What Makes Content Valuable?
A Framework for Smarter Prioritization
Last week, I introduced you to Decision Tax.
Decision Tax is the undertow of indecision that’s slowly sinking your marketing team's time and energy.
It’s the price our teams pay when ideas and decisions get bogged down by politics.
To illustrate:
It's Thursday afternoon. You’re approaching hour two of what was supposed to be a 30-minute planning meeting.
Sales and product passive-aggressively debate what should be top priority next month.
"The product launch is strategic," says product.
"But we need revenue right now," counters sales.
Meanwhile, you watch the sun crawl across the afternoon sky. Your content lead mentally updates their LinkedIn profile. And that one eager marketing manager is furiously taking notes that will never be referenced again.
Two hours of combined salary, wasted. Two hours of time you and your team could be doing literally anything else.
That’s Decision Tax at work.
Poor Prioritization Compounds Over Time
Last time your team faced competing priorities, how did you really decide what made the cut?
Was it the project that would impress the board? The loudest voice in the room? Whatever aligned with the CEO's latest pet project?
Most teams don't have a real prioritization system—just workplace politics wearing a strategy costume. So when making important decisions, whoever has the most conviction (not necessarily the most expertise) wins.
For creative teams like content and design, this spreads a unique kind of malaise.
Team members learn that value is subjective and politics trump merit. Pretty soon, you're sitting on planning calls with brilliant but disengaged creatives who are simply waiting to be told what to work on next.
Content teams might have it worst of all.
Other marketing functions have established metrics (paid media has ROAS, demand has conversion rates), but how do you measure the value of content?
This is where Decision Tax compounds exponentially. Without clear metrics for ideas or potential value, teams spend hours debating subjective opinions. They schedule follow-up meetings to continue discussions that never reach resolution.
All that wasted time and creative energy—just because they never properly defined what makes content valuable in the first place.
So What Really Makes Content Valuable?
When most content teams talk about value, they typically talk about:
Business Value: "Does this content support our strategic goals?"
Audience Value: "Does this content address a real need for our audience?"
Both of these facets of value are vital for any content marketing initiative.
But what happens when teams need to decide between two or more competing priorities that both fit the criteria?
The content teams that consistently deliver exceptional work go a level deeper when evaluating ideas. They examine several other facets of value, like:
Cross-functional utility – How many teams can leverage this content? When marketing creates a customer story that sales, customer success, and HR can all use, that's infinitely more valuable than a piece that serves a single function.
Scalability – Can this content be easily adapted across channels and formats? Content that requires minimal rework to function across your website, social channels, sales enablement, and event marketing creates compound returns.
Longevity – Will this content be relevant six months from now? A year? Three years? The shelf-life of content dramatically impacts its ultimate return.
I share the framework and scoring model in the Try This section below.
You can use this approach to reduce the Decision Tax your team pays for every new content idea. When your entire team understands the criteria for judging what's valuable, you can make quicker decisions without getting stuck in endless debates.
Worth Noting
CMOs Are Fighting Invisible Battles – According to the 2024 State of (Dis)Content Report, nearly half (43.7%) of content marketers cite "workflow issues and approval processes" as a major non-creation challenge, making it the third most common obstacle they face.
AI Won't Save Us From Bad Decisions – Everyone's rushing to implement AI content tools to produce more faster, but it creates a new problem. The bottleneck isn't production—it's deciding what deserves to exist in the first place.
The LinkedIn Rebellion Has Begun – LinkedIn’s algorithm is rewarding people who ditch the corporate speak and just show up as humans. Nick Power at Noun Project is the perfect example. He's crushing it with absurd, funny, and awkward posts that are grabbing engagement in a way that corporate posts can't touch. He’s carving a new path while most other marketers are stuck debating whether em dashes originate with AI.
Try This
Next time your team debates competing content priorities, try this simple but powerful scoring model.
The Content Value Scoring Model
Step 1: Create Your Scoring Matrix
Draw a three-column table on a whiteboard (or in your digital workspace) with rows for each content idea. Label the columns:
Column 1: Audience Value (Score 1-5)
1 = Tangentially related to audience interests
3 = Addresses known secondary concerns
5 = Directly solves a top-priority challenge verified through research
Score each content idea based on:
Does it address a verified customer need?
Is it unique compared to what's already available?
Is it timely and relevant right now?
Column 2: Business Utility (Score 1-5)
1 = Indirectly supports broader business goals
3 = Clearly aligns with a secondary business objective
5 = Directly advances top organizational priorities
Score each content idea based on:
How directly does it support top strategic priorities?
How many teams or functions can effectively use it?
Does it fill a critical gap in your content ecosystem?
Column 3: Impact Potential (Multiplier 1-3x)
1x = Primarily serves one function with limited longevity
2x = Serves multiple functions OR has direct revenue impact
3x = Serves multiple functions AND has direct revenue impact
Score each content idea based on:
How many departments or teams can effectively leverage this content?
How directly will it influence revenue/pipeline metrics?
What's its expected useful life?
Step 2: Calculate the Content Value Score
Now calculate the Content Value score for each idea using this formula: (Audience Value + Business Utility) × Impact Potential
This gives you a maximum score of 30 points [(5+5)×3] and a minimum of 2 points [(1+1)×1].
Step 3: Prioritize Based on the Score
Use this scoring guide to make better prioritization decisions:
25-30: Must-Create Immediately. These rare, high-value assets should be fast-tracked. They're your strategic cornerstones that will drive disproportionate returns. Allocate your best resources here.
18-24: High Priority. Schedule in your next content cycle. These are valuable assets that should be in your near-term roadmap.
12-17: Medium Priority. Add to your upcoming quarter's plan if resources allow. These are solid ideas worth pursuing when bandwidth permits.
6-11: Low Priority. Keep on your radar but place in your backlog. Only move forward if higher-value content is complete or if a specific tactical need emerges.
2-5: Reconsider or Revise. These ideas likely won't deliver meaningful returns. Either significantly rethink the concept or redirect those resources elsewhere.
The beauty of this framework is how it moves discussions from "I think this is important" to "Here's exactly why this deserves our time."
Try it with your last three content requests. I bet you'll find that at least one of them wouldn't have made the cut if you'd used this framework.
Napkin Notes
“The content we regret is rarely the content we decided not to create.” I wrote this down after killing a project that would have consumed three months of work for questionable returns.
Decision debt compounds just like technical debt. Every arbitrary content decision creates a precedent that makes the next arbitrary decision more likely. Break the cycle.
The quality of your content is directly proportional to the quality of questions asked during planning. Teams that normalize uncomfortable questions will outperform those that prioritize consensus and harmony.