even more so in the past decade. This CEO’s guide to content marketing just covers the basics
Though adjusting to an entirely new way to reach customers is difficult, businesses must pivot to succeed. To be successful, that pivot has to come from the top. CEOs need to understand the importance of an effective content marketing strategy and facilitate business moves to support that strategy.