06 August 2024 |

A content hierarchy to help to present strategy to execs

By Tracey Wallace

I’ve been lurking on LinkedIn every so often during my parental leave––and it’s clear that a lot of content folks are really struggling with strategy. That isn’t to say that folks are struggling with coming up with great strategies. No, folks are struggling with documenting those strategies and getting the necessary executive alignment.

And that’s fair. It’s not easy. Watching the Olympics, the ad that piqued my interest the most was Mcirosoft Gemini’s, in which an employee turns 150 pages of notes into a 5 minute presentation. That is the kind of AI I am here for! 

Consolidating a strategy into a convincing deck or document that is easy to read, to follow, and to say “yes” to is hard. Really hard. 

And it’s why I really love that Mark Iafrate, the Leading Partner Marketing & Webinars at Intercom, created to help their team (and it’s something that is really easy to steal from and make your own). 

It is his Content Hierarchy deck, which he walks through in a Loom here. It does a fantastic job at telling a story (i.e. why this strategy instead of another one), explaining quickly and easily how the team will align to get there (the content hierarchy), and then applying that explanation via a digestible example (likely using already existing product marketing statement within the organization). 

From here, Mark shows you a bit of how he put this together for their team, in detail. It looks like Notion is their documentation system, and you could create something similar there or in Google docs, work with your product marketing team, sales team, or whoever your cross-functional partners are to align. Then, document your content hierarchy. Share it publicly. Ensure alignment. 

Then, execute. More on all of that in future issues. 

Thanks for the great example, Mark!