| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Media and Advertising |
| Level | Mid level |
| Reports to | Content Manager |
| Direct reports | None |
| Experience | 3 to 6 years in content marketing or strategy roles |
Content Strategist job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Content Strategist
Department: Media and Advertising
Reports to: Content Manager
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Content Strategist decides what content a brand should create, for whom and why. They research the audience and keywords, plan topics and formats against business and marketing goals, build the content calendar, and measure what each piece delivers. The role sits in the marketing or content team and guides writers, designers and SEO specialists on what to produce. A good one turns a scattered content effort into a plan that brings the right readers, moves them towards the product, and can show results in traffic and leads.
Key responsibilities
- Research the target audience, their questions and search behaviour, and map the topics the brand should own.
- Set content goals tied to marketing outcomes such as traffic, leads or brand awareness, and agree how each will be measured.
- Build and maintain the content calendar across blog, social, video, email and landing pages.
- Plan each piece with a clear angle, format, keyword focus and place in the buyer journey.
- Brief writers, designers and video teams on what to produce and why, and review output against the plan.
- Coordinate with SEO so content targets the right keywords and links together into topic clusters.
- Plan distribution across owned, earned and paid channels so each piece actually reaches readers.
- Track performance in analytics, and report which topics and formats work and which to drop.
- Audit existing content, and decide what to update, merge or retire.
- Keep messaging and positioning consistent with the brand and the wider marketing plan.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in marketing, mass communication, English or a related field
- Proven experience planning content that drove measurable results
- An SEO or content marketing certification is an advantage
- 3 to 6 years in content marketing or strategy roles
KRAs and KPIs for a Content Strategist
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Organic growth | Organic traffic to content grows towards the quarterly target set with marketing |
| Lead contribution | Content brings a set number of marketing leads or sign-ups each quarter |
| Calendar delivery | Planned content published on schedule at least 90 percent of the time |
| Topic authority | Priority topic clusters rank on the first search page within the agreed period |
| Content efficiency | Low-performing content identified and refreshed or retired each quarter |
| Alignment | Every planned piece maps to a marketing goal and a stage of the buyer journey |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Google Analytics, Ahrefs or SEMrush, Google Search Console, Content calendar tools, MS Excel or Google Sheets.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Content Manager, Head of Content
Interview questions for a Content Strategist
- How would you build a content plan for a brand that has published randomly with no strategy?
- How do you decide which topics to prioritise when the team can only produce eight pieces a month?
- Walk me through how you tie a blog post to a business goal and measure it.
- How do you work with SEO to build topic clusters rather than one-off articles?
- A piece you were sure would work got no traffic. How do you investigate?
- How do you decide when to refresh old content versus write something new?
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What does a content strategist do?
A content strategist decides what content a brand should create and why. They research the audience and keywords, plan topics and formats against business goals, build the content calendar, brief the team and measure results. Their job is to make the content effort deliberate and tied to marketing outcomes like traffic and leads.
What is the difference between a content strategist and a content marketer?
A content strategist plans what to create, for whom and why, and sets the calendar and topics. A content marketer often covers a wider remit including promotion, campaigns and lead nurturing. In small teams one person does both; in larger teams the strategist plans and others execute and distribute.
What skills does a content strategist need?
A content strategist needs audience and keyword research, editorial planning, SEO fundamentals and analytics to plan and measure content. They also need clear brief writing and cross-team collaboration, since they guide writers, designers and SEO specialists. Analytical thinking matters, because the role is judged on whether the content delivers results.