Why We Stopped Making Content and Started Answering Questions

Optimizing Marketing Journeys with the 10+5 Framework

At Palo Alto Networks, we're always looking for better ways to create marketing content that actually connects with our audience. One approach that's been a game-changer for us is something called the 10+5 Framework. It’s a concept I picked up during my IBM days that's helped us cut through the noise and focus on what really matters.

What is the 10+5 Framework?

The 10+5 Framework is pretty straightforward, but that's what makes it powerful. Here's the breakdown:

The 10: These are your 10 best, most current assets for any given campaign. Think of them as your greatest hits. It’s the content that sales teams actually use, executives reference, and prospects find genuinely helpful.

The 5: These are the top five pieces you're actively developing. By capping it at five, you force yourself to prioritize quality over quantity and avoid that familiar trap of having dozens of half-finished projects.

It's essentially a forcing function that keeps you honest about what's worth your time and what isn't.

How This Maps to the Buyer's Journey

Our buyers typically move through stages like Discover, Learn, Try, and Buy. At each point, they're asking different questions depending on who they are. The hands-on practitioner wants something very different from the time starved, budget-holding executive.

The beauty of the 10+5 Framework is that it ensures we're actually answering these questions instead of just creating content for the sake of it.

Take these examples:

• During Discover, a practitioner might be thinking, "Wait, is this actually a problem I need to worry about?"

• In the Learn phase, an executive is probably asking, "How have other companies tackled this, and what kind of ROI did they see?"

When our content directly addresses these concerns, we help people make better decisions.

The Power of a Good Question

Here's where we've recently evolved the 10+5 Framework beyond its original design. Initially, like most content strategies, we were still thinking in terms of asset types and formats. Blogs for early stage, white papers for consideration, case studies for decision-making. We had the structure right, but we were still trapped in the old way of thinking.

The real breakthrough came when we shifted to making buyer questions the foundation of everything. Instead of starting with "what type of content do we need?" we now ask "what questions are our buyers trying to answer?" This single change has transformed how we align content to campaigns, buyer needs, and specific journey stages. It is a simple shift with profound impacts.

Starting with Questions, Not Formats

This question-first approach flips the traditional content playbook completely. Instead of forcing buyers to find answers within whatever format we've decided to create, we let their actual questions drive both the content and how we present it.

This approach gives us incredible flexibility. Maybe a two-minute clip from a “Learn-stage” webinar perfectly answers a “Discover-stage” question, so we embed it in a blog post. When the buyer watches that same full webinar, which is a deep-dive resource for the Learn stage the additional content, depth and framing help answer the deeper questions that a buyer has. Same content, different contexts, maximum impact.

Cross-Team Collaboration is Everything

To nail down the right questions, we bring together different perspectives:

• Product Marketing Managers give us the customer intelligence and market context we need.

• Product Teams help us understand not just what our solutions do, but why they matter.

• Sales Teams are goldmines for the real questions they're hearing from prospects day in and day out.

When you combine these viewpoints, you get a much richer, more accurate picture of what content you actually need to create.

Measuring What Matters

Once content goes live, we track whether it's doing its job. Is it driving traffic, generating conversions, and most importantly, moving people through the journey. This isn't just about vanity metrics. It's about understanding whether our content is working as intended.

Why the 10+5 Framework Actually Works

The 10+5 Framework isn't revolutionary because it's complicated. It works because it's simple and forces tough choices. By maintaining focus on your 10 best assets and your 5 top priorities, you naturally align your efforts with what buyers and your business actually need.

Plus, it keeps you agile. Market shifts? Competitive changes? You can easily swap out one of your five development priorities for something more urgent. In our fast-moving industry, that kind of flexibility isn't just nice to have, it's essential.

The Bottom Line

The 10+5 Framework has fundamentally changed how we approach content marketing, but the real game-changer has been making buyer questions the foundation of everything we do. This innovation allows us to truly align our content to campaigns, buyer needs, and journey stages in a way that wasn't possible before.

By starting with buyer questions, collaborating across teams, and maintaining disciplined focus, we're creating content that actually moves the needle. We're not just filling content calendars, we're answering the questions buyers have to help them achieve decision velocity.

At Palo Alto Networks, we're committed to meeting our buyers where they are with exactly what they need. The evolved 10+5 Framework gives us a clear, question-driven path to do exactly that.

Credits: Thanks to Memsy Price, and Aimee Rodriguez for introducing me to the initial 10 +5 framework. And a huge thanks to Amy (Whitehead) Wagman for collaborating and driving us toward the questions framework.