Background

Goldfish Swim School had successfully published content across its website, blog, social channels and member communications for many years. But as the brand continued to grow from a small handful in 2026 to over 200 across 40 states and Canada by 2025, there was an opportunity to make that content work harder.

Much of the existing content served as a useful reference for current members. The bigger opportunity was to clarify the role of content across the full customer journey, from early awareness and consideration through conversion, engagement and retention.

For parents, the decision to begin swim lessons is emotional as well as practical. Safety is often the initial motivator, but parents are also thinking about confidence, social development, independence, fun, physical activity and whether their child is truly ready. Goldfish needed a content strategy that could meet parents in those moments, answer their questions, build trust and reinforce the value of swim lessons over time.

The Task

My role was to develop a new content marketing strategy for Goldfish Swim School that established a clearer role for content within the marketing funnel. A strategy that reflected the huge scale that the business had developed into but still reflected the needs of individual franchises and at the same time retained a consistent style, tone and voice.

The strategy needed to define how content could support both prospective and current members, improve discoverability through stronger SEO practices, create a more consistent editorial experience across channels and give internal teams and franchisees a practical framework for future planning.

The work included stakeholder input, competitive analysis, audience and journey mapping, a review of the existing content experience, SEO recommendations, content pillars, tone and voice guidance, editorial planning and performance measurement.

The Result

The new strategy clarified Goldfish’s right to voice around swim lessons, water safety, child confidence, life skills, socialization, family stories and practical guidance for parents. It also recommended a more structured content system, with clearer navigation, stronger internal linking, more consistent formatting, better use of SEO, and a broader mix of formats including articles, short-form video, infographics, newsletters, guides and larger “big rock” content initiatives.

The work also included a content audit process using Content Acclaim, an AI-enabled auditing tool “Content Acclaim”, to review more than 300 existing blog articles against brand, editorial and SEO criteria. That audit helped identify where existing content was already strong, where it could better connect to parent motivations and barriers, and where new content could fill gaps in the customer journey.

The strategy gave Goldfish a clearer editorial mission: to become a trusted swim companion for families, providing helpful, accurate and empathetic content that supports parents at every stage of the swim lesson journey.

The Strategy Included

• Stakeholder interviews to understand business priorities, content needs, franchise considerations and opportunities for stronger member engagement.

• Competitive analysis of direct and adjacent swim school content programs, including blog structure, social media use, SEO practices, navigation and content formats.

• Audience and customer journey analysis focused on the key moments “triggers” when parents begin researching swim lessons, including motivations, barriers and questions.

• Definition of the role of content across the funnel, from awareness and consideration to conversion, loyalty and retention.

• Development of an editorial mission statement and a clearer right-to-voice framework for Goldfish Swim School.

• Creation of content pillars covering swim skills, water safety, confidence and life skills, fun and socialization, parental guidance, and community stories.

• Recommendations for blog, topic landing page and article page improvements, including stronger navigation, content clusters, breadcrumbs, search, bylines, related links and calls to action.

• SEO recommendations covering keyword use, H1 structure, metadata, internal linking, duplicate titles, low-content pages, canonical tags, broken links and crawl depth.

• Content Acclaim audit of more than 300 existing articles to evaluate brand alignment, SEO best practices and editorial performance.

• Recommendations for repurposing top-performing content into social carousels, video, newsletters, PDFs, infographics and other formats.

• A three-part content stack covering foundational evergreen content, timely seasonal content and larger “big rock” storytelling opportunities.

• Editorial and visual style guide recommendations to improve consistency, trust and brand cohesion across centrally produced and franchise-level content.

• Recommendations for a national e-newsletter, potential print magazine and stronger cross-channel content distribution.

• KPI and measurement framework to evaluate content performance, engagement, discoverability and business impact.