When you first discover AI, the temptation is to ask for texts, ideas, or visuals right away. You might feel like you’re already behind on your blog or social media, so why not speed things up? The problem is that producing a lot without clear direction often leads to disappointment.
AI amplifies what already exists. If your strategy is vague, it will produce vague content. If your strategy is clear, it becomes a real accelerator. The first step is to lay the foundation: why you communicate, who you’re talking to, what topics you cover, and what tone you use. Only then does AI become a powerful lever. This approach is part of a comprehensive guide to creating content with AI for digital marketing, which takes you from initial vision to a structured workflow.
Why Strategy Must Come Before the Tool
Without a strategy, your content becomes a series of disconnected posts. You publish when you have time, talk about whatever comes to mind, and hope something works. Sometimes a post performs well, but you don’t really know why.
A content strategy, even a simple one, changes everything. You shift from reaction mode to intention mode. You know why you’re publishing, who you’re talking to, and what you want to convey. From there, AI becomes truly valuable: it helps you execute your strategy, not replace it.
If you start with the tool, you risk going in circles with your requests. If you start with the strategy, the tool becomes an assistant that carries out what you’ve decided. This shift in logic makes the difference between content that sounds like you and generic content anyone could have produced.
Clarify Your Goals Before Creating Content
The first question to ask yourself is simple: what do you want your content to change, for you and for your audience?
Your goals might look like this:
- attract new visitors to your site
- nurture an existing community
- demonstrate your expertise on a specific topic
- prepare the ground for an upcoming offer
- educate your audience on a new approach
These goals influence everything else. Content designed for visibility doesn’t look like content meant to reassure someone before a purchase. Imagine a nutrition coach launching her business: if her main goal is brand awareness, she’ll publish educational, shareable content on Instagram. If she wants to convert already-interested prospects, she’ll focus on client testimonials and case studies in her newsletter.
When you later ask AI for help, you can specify this goal. It will immediately shape the structure and tone of the suggestions.
Start with two or three goals maximum to avoid spreading yourself thin. For example: increase visibility, build credibility, and generate contact requests. Every new content idea can then pass through a simple question: which main goal does this topic serve?
Know Your Audience to Brief AI Better
AI doesn’t know your audience. It knows generic profiles, common expressions, and typical situations, but not the reality of the people you want to reach. It’s up to you to bring that nuance.
Ask yourself a few questions:
- who are the people you really want to help?
- where are they in their journey?
- what concrete problems do they face with content or marketing?
- which channels do they use most?
You don’t need a perfect persona. A clear enough picture allows you to tell AI: “I’m talking to an entrepreneur who’s just starting with digital marketing, manages her Instagram account alone, and doubts her legitimacy.”
Here’s a concrete example. If you’re a freelance graphic designer targeting local small businesses, your audience probably doesn’t have time to read 3,000-word articles. They prefer quick, actionable tips on LinkedIn or via email. This information changes everything about how you’ll use AI.
To deepen this work, a dedicated piece on content strategy before using AI details each audience type with practical examples.
Define Your Content Pillars
Content pillars are the main themes that structure your content. They keep you from going in all directions and serve as reference points for your audience.
For a blog focused on applied AI marketing, pillars might include:
- marketing strategy and AI
- content and AI
- marketing automation
- SEO and AI
Within the “content and AI” pillar, you can cover sub-topics like strategy preparation, idea generation, assisted writing, content optimization, or workflow setup.
Every time you think of a new article or post idea, ask yourself which pillar it connects to. If it doesn’t connect to any, either it’s not a priority, or a pillar is missing from your structure. AI can help you break down these pillars into topics, but only after you’ve clarified this basic architecture.
Choose Your Priority Channels and Formats
A realistic strategy doesn’t cover every channel. It focuses on where your audience is present and where you can show up consistently.
Some useful questions:
- does your audience still read blog posts?
- are they active on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok?
- is email a relevant channel for them?
- do you feel comfortable with video or do you prefer text?
You can choose one main channel and one or two secondary ones. For example: blog + LinkedIn + newsletter. Your main content is created on the long-form channel, then AI helps you adapt it for other formats.
A communications consultant targeting small business owners might publish one in-depth blog article per month, summarize it in a LinkedIn post each week, and send a bi-weekly newsletter with practical tips. AI steps in to adapt the message, not to create it from scratch.
Set Up a Simple Editorial Calendar
An editorial calendar doesn’t need to be sophisticated. It just needs to be usable. You can start with a simple monthly view where you note:
- publication dates
- channel
- content type
- topic or angle
- associated content pillar
For example:
- week 1: blog article on strategy before AI, LinkedIn post to summarize it
- week 2: Instagram carousel on common content creation mistakes
- week 3: LinkedIn post with three examples of ideas found using AI
- week 4: newsletter with feedback on your workflow
This calendar becomes the foundation for briefing AI. You can say: “I need an outline for an article about content strategy before using AI, to be published in two weeks, for small businesses just getting started.” The tool no longer decides for you—it helps you execute.
To go further with this organization, a piece dedicated to using AI to find content ideas and build your editorial calendar provides concrete examples and reusable templates.
Frame How You Use AI in Your Strategy
A good content strategy also includes how you organize yourself. AI is now part of that organization. You can decide in advance which steps it’s involved in.
For example:
- AI to find ideas and angles
- AI to suggest article structures
- AI to generate a first draft
- you for rewriting, examples, and nuances
- you for final approval
You can also set a few simple rules: no publishing without human review, no sensitive content written entirely by AI, systematic addition of examples from your own experience. These rules let you benefit from AI’s power without feeling disconnected from your content.
Conclusion
Building your content strategy before using AI isn’t adding complexity. It’s simplifying your daily decisions. Once you know your goals, audience, pillars, channels, and rhythm, every new use of AI becomes easier to decide.
This preparation then allows you to fully leverage other possibilities of applied AI marketing for content: finding ideas aligned with your pillars, drafting content that respects your voice, optimizing existing pieces. You can also move toward a more advanced setup by building a semi-automated AI content creation workflow, detailing each step of your process.
By moving forward step by step, you’re not handing your content over to a machine. You stay at the center, you set the direction, and you let AI help you stay on course more easily.
CHLOÉ AZOULAY & DAVID MULLER