What GCT Means
GCT stands for Goals, Content, Targeting. It is the strategic foundation of your marketing and one of three marketing triangles in the HOW tier of the 9 Triangles framework. GCT answers the three essential questions before you spend a single dollar on marketing: what do you want to achieve, what material will you use to get there, and who needs to see it?
The Three Elements
Goals come first. You define your mission (start with WHY), identify desired outcomes, set your target cost per acquisition or return on ad spend, and choose one key metric for each ACC funnel stage. Without clear goals, performance cannot be measured or improved. As the Standards of Excellence teach: the four-minute mile was only broken because runners were measuring their performance and had a goal they were working towards.
Content is everything that proves you do what you say you do — videos, articles, testimonials, case studies, and checklists organized through the Content Factory process (Produce, Process, Post, Promote). The most important principle in content creation is making sure everything connects back to your WHY. Through the process of Learn, Do, Teach, every opportunity becomes a content creation opportunity.
Targeting is identifying exactly who your ideal customer is — demographics, interests, behaviors, location — and using custom audiences, lookalike audiences, and remarketing to reach them efficiently. The best content in the world is useless if it reaches the wrong people. The Dollar a Day strategy is built on precise targeting: putting proven content in front of the right people at minimal cost.
How GCT Works in Practice
GCT forms a “viral spiral” where good targeting surfaces your content to the right people, which generates engagement data, which refines your goals, which improves your content, and the cycle continues. This iterative loop is what separates strategic marketing from random posting. When you know your goals, create content that serves those goals, and target the right audience, the MAA (Metrics, Analysis, Action) feedback loop tells you exactly what to optimize next.
Where GCT Fits in the 9 Triangles
GCT is one of the three marketing triangles in the HOW tier. It is the strategic starting point — before you can build a funnel (ACC) or optimize (MAA), you need to know your goals, have content to promote, and know who you are targeting. All three marketing triangles work together to serve the mission of SBP (Specialist, Business, Partner) at the top of the framework.
Related Resources
- Goals — defining your mission and marketing objectives
- Content and Targeting — detailed guide on the content and targeting elements
- The Content Factory — the 4-stage content production system
- Strategy Audit GCT — assess your current goals, content, and targeting
- 9 Triangles Checklist — overview of the full framework