👉 From Big Idea to Killer Content (It's Time To Level Up)

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Content Factories Are Dead

Pour one out for the glory days of “just publish more blog crap than the other guy and you will dominate the SERPs.” That era is as dead as keyword stuffing with white on white text displayed offscreen. (That was a killer SEO hack a long time ago…cue up Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days, will ya?)

Yesterday, during prep for this masterful missive, I was listening to the latest episode of Marketing Against the Grain, and special guest star Alex Leiberman (he of Morning Brew fame) dropped a great framework that I think defines the next era of marketing. It isn’t about who can publish the most, but who can show the best taste, learn the fastest, and resonate the deepest. That’s what I am trying to help you build - a way of thinking about content that gets published (duh), seen (cool) & has impact (booyah).

TBH, knowing you need “taste” doesn’t exactly help when you’re staring at a cursor that shouts "Shame!” like from the Game of Thrones with each blink. So today, we are gonna take a walk from Big Hairy Idea → Specific, Resonant Topics → Distribution That Doesn’t Make You Cry. With prompts. Because I love you, and I don’t want any of this:

Here’s What We’ve Covered Recently

This is sorta kinda my “Latest Hits” during this content kick I am on - if you need a refresher - take a detour to any of these gorgeous posts:

Content Obession & Repetition Inner Circle #66 → Find your content themes and get creative
Make Content For The Buying Committee Inner Circle #83 → Buying Committee Content → tailoring messages by role & concern.
Be Like Flavor Flav - Content Distribution 101 Inner Circle #82 → Distribution basics.
Message & Market Match - Don’t Give PhD Content To 3rd Graders - Inner Circle #84 → Matching message to market sophistication.
Creating Killer Content - How Go From Idea To Publish - Inner Circle #85 → 10 simple content creation steps - with FREE AI prompts - can you believe it! (Damn - this newsletter is worth every penny you pay for it!)

So, all we’ve got left now is Topic Strategy + Distribution Strategy…you are going to be a B2B content ninja when you are done with this stuff. 🥷🥷🥷🥷🥷

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Your Big Content Idea Might Seriously Suck 😟

Unless you start thinking about how to bring a big topic into focus, I can say with exactly 99.87976% certainty your content isn’t going to move anyone’s needle. So, when you and your team decide “we should write about AI!” (or whatever’s trending), that’s not a content strategy. That’s just some sloppy, lazy brainstorming output…you gotta get tight.

“But, Tim!?!” you shriek, “how can I make non-sucky content choices…I’ve never had to do this before!?!?!?”

Chill, dude, here’s the Caveman Content Framework, perfectly simple for people who are simply perfect. (Too much? My mom used to say something like that when I was a kid, so shut up and appreciate it, OK?)

Make a a 4 square box and start writing in it - this is a quick & dirty way to get some specifics around your buyer out of your head so that you can work with it:

• WHO (your buyer)

• SUCKS (their frustrations)

• WANTS (their aspirations)

• BLOCKED (what’s in their way)

Smash those boxes together and suddenly you’re not blabbing about “AI ” you’re writing the exact post your ICP is desperate to read before their next board meeting.

👉 Awesome AI So You Don’t Have to Write Anything Down Prompt:

You are a B2B content strategist.
Fill out the 4-Box Buyer Map:

WHO → [Job Title + Company Type]  
SUCKS → [3 things ruining their day]  
WANTS → [3 things that would make them a hero]  
BLOCKED → [3 obstacles in the way]  

Now generate 10 content topics across:  
- Pain (fix what SUCKS)  
- Aspiration (deliver what they WANT)  
- Obstacle (help remove BLOCKED).

Don’t Just Pick a Topic. Explode It 💣

Trying to write about AI in marketing as a topic is like pointing at the menu board at Starbucks and not saying anything. The barista will get you something - and it will be in the neighborhood of what you were hoping for, but it won’t be exactly the same. But if you ask your friendly neighborhood AI engine to help out, they will get you exactly the half-caf, double-mocha, oat-milk, cold foam, brown sugar, hazelnut coffee abomination you want. Or, to leave the coffee metaphor aside, just take your topics from The Caveman and watch them explode into magically specific topics you can start executing against!

Broad topic: [YOUR TOPIC].  
Buyer: [ICP details].  

Generate 15 hyper-specific subtopics in the format:  
[Situation trigger] → [Internal monologue] → [Topic idea].  

Example:  
"Board meeting next week → How do I not look like an idiot →  
‘5 Slides That Make You Look Like You Understand AI’"

Used by Execs at Google and OpenAI

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We’ve Got Amazing Content Sub-Topics…But Are They All Equally Amazing?

Hell no. They are not. In order to get to topics that are the absolute best and will have the biggest impact on your market, let’s force rank them, shall we? That sounds like a blast. You know who is really good at scoring things? Computers. You know what is a big crazy computer? AI. So let’s have AI take a crack at putting our topics in order own awesomeness, ok?

Not every subtopic deserves daylight, so here’s a quick scoring system so you don’t waste any cycles…

👉 Prompt:

Score these subtopics (1–10) on:  
- Pain Specificity  
- Search Intent  
- Competitive Gap  
- Sales Enablement  

Return top 5 with total scores + one-liner why they win.

Take these topics, head back to 10 Simple Steps To Create Killer Content, start at Step 7, and watch the magic happen!

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Hey-Ho - Let’s Distro

BTW, if The Ramones aren’t running through your head right now, I feel badly for you. So now that we have great content topics, and you can head back to Inner Circle #85 for content creation reminders, we’ve got to think about WHERE we can get eyeballs on this amazing stuff.

Most marketers blast a post once on LinkedIn, then whine when nobody cares. That’s like doing one pushup and wondering why you don’t look like The Rock.

Even if you do look like The Rock you still have to figure out where to get some eyeballs. So, I came up with:

The Lazy Marketer’s Distribution Framework
Layer 1: Where your people already hang out (LinkedIn feed, public Slack groups, subreddits).
Layer 2: Borrowed audiences (guest posts, podcasts, newsletters) that already talk to your audience.
Layer 3: Direct outreach (send it straight to 10 humans who actually care).

That framework is great for getting ideas flowing…but I want you to be smart about this. You might come up with the idea that your audience hangs out in LinkedIn groups, a Discord channel & the comment section of BLACKPINK videos on YouTube.

But how do you know which channel is going to perform better?

You guessed it - ChatGPT, Claude & Grok to the rescue!

👉 Layer 1 - Distribution Detective Prompt:

Analyze [CHANNEL] for B2B content distribution. Score 1–5 on:  
- Engagement Depth  
- Audience Alignment  
- Reach Efficiency  
- Signal-to-Noise  

Return total score + verdict.  
Now compare 10 channels for [TARGET BUYER] and recommend top 3.

👉 Layer 2 - Borrow Audiences Prompt:

I want to expand my reach through borrowed audiences.  
Target buyer: [ICP details].  
Industry: [industry/vertical].  

Generate a list of:  
- 10 podcasts my ICP listens to (with short explanation why they’re relevant)  
- 10 newsletters they subscribe to (with audience size / focus)  
- 10 blogs or media sites they trust.  

For each, include:  
- Why this audience is a fit for me  
- Example topic or hook I could pitch them that would resonate with their readers/listeners  

Note: If you want some things to make finding relevant podcasts & crafting outreach for them practically auto-magical, I would heartily endorse PodPitch (and save $100 via that link #aff). If you want to get quoted in the press, Peter Shankman’s Source of Sources is a daily email full of press requests. If you want places to write, craft an article pitch to the trade association of the market you serve, find non-competitive agencies who target a similar market and offer to write for the newslesster, etc. Be scrappy.

👉 Layer 3 - Gentle Nudge To Look At And Share My Content Prompt:

Segment my network into:  
- Inspiration  
- Problem Sharers  
- Industry Peers  
- Customers/Prospects  

Draft 3 tailored outreach messages for each, referencing their context.  
Goal = invite conversation, not just clicks.

Wow - That Was a Lot

Last issue, we got icp → simple topic → publish.

Today, you’ve got the topic → subtopic → scoring → distro stack flow.

Now you can go from Big Idea to actual published content that will generate results.

Next issue? I’m going to walk through this and create content using the process. I’ll give you the full swipe file of prompts (topic + distro + creation), end-to-end, and I will share with you the outputs that I get - it will be inspiration, theory & action all in one.

It’ll be the content strategy cheat sheet you always hoped you’d get for your birthday when you were just a kid…

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