The Three Questions Every Piece of Content Must Pass

We have a small, slightly stubborn rule at Madhatter. Before anything we write goes out into the world, it has to answer yes to three questions. If it cannot, it does not ship. No exceptions, however tight the deadline, however senior the person asking.

Here they are.

The three essential questions

Is it useful? Content earns its place by helping the reader, not by flattering the writer. Before you publish, ask what the reader actually walks away with. A clearer decision? A problem solved? A moment of genuine inspiration? If the honest answer is “not much,” the piece is not ready, however polished it looks.

Is it honest? This one matters more than any clever headline. Does every claim hold up? Is the tone truthful, or is it quietly overselling? Readers have a finely tuned sense for spin, and once they catch you stretching, they stop trusting the rest of the page. Honesty is not only an ethical choice. It is the most practical way to build a reputation that outlasts a campaign.

Is it specific? Vague content is invisible content. “We deliver innovative solutions” tells the reader nothing at all. “We helped a cotton supplier put a face to its farmers and win a new retail contract” tells them everything. Specifics are what people remember, believe, and repeat to someone else. If a sentence could belong to any business in your sector, it belongs to none of them.

How these questions improve content

The beauty of these three questions is how quickly they sharpen a piece of work. Run a draft through them and the weak spots light up. The waffle that fails “useful.” The claim that cannot pass “honest.” The tired phrase that flunks “specific.” You end up cutting the very things that were making the piece forgettable, and what remains is leaner and braver.

You can use them at any stage. As a filter for ideas, so you only start writing the things worth writing. As an editing pass, to tighten what you already have. As a final check, thirty seconds before you hit send.

Putting the questions into practice

A quick example of all three working together. “We offer bespoke, results-driven marketing” fails every test. It helps no one, it might quietly be untrue, and it could belong to any agency alive. “We rewrote one client’s homepage and their enquiries went from two a week to eleven” passes all three at once. It is useful, because it shows what good looks like. It is honest, because it is a real, checkable number. And it is specific, because it could only be us.

They work in a meeting, too. When a piece of content is being argued over and nobody can quite say why it feels off, the three questions give everyone a shared language. Usually it turns out the draft is useful and honest but not remotely specific, and suddenly the fix is obvious rather than a matter of taste. That shared language settles more disagreements than any style guide ever will, because it points at the problem instead of at a person.

Apply them to your work

Try it on your next email, post, or landing page. Useful, honest, specific. If it cannot answer yes to all three, do not send it yet. Fix the one that failed. Your readers will feel the difference, even if they never quite know why. And if you would like help building this habit into your team, that is exactly the kind of thing we enjoy.