Topic strategy

What a topic strategy is

A topic strategy is a ranked list of the subjects your business will cover, with a reason beside each one and a line drawn across it showing where the first quarter stops. Above the line, the subjects worth writing now. Below it, the ones that can wait. Off the list entirely, the ones you will leave to somebody else.

The ranking is by proximity to a purchase. A subject a buyer reads about the week they sign a cheque outranks a subject they read about out of curiosity, even when the second one would be more fun to write and would attract more readers.

It is not the same as editorial strategy, which settles what you argue for and the themes you return to. Editorial strategy is a position. Topic strategy is an ordered list of subjects. A business can have a strong position and still write about the wrong things in the wrong order, and that is what this fixes.

It is one chapter of the content strategy plan, sold separately for businesses that need only this part.

When you need one

You need one when there are more ideas than hours, which is most businesses. The symptom is a list of forty subjects that somebody added to for a year and nobody has ever put in order, so the pieces that get written are whichever ones the writer found interesting on a Monday.

You also need one when the content attracts readers who will never buy. Plenty of small businesses publish material that does well and sells nothing, because every subject on the list sits at the wide end of the funnel where the traffic is.

You do not need this if the problem is that nothing on your site answers the obvious buying questions at all. That is a gap analysis, it is cheaper, and it produces the list that this work then ranks.

What goes in it

• The subjects you can credibly own. Drawn from what you sell, what you know that competitors do not, and what your buyers ask. Credibility is a filter: a subject nobody would believe you on is off the list however good it looks.
• A distance-to-sale rating for each. Three bands are enough. Someone reading this is choosing a supplier; someone reading this is deciding whether to solve the problem at all; someone reading this is just interested.
• The order, with the line drawn. What gets written first, second and third, and where the first quarter ends. The order is the deliverable. A list without an order is the thing you already had.
• The subjects you are declining, named, with a sentence on why. Usually because a competitor has owned them for years, or because the readers they bring cannot buy from you.
• What each subject needs to be complete. One page, or a main page with four supporting pieces under it. Half-covered subjects earn nothing.

What you get

The ranked list. A sheet you can sort: subject, buyer question, distance to sale, format, and the order. Usually twenty to forty rows, with eight to twelve above the line.

A one-page summary. The five subjects that matter most and why, for the person who approves the budget and will not read the sheet.

The declined list. Kept in the same document, because the subjects you rejected come back up every few months and the reasoning saves the argument being had twice.

A worked example

An illustration. A regional commercial insurance broker has a list of thirty-one article ideas built up over two years. Most sit at the curious end: general advice about running a small business, seasonal safety notes, industry news.

Ranked by distance to a sale, the list reorders sharply. Five subjects turn out to be things a buyer reads in the fortnight before they move broker: what a policy actually excludes, how a claim is handled and by whom, what a broker is paid and by whom, what happens at renewal, and how cover changes when staff numbers pass a threshold. None of the five was on the site. Nine of the thirty-one are declined outright, including the seasonal safety notes, on the grounds that the readers they attract are never the buyer. The first quarter is the five buying subjects, one every three weeks, with the rest of the list parked in order beneath them.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What you sell, who signs the cheque, and what your current list looks like. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Scope and number agreed before anything starts.
3. Gathering. Your existing list, your sales notes, your support inbox and what your competitors already cover. Where you allow it, two or three short calls with recent customers about what they read before choosing.
4. Ranking and a draft. Four to six working days. You get the reasoning, not just the order, because you will need to defend it internally.
5. A walkthrough call, then the final sheet, in a format your team already uses.

Ten working days from first call to final list is typical.

What it costs

Quoted after the half-hour call, because the work depends on how many products you sell and how much research already exists. It is a small fixed-price project. The pricing page sets out the four ways of working so you can see the shape of the numbers before we talk, and the figure is fixed in writing before anything starts.

If you want the audience, channel and cadence chapters too, the full plan is the cheaper route.

What happens next

Three things follow naturally. Each chosen subject gets a job: getting found, getting understood, or getting bought, which is a content funnel plan. The order above the line gets dates, which is the calendar. Or the first pieces get written, most often as articles that answer one buyer question each.

None of that is assumed. The ranked list is finished work. Print it, work down it in order, and it will keep earning its fee without anything else being bought.