What’s the 1 thing you wish customers knew? Make it your content mission.

Fill in the blank: “Business would be so much easier if our customers knew more about ______.” Well, there you go! Make whatever completes that sentence your content mission.

Your content mission is where your expertise and your audience’s needs intersect

In his book Content Chemistry, author and blogging expert, Andy Crestodina, describes your content mission as the overlap between what you can teach and what your site visitors want: This is where [audience X] finds [content Y] for [benefit Z].

This content mission is the underlying reason for everything you make and publish, and it’s a great way to shortcut your ideation process by helping you focus only on what matters.

What Can You Teach that People Are Looking For?

Start by tapping your internal experts for great content ideas. It’s a simple way to determine the coolest stuff your organization has to share with the world. Now cross-reference those subjects with search trend and keyword research to figure out what your audience is already searching for.

Give Yourself Room to Work

Your content audience is always going to be broader than your commercial audience. After all, there are always more people looking for information than looking to buy. The same is true of your content mission – keep it a bit broad. Make sure you have space for relevant subtopics and the ability to create several topic clusters that support your overall mission. Ideally, your content mission is going to give you lots of avenues to explore for years to come.