How to Write a Content Marketing Mission Statement in 3 Steps (Plus 12 examples)

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The road to relevance is long. But it starts with this simple first step: we declare our mission. This little bit of text is our content marketing mission statement and it’s the foundation of our content strategy.

This is where we’ll take our stand.

This is the cornerstone of our content strategy. It states what we’ll be publishing, who it’s for and why they’ll care.

Our content mission will support (or reject) every action we take in our content marketing efforts. Not sure about something? Check the mission. If it doesn’t fit, leave it out.

Documenting our mission statement is surprisingly simple, yet most content marketers haven’t done it. To make it easy, here’s our content mission template. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.

Note: By “our content” we are referring to all of our non-sales content. It’s everything we create, publish and share in our content marketing including:

• Our blog, articles and resources
• Our newsletters and any other emailed content marketing
• Our social media posts
• Our videos, events, podcasts and any other format for content

Let’s take a closer look at X, Y and Z. Then we’ll review how to publish it and check out some examples.

Audience X

Unlike the target audience for our products and services, the target audience for our content marketing may be very broad. In content marketing, we have two target audiences and two types of visitors:

1. Potential customers we hope to sell to
2. Anyone we can help through our expert advice

That larger audience of people who are interested in our content can drive huge, indirect benefits. This includes a world of potential visitors, followers, subscribers and influencers. Without this second audience, we are unlikely to attract enough of that first audience to create steady demand.

Information Y

These are the topics and formats that we will publish. It is the overlap between the topics that we know and can teach, and the topics that our audience wants. When we share this expert knowledge, we pull our audience toward us.

These are words commonly found in this part of the mission statement:

• Tips (most common)
• Advice
• Insights
• Strategies
• Stories (common for content programs at non-profits)
• Reports
• Ideas
• Inspiration
• Checklists
• Research (most effective)
• News*
• Trends*

* Note: There are fundamentally two kinds of content strategies: those focused on news and those focused on evergreen content. They have very different challenges and opportunities (cadence, SEO, etc.). 

Although it may not be documented in the mission, keep in mind that the types of content will go beyond the topics, and include the formats for content, such as:

• Original research
• Strong opinion
• Guest posts
• Interviews and roundups
• Video, audio, live events

Great content marketers publish more than an endless stream of blog posts.

Benefit Z

It has to be helpful. Our mission must name the specific benefits that our content offers our audience. If there is no benefit to them, we won’t win their attention, we won’t attract visitors and we won’t generate any demand.

So our mission and every piece of content within it must answer this question: Why do they care? How does this help them? What task can they complete once they are finished reading this? 

This is the core of our mission.

Let’s check out the full blog post and see how some pro content strategists approach this!