Look away…

The most common root cause is that content is produced without a clear answer to why a specific reader would find this genuinely useful at this point in their decision-making. Content that's produced to fill a publishing schedule, cover topics the business finds interesting, or demonstrate activity rather than build a pipeline underperforms compared with content produced with a specific audience, intent, and next step in mind.

The questions to ask of any content that isn't converting are:

• Is it reaching the people who would actually buy from us or a different audience?
• Does it address something they're actively thinking about or something we want to talk about?
• Does it give them something useful they didn't have before – a new frame, a specific answer, a decision they can now make more confidently?
• Is there a clear, low-friction next step that matches where they are in their decision-making process?

A content programme built and executed for marketing agency Cognition generated a 104% increase in organic web traffic, a 115% increase in referral traffic, and a 138% increase in email referrals in one year. An automated email campaign targeting technology companies generated more than £50,000 in revenue over 12 months. The difference between that and content that doesn't convert is the strategic foundation: a clear audience, specific insight, and every piece designed to move the reader toward a defined outcome.

An effective test for any piece of content before it's commissioned is: what will the reader know or think differently about after reading? If the honest answer is 'nothing our competitors aren’t saying,' you should rethink the approach. This isn’t to say you need to be revolutionary with each piece of content. Adding to a conversation, introducing a specific point of view, and curating perspectives are all useful ways to build authority.

Also, authority in B2B is cumulative. You need a consistent content programme that demonstrates knowledge, quality of thinking, and insight into your audience’s actual concerns.

Therefore, think about how your other marketing efforts can support authority-building content generation. For example, Gunning Marketing has worked with Baringa – a global management consultancy – to convert their expert roundtable discussions into thought leadership for the energy industry. The approach involves attending the roundtables, synthesising the discussion, and producing content that reflects the genuine insight in the room rather than a generic commentary on industry trends. The result is content that earns engagement from senior industry stakeholders because it says something they recognise as both true and non-obvious. Read the Baringa case study here.

The interview approach also produces better content. SMEs who are asked to write often default to technical accuracy over reader relevance – they cover what they know rather than what the reader needs to know. A skilled interviewer who understands both the subject matter and the target audience can guide the conversation toward the insights that will actually resonate, and ask the follow-up questions that turn a general observation into a specific, usable example.

Structuring the process helps, too. If SMEs know that content production involves a single call and a draft they can review quickly, they're far more willing to participate than if each piece feels like an unpredictable time commitment. Setting expectations upfront and then meeting them consistently builds the trust that keeps SMEs engaged over the long term.

For teams using AI tools to support content production, the SME's insight still needs to come first. AI can help synthesise and structure, but it can't replace the specific, experiential knowledge that makes B2B content authoritative. AI generates output based on patterns from existing content, which means it can't provide the new perspective that comes from genuine domain expertise. The SME's knowledge is the input that makes the content worth producing.

The question isn't whether AI belongs in a content programme, it's whether the time saved is being reinvested in the strategic and creative thinking that AI can't do – or whether it's being used to produce more mediocre content faster.

The risk for B2B marketing teams is producing a high volume of content that looks polished but lacks the strategic thinking that makes it work. Generic AI output, however fluent, can't manufacture the connection with a target audience that comes from genuine understanding of their world – their pressures, their language, the specific challenges they're carrying into a decision. Because the content that builds a B2B pipeline isn't content that sounds like everyone else.

Only 39% of B2B marketers using AI say content performance has improved, with 34% saying there's been no change since AI use began (CMI, 2026). The difference between the 39% and the 34% is almost always the quality of the inputs: the tone of voice framework, the audience understanding, the strategic brief, and the ability to assess AI outputs for the specific campaign objectives and target audience.

We find it to be an effective tool in the writing process – the same way we use a thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, and other tools – but that the human element remains critical across the workflow. We therefore help organisations build content foundations that improve AI outputs, while also providing essential expertise that ensures content is effective, not slop.

For most B2B businesses, the most useful measurement framework tracks content performance at 3 levels:

• Awareness: Is the content reaching the right audience and driving the right traffic?
• Engagement: Is the audience spending meaningful time with it, returning, and sharing?
• Commercial impact: Is it contributing to pipeline and revenue?

The challenge is that the third level is often the hardest to measure directly, because B2B buying decisions involve multiple touchpoints over long cycles and it’s often hard to align marketing and sales data to get visibility on commercial impact.

Based on your KPIs and what’s practical, metrics worth tracking are:

• Organic traffic growth segmented by audience (not all organic traffic is equally valuable)
• Keyword rankings for the specific terms your ideal clients are searching (SEO and GEO)
• Time on page and scroll depth as proxies for genuine engagement
• Content-assisted conversions in your CRM
• Volume and quality of leads that have touched content as part of their journey

One discipline that's consistently undervalued is attribution conversations with new clients and prospects. 'How did you hear about us?' and 'What did you read or engage with before making contact?' are questions that often reveal content is doing more pipeline work than data suggests.

The strategic framework starts with audience and buyer journey clarity. Every piece of content should map to a specific:

• Audience
• Stage in their decision-making
• Next step

This helps ensure content compounds in value over time, with each piece supporting others, the audience recognising a consistent voice and depth of expertise, and the pipeline benefit growing. Without this framework, content risks being scattered, inconsistent, and harder to attribute to commercial outcomes.

The hub-and-spoke model is a resource-efficient approach to scaling content. A substantial hub asset – a guide, report, or whitepaper on a significant audience question – generates multiple supporting pieces: blog posts on specific aspects, social content, email sequences, sales collateral. Designed well, the hub research and insight inform all the supporting content, dramatically reducing the marginal cost of each additional asset. This also makes it easier to adapt content for different buyer journey stages and channels without producing each piece from scratch.

Before commissioning net-new content, audit what already exists. Most B2B organisations have substantial value sitting in sales presentations, case study libraries, technical documentation, and internal reports. Strategic reorientation – reframing existing assets for external audiences, updating proof points, connecting to current buyer concerns – often produces faster results than new production, and surfaces quick wins that demonstrate content value to stakeholders.