Poor strategy alignment cascades into weak briefing. Weak briefing leads to bland research and interviews (if any), which then results in content that's harder to write, trickier to edit, and therefore unlikely to meet expectations.

Strategy, briefing, and interviewing-this behind-the-scenes prepwork creates original, resonating content only when these stages reinforce each other. Before a single word is written. Producing content that connects, powered by subject matter experts (SMEs), takes more than dumping unstructured thoughts into a doc and calling it a day.

After having a conversation with Beam's co-founder Brooklin Nash on what comes before the writing, I'll do my best to break down how the sometimes overlooked prepwork that goes into a content engine impacts the creation of content. This way you can self-audit your org's system, and optimize it as you see fit. Or leave it to Beam.