Remember 2019?
We were all riding the Old Town Road with Lil Nas X while watching the slow-burn soap opera that was Brexit unfold across the pond.
That was just six years ago, but everything from that era feels like it belongs in a museum.
Back then, our hottest debate was whether pineapple belongs on pizza. Simpler times, right?
I digress.
At Content Marketing World that year, my friend Joe Pulizzi presented 7 Laws for Content Marketing Success over the next decade: the 2020s.
Halfway through that period, so much has changed. It’s time to update those laws for the new reality.
Marketing is at another inflection point. Generative AI cranks out content at warp speed, trust in media is hanging by a thread, third-party data and cookies are (as Miracle Max might say) “mostly dead,” and audiences are more skeptical than ever.
Over the next five years, those of us who love and practice content marketing will have to be more creative, more ruthless about priorities, and more strategic than ever before.
These new content marketing laws will help you survive 2025 and dominate through 2030. Watch the video for the quick take, then keep reading for the deep dive.
Law 1: Always be orchestrating (internal buy-in is for amateurs)
The greatest threat to content marketing isn’t a lack of great ideas. It’s the inability to prove to fearful executives how valuable content marketing can be.
In 2025, it’s not enough to sell content marketing internally. If they haven’t gotten it by now, no amount of successful case studies packaged into a PowerPoint presentation will change business leaders’ minds. Today, you need to force the integration of valuable content programs across teams.
Marketing has become content marketing. Lean into that fact, and don’t try to sell content marketing as a distinct function. Assume you have permission to do marketing — and start creating great content as a function within it.
Here’s what I mean: Instead of spending time trying to make a case for that separate publication, event, community, newsletter, podcast, or resource center, just make any one of those things a core piece of the overall marketing plan.
The new way: Figure out the strategic impact of whatever you want to build, integrate it into a content intelligence dashboard, and put that in front of executives. Include revenue attribution, retention insights, customer experience impact, and anything that shows impact.
Make your owned media (content marketing) strategy impossible to ignore. Make it part of marketing.
Law 2: Build a content business, not a marketing hobby
The second law is to escalate your owned media efforts with multiple goals and objectives.
The most successful brands treat their owned media operations like a business within the business, not a fluffy afterthought.
AI-fueled content spam will soon be everywhere. Trust in advertising just isn’t there. Audiences are starving for real, differentiating, and uplifting experiences.
Successful companies aren’t using their owned media platforms to sell products — they’re monetizing them in multiple ways. They’re building their content marketing properties to provide multiple lines of value to the business.
For example, a small credit union I worked with rebooted its corporate blog last year. The blog, built to inspire trust in the credit union’s brand and create engagement, provided a fine brand experience and plenty of traffic and engagement.
But the business saw it as a side hustle compared with the “real marketing” happening elsewhere.
Today, the rebooted blog is considered a “marketing multiplier.” The content team runs it like a media business, with in-house ads targeted by topic to attract high-level leads. Polls and surveys on the site provide market research insight and first-party data that the marketing team uses for targeted advertising.
The company expanded what was known as “the blog” into a content brand — branching into a podcast and physical events – and a platform for the brand to provide value to its community. It’s now every bit as strategic as the company’s financial products and services.
The new way: In 2025, build your content marketing strategy profit and loss (P&L) statement. Make sure your owned media platforms are considered corporate assets capable of generating more value than they cost.
Law 3: Buy, steal, or partner (just don’t start from scratch)
Launching a brand-new strategic content initiative from zero is playing on hard mode.
Consider partnering, collaborating, or buying an audience before you commit to the long haul of building it. Why spend two years growing an email list when you can acquire an existing one overnight?
An established content or media brand may not just boast a sizable, subscribed audience — it may also carry a high level of brand trust that can instantly amplify your efforts.
For example, last year, country music stars Morgan Wallen and Eric Church teamed up to purchase the iconic brand Field & Stream. They plan to expand the renowned print magazine into outdoor music festivals, an apparel line, and a digital publication.
The new way: Before you decide to green-light your company’s first (or ninth) blog, podcast, or video series, see whether someone out there already has the audience you want. Then, do a buy-versus-build analysis.
Some company (or some person) may already have an audience and still struggle to grow it alone. Shortcut the grind and take what’s already working.
Law 4: Build a content supply chain (not a dumpster fire)
AI-generated content is flooding the market. Over the next five years, the winners won’t be the ones producing the most but the ones designing content operations that scale intelligently and creatively.
Content marketing isn’t just producing more and more digital assets. It should function like a precision-engineered machine. If your content operation isn’t built for prioritization and content reuse, you’re already falling behind.
Follow these steps — ideate, create, produce, merchandise, activate, and measure — to align content operations with business goals. This structured workflow transforms content from an ad hoc effort into a strategic business asset.
The new way: Stop treating content like a never-ending to-do list. Build a structured, scalable content supply chain that operates like a precision factory.
Law 5: End the content free-for-all (structure, tag, and track everything)
If you’re still publishing content without structured metadata, you’re losing a considerable amount of value. Unstructured, one-off content might as well be going to the digital landfill — good luck finding value in all that mess.
One of the most valuable use cases for generative AI is its ability to handle structured metadata, keywords, and pattern recognition — transforming your content library into a highly valuable, organized knowledge base for your company.
Consider two recent projects.
In one, a tech company tried to integrate a chatbot for customer support, training it using the company’s existing help documents. Because the content was unstructured and outdated, the company faced a massive challenge — sifting through obsolete information and ensuring that the system “unlearned” incorrect material.
Conversely, one B2B manufacturer spent a great deal of time building a well-organized taxonomy and structured framework for its thought leadership and how-to content. When it needed an automated filtering system, it simply leveraged its existing metadata and tags. That upfront work let the company implement an effective solution quickly and seamlessly.
The new way: Invest in semantic tagging, structured content models, and modular assets. Your content should be findable, measurable, and dynamically repurposable. If you’re not treating content like a structured data asset, you’re leaving money on the table.
Law 6: Your owned audience is your last competitive advantage
Despite Google backing away from demolishing the third-party cookie, first-party data remains the best way for brands to benefit from personalized and targeted experiences.
The one thing that will matter for sure in 2030 is having an audience you can address on your terms — and that wants to hear from you.
Interactive content (configurators, pricing tools, polls, surveys, and games) is changing how brands interact with potential customers.
But the real value doesn’t derive from the momentary engagement with that customer. It comes from leveraging the first-party data gleaned from those applications, which you can use to make the customer’s entire experience more relevant, targeted, and valuable than anything they can get elsewhere.
The new way: Don’t surrender to the renewed pressure to move everything to social media or chase AI search results. Build the home of your empire on your turf. Email newsletters. Private communities. Exclusive memberships.
Brands that control their audience pipeline will be the last ones standing.
Law 7: Say ‘no’ more often (mediocre content kills brands)
Content marketing failures don’t come from bad ideas. They come from doing too much mediocre content instead of focusing on producing a few brilliant things.
Every marketing team thinks it can run a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a TikTok, a LinkedIn newsletter, and a research arm. But most can’t. And those that try suck at some of them.
The new way: Start a stopping list. Be ruthless. Focus on one or two genuinely exceptional content experiences your brand can own, sustain, and dominate. Depth wins. Half-assed doesn’t.
Into the future
When you follow these seven laws, you’re not just doing content marketing — you’re building an unstoppable content business:
- Law 1. Always be orchestrating. Stop asking for buy-in. Demand alignment.
- Law 2. Build a content business, not a marketing hobby. Content should pay for itself.
- Law 3: Buy, steal, or partner. Don’t waste time starting from zero.
- Law 4: Build a content supply chain, not a dumpster fire. Structure wins.
- Law 5: End the content free-for-all. Every asset should be trackable and reusable.
- Law 6: Your owned audience is your competitive advantage. If you don’t own the audience, you don’t own your future.
- Law 7: Say no more often. Cut the mediocre. Focus on the exceptional.
Content marketing in 2030 will be unrecognizable. The only brands left standing will be the ones that treat content like a business, not just a marketing tactic.
It’s your story. Tell it well — loud, bold, and without apology.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute