How much does content marketing strategy cost in London?

Most London brands invest £2,500 to £6,000 for the initial 12-month strategy project, then £1,500 to £4,500 per month for ongoing planning, briefing and performance review. Production costs sit on top of the strategy retainer.

How long does the strategy phase take?

4 to 6 weeks from discovery kickoff to delivered editorial roadmap. Faster if the customer research is already in place. Longer for enterprise brands with multiple stakeholder approvals.

Do you produce content as well as plan it?

Yes. Planning and production sit under one team because handing the strategy to a separate production agency usually halves the result. We do both unless you have an internal team that prefers to write.

How do you decide which channels we should focus on?

Audience research first, capability second. We map where your customers spend attention, then assess whether you can produce the formats those channels reward. Being on every channel usually means being good at none.

Can you work with our existing in-house content team?

Yes. Many of our retainers run as strategy plus brief production with the client team writing and publishing. The plan and the briefs are ours. The execution is yours.

What does the editorial calendar actually contain?

Every row carries title, primary keyword, target persona, publish date, content type, author, editor, internal links and the AEO requirements. It is a working production document, not a marketing slide.

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CONTENT PLANNING

Content Marketing Strategy London

Content marketing without a plan is just publishing. We build the strategy, the editorial calendar and the channel mix that turn content production into a measurable revenue engine for London brands.

Book a Free Content Audit

12 months

Editorial roadmap

2 / week

Publishing cadence

Live calendar

Shared with the client

What is content marketing strategy?

Content marketing strategy is the planning layer that decides what your brand publishes, on which channels, in what order and to what business outcome. For a London brand in 2026 it covers audience and persona research, channel mix decisions, editorial calendar design, brief production and the performance review cadence that keeps the plan honest. Strategy is the difference between content that compounds and content that disappears.

12 months

Editorial roadmap horizon

2 / week

Publishing cadence minimum

Quarterly

Strategy review and recalibration

What our content planning covers

Audience and persona research

Personas built from real customer interviews, sales calls and search behaviour, not generic templates. For each persona we capture jobs to be done, buying triggers, common objections and the publications and creators they already trust. Personas are working documents, not posters.

✓Customer interviews and sales-call review
✓Search behaviour and SERP analysis
✓Jobs-to-be-done documentation
✓Trusted-source mapping per persona

Channel mix decision

Most brands try to be on every channel and end up good at none. We map your audience to the two or three channels where they actually pay attention and concentrate budget there. The right channel mix is unique to the brand. There is no universal answer in 2026.

✓Channel audit against current audience data
✓Format and cadence fit per channel
✓Production cost versus reach modelling
✓Quarterly rebalancing review

Editorial calendar

Two pieces per week minimum, three-day minimum gap, built around your business cycle and seasonal terms. The calendar is a live Google Sheet owned by the editor and visible to the client. Publishing cadence is the single biggest predictor of topical authority gain.

✓Two posts per week, Monday and Thursday
✓Three-day minimum gap
✓Seasonal and campaign-aligned planning
✓Live calendar shared with the client

Content brief library

Every piece of content ships from a brief. Briefs cover primary keyword, secondary keywords, H2 outline, target word count, FAQ list, internal links and the AEO requirements. A Dedote brief is 1,500 words on its own and writers can produce on day one.

✓Brief template versioned and documented
✓SERP analysis embedded per brief
✓Internal link recommendations
✓AEO citation requirements per brief

Workflow and approval design

The right approval workflow turns content production from a bottleneck into a system. We design who briefs, who writes, who edits and who signs off. Internal SLA on each step. Bad workflows kill content marketing more often than bad writing does.

✓RACI for every content type
✓Internal SLA per workflow step
✓Approval template library
✓Notion or ClickUp workflow build

Performance review cadence

Monthly performance reviews against the editorial map. Quarterly strategy recalibration based on what the data shows. Annual content audit to refresh, merge or retire. Content marketing without review compounds the wrong direction faster than the right one.

✓Monthly Search Console and GA4 review
✓Quarterly strategy refresh
✓Annual content audit
✓Refresh, merge, retire decisions per URL

How We Work

Our content planning process

Discovery

Customer interviews, sales-call review, search-behaviour analysis and competitor audit. The discovery phase produces a one-page brief defining audience, channels and business outcome.

Strategy

12-month editorial roadmap. Pillar and cluster map. Channel mix. Cadence. Approval workflow. Strategy delivered as a working document, not a PDF.

Build

Editorial calendar populated. Brief library built. Workflow tooling configured. The plan becomes operational on day one of month two.

Run and refine

Monthly performance review, quarterly strategy refresh, annual audit. The plan evolves with the data.

"Content marketing without a plan is just typing. With a plan, it is the cheapest revenue compound a brand owns."

Why Dedote

What Makes Us Worth Paying For

Transparency about what's working. Honesty about what isn't. A management structure where the person who built your account is the person managing it.

Customer-research first

Personas come from real customers, not templates.

Live documents

The plan lives in Google Sheets, not in a deck.

British English

UK voice, UK references, UK search behaviour.

Questions

Common Questions

Everything you need to know about our services, pricing, and process.

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