How to Build a Content Strategy in 8 Steps, With Content Mix Percentages by Industry

Without a content strategy you are posting randomly and hoping something works. The tell is easy to spot: every third post is a sales pitch, long silences are followed by bursts, and nobody can say what the account talks about. A content strategy is the plan for creating, publishing and managing content, and the version we teach takes eight steps, three to five pillars and one set of percentages.

Key takeaways

• A content strategy has eight steps: goals, audience, pillars, mix, platforms, calendar, production, measurement.
• Content pillars are the 3 to 5 topics you consistently talk about. They define what you say.
• The content mix defines how you say it: 40 percent educational, 30 percent entertaining, 20 percent inspirational, 10 percent promotional.
• The mix shifts by industry: B2B goes heavier on education, B2C on entertainment, and e-commerce can push promotion up to 20 to 30 percent.

The eight steps to a content strategy

The first four steps are the strategy itself; the last four are how you run it.

1. Define your goals. The common goals are brand awareness (reach new people), lead generation (collect emails and inquiries), sales (drive purchases) and engagement (build community and interaction). Pick one primary goal.
2. Identify your target audience. Use a customer persona: demographics, psychographics, pain points and goals. "Women in Beirut aged 25 to 40 who want a skincare routine that survives a humid summer" beats "people interested in skincare".
3. Choose your content pillars. The 3 to 5 core topics you will consistently create content about. Covered below.
4. Decide your content mix. The ratio of educational, entertaining, inspirational and promotional content. Covered below.
5. Select your platforms. You do not need to be everywhere. Focus on 2 to 3 platforms where your audience is most active and your formats fit.
6. Create a content calendar. Plan what to post and when, so you stay consistent and stop scrambling.
7. Produce and publish. Create, review and publish to the calendar. Consistency matters more than perfection.
8. Measure and optimise. Review performance regularly and adjust based on data, not assumptions.

Content pillars: the 3 to 5 topics you own

Content pillars answer the question "what topics do we talk about?" Every piece you create should fall under one of them, which keeps the feed focused and tells your audience what to expect.

To choose yours, work through four checks:

1. Start with your expertise: what do you know well and can teach?
2. Consider your audience: what do they care about and what problems do they have?
3. Align with your business: which topics naturally lead people towards your product or service?
4. Keep it focused: 3 to 5 pillars is ideal. More than that and you lose focus.

Our own five pillars at Talentdu are the example we use in class:

• Digital marketing tips: practical advice on ads, SEO, social media and email.
• Career advice: how to get into marketing, build a portfolio and land clients.
• Tool tutorials: how to use Canva, Meta Ads Manager, Mailchimp and more.
• Learner success stories: alumni wins, testimonials and case studies.
• Industry trends: what is changing in marketing, AI updates and platform changes.

Every post we publish sits under one of those five. For a worked method that turns pillars into a month of posts, see our content pillars guide.

The content mix: 40/30/20/10 and the 80/20 rule

The content mix answers "what type of content do we create, and in what proportion?" Pillars define the topics; the mix defines the purpose and tone of each piece. The balanced mix we teach is:

Type	Share	What it looks like
Educational	40%	Tips, how-tos, tutorials, guides, explainers, industry insights
Entertaining	30%	Relatable content, memes, trends, behind-the-scenes, humour
Inspirational	20%	Success stories, testimonials, motivational quotes, milestones
Promotional	10%	Product and service posts, offers, CTAs, launches, sales

Underneath those numbers is the 80/20 rule: at least 80 percent of your content should provide value, and only around 20 percent should be promotional. If every post feels like a sales pitch, you lose the audience you built the pitch for.

How the mix changes by industry

The 40/30/20/10 split is the starting point, and it shifts slightly by industry and platform:

Industry	Adjustment
B2B (LinkedIn-heavy)	Educational rises to 50 to 60%, entertaining falls
B2C (Instagram, TikTok)	Entertaining and inspirational rise to 40 to 50%
E-commerce	Promotional can rise to 20 to 30%, as long as value balances it
Personal brands	More storytelling, behind-the-scenes and authentic content

A consultancy in Riyadh posting to LinkedIn should lean educational. A cafe in Beirut on Instagram earns more from behind-the-counter content than menu shots. An online skincare store can push promotion higher, provided routine tips and customer stories keep the value side full.

Pillars and mix working together

Pillars define what you talk about; the mix defines how you present it. Run one pillar through the four mix types and you get four different posts on the same topic. Using our "digital marketing tips" pillar:

Mix type	Post
Educational	"5 free tools for keyword research"
Entertaining	"When the client says 'make the logo bigger'" (meme)
Inspirational	"How our learner Sarah landed her first freelance client"
Promotional	"Applications are open for our next cohort"

Do that for each pillar and you have a grid of fifteen to twenty post angles before you have written a word.

Where the ideas come from

Running out of ideas is the most common reason strategies stall, so we teach four sources: Answer the Public (enter a keyword, get hundreds of question-based ideas), Google's People Also Ask box (free and unlimited, good for subtopics), Google Trends (interest over time and by region, for seasonal planning) and an AI tool such as Claude or ChatGPT with the prompt "Give me 20 content ideas for [niche] targeting [audience] across educational, entertaining and promotional categories."

Organising it in Notion or Google Sheets

Before an idea becomes a post, log it in a mapping table with six columns:

Pillar	Content idea	Format	Platform	Mix type	Status
Marketing tips	5 free keyword tools	Carousel	Instagram	Educational	Draft
Success stories	Sarah's first client win	Reel	Instagram, TikTok	Inspirational	Idea
Programme promo	New cohort open	Static post	All platforms	Promotional	Done

This table becomes the foundation of your content calendar, and it makes the mix visible: count the mix-type column to see whether you are drifting past 20 percent promotional.

Notion lets you build the table as a database, switch between list, calendar and board views, collaborate with a team and keep every strategy document in one place. Google Sheets is simpler and free, with no learning curve, and works well for a straightforward calendar, especially for teams already on Google Workspace. Either works; filling the table is what matters.

Where this is taught

The eight steps, the pillars and the mix are week 5 of the Professional Digital Marketing Associate Diploma, where students define their pillars, set their mix by industry, generate twenty ideas and map them into this table.

Frequently asked questions

How many content pillars should I have? Three to five. Fewer than three and the feed feels thin; more than five and it loses focus. Start with three if you are unsure.

Is 10 percent promotional too little to make sales? No. The other 90 percent is what makes the 10 percent work. An audience you have educated and entertained for weeks responds to an offer; a cold audience scrolls past it. E-commerce brands can go up to 20 to 30 percent if the value content keeps pace.

Do I need Notion, or is a spreadsheet enough? A spreadsheet is enough. The six-column mapping table works identically in Google Sheets. Move to Notion when you want calendar and board views or several people editing the same plan.