5 Takeaways About Content Strategy from Industry Experts

“Content is King” – it’s a phrase every marketer knows, but creating content that truly rules remains an elusive challenge for many.

While content marketing continues to be the cornerstone of modern B2B go-to-market strategies, organizations often struggle with the fundamentals: developing a cohesive strategy, implementing it effectively, and executing consistently.

In one of our most popular Marketing Mayhem episodes, host Morgan J. Ingram tackles these challenges head-on.

Joining him are three distinguished content marketing experts:

• Erin Balsa, a seasoned B2B content marketing consultant
• Nehal Tenany, content marketing lead at Clari
• Kaylee Edmondson, an accomplished B2B demand-gen leader

Their candid conversation revealed invaluable insights for content marketers at every level.

Missed the episode? Don’t worry – we’ve distilled their expertise into the five most important takeaways you need to know.

1. How to think about successful content

Every piece of content can’t be everything to everyone. It’s unrealistic. That said, all of the experts agreed that each piece must hit at least two of three essential elements: being relatable, insightful, or actionable.

As Nehal Tenany, currently leading content marketing at Clari, explained, “When I work with brands, and when I’m doing B2B content strategy, I try to map these three buckets out. If it hits two out of three, then okay, I think this is gonna be a good piece.”

Creating effective content is difficult and sometimes too subjective. This framework provides a clear litmus test for content quality. The panel noted that while hitting all three elements is ideal, ensuring your content meets at least two of these criteria is crucial for success.

However, they also pointed out that the “relatable” aspect often proves the most challenging for brands to achieve authentically.

2. Don’t get stuck producing commodity content

At one point in the conversation, Erin Balsa shared a pivotal moment in her content marketing journey.

An experienced content marketing consultant, she found herself asking during one particular project exactly why a blog was so bad. It wouldn’t be till later that she would realize that “in hindsight, [the blog] had no original flavor. There’s no special ingredient that is distinctive to this brand,” she explained, discussing an early piece of content that taught her valuable lessons about differentiation.

Think about it this way. 87% of B2B marketers are using content marketing to successfully generate leads. If all you’re doing is creating content for content’s sake, you’re creating commodified content.

The key to avoiding this pitfall according to the panel includes:

• Identifying your brand’s signature ingredients
• Incorporating proprietary data and unique insights
• Creating content that would be recognizable as yours even without the logo
• Developing a strategic narrative that informs your point of view

“You need to know what makes you, you,” Balsa emphasized. “What is it about your founder, your CEO, your brand itself, that might be an original point of view, which comes from your big idea that informs your strategic narrative?”

3. Never Create Content Without A Distribution Strategy

Distribution strategy proved to be a crucial topic, with Kaylee Edmondson highlighting a common pitfall:

“There’s a stat that Randy Frisch used to always say… that 80% of content never gets distributed, never sees the light of day. And I think it’s because these two teams internally don’t talk to each other.”

This is another huge pitfall for content marketing teams. You can be creating the most insightful report or presentation imaginable but if nobody knows it exists? It may as well not.

The panel recommended several key strategies for effective distribution:

• Plan distribution before content creation
• Implement a “rolling social blitz” instead of simultaneous posting
• Create a waterfall content strategy to repurpose content effectively
• Consider multiple channels and formats from the outset

Nehal added valuable insight about content repurposing: “If you have a backlog of content, you can actually reuse and recycle that content into different formats. But what people do wrong is they don’t think about that until after the content is already created.”

4. Leveraging AI Thoughtfully

Step onto any social media platform where marketers are discussing generative AI and you’ll be entering into a very polarized discussion.

According to our panel of guests, AI in content creation requires a more nuanced approach. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for human creativity, the experts advocated for using it as an enhancement tool. “You have to use your own personal brand tone, voice and things to make it feel like you and make it feel authentic,” Tenany advised, “because nowadays I’m on LinkedIn and I’m like ‘you did not write that…’”

The panel suggested several effective ways to leverage AI without stepping on the human element in these pieces:

• Research validation and enhancement
• Transition suggestions for complex pieces
• Identifying potential objections
• Question refinement for surveys and research
• Content cleanup and jargon removal

Erin shared her favorite tip as well, saying that she “Use it for transitions… I’ve been writing forever, professionally for 13 years. I still get stuck sometimes on transitions. How do I connect these two pieces?”

5. Know who you’re writing for

The importance of deeply understanding your audience emerged as another consistent theme. Kaylee emphasized this point: “Unless you’re in martech and you are a marketer selling to marketers, you are writing for a persona that is not you 90% of the time.”

Without a clear audience in mind, it’s near impossible to craft content they would want to actually spend the time and engage with.

The experts shared several strategies for better audience targeting:

• Develop detailed persona research
• Adapt language and tone for different audience segments
• Test content ideas before full investment
• Use social media as a testing ground

“I had a huge aha moment,” shared Tenany, discussing the importance of persona-specific language. “I need to start breaking down my emails and using verbiage that is relevant to the personas. Instead of saying ‘you,’ I was saying ‘your team should do this.’”

Practical Implementation Tips

To put these lessons into practice, the experts recommended:

1. Start with a clear brand archetype and voice guidelines
2. Create a content waterfall strategy before beginning any major piece
3. Use social media to test concepts before significant investment
4. Align on what “bold” means for your organization
5. Document your distribution strategy before content creation

As Erin noted in her closing thoughts, “Sit down and align on what bold means for you as an organization. Can you come to an agreed-upon definition? Can you find some examples that you all can say, ‘okay, we can agree that this is comfortable, this is going to align with who we are as a brand, but still be distinctive enough’?”

These takeaways represent just a smidgen of what the panel shared. Check out the full presentation for more practical examples and proven strategies you can implement today.

Know what’s working: Transform your strategy with Content Intelligence

While these foundational tips provide a strong strategic framework, you still have to know whether it’s working or not.

The real challenge lies in measuring and optimizing content performance at scale.

This is where PathFactory’s content intelligence platform becomes transformative. You get deep insights into how buyers engage with your content, which pieces drive conversions, and what content sequences accelerate the buyer’s journey.

Rather than relying on surface-level metrics, PathFactory’s AI-powered analytics reveal exactly which content moves the needle, helping teams make data-driven decisions about their content strategy.

Check out the other episodes of Marketing Mayhem here.