ChatGPT
Claude
Perplexity
Content Marketing Institute’s latest B2B report shows the same three content problems marketers are still dealing with:
- Creating content that prompts a desired action (40%)
- Resource constraints around time, people, and budget (39%)
- Measuring content effectiveness (33%)
Marketers can produce content. They can distribute it. They can even generate traffic.
That part isn’t the problem.
The problem is getting the right content in front of the right buyer, at the right stage, with enough substance to move them forward.
When that doesn’t happen, the rest starts to break around it.
This week, I’m breaking down those three challenges and what marketers can do about them.
1) Creating Content That Drives Action
This usually gets reduced to conversion. But in B2B, the issue often starts earlier.
Content stops driving action when it is built to cover a topic instead of helping with a decision.
AI content does this all the time. It can explain, but it doesn’t know what the reader needs to believe, compare, or justify before they’re ready for the next step.
The content ends up reading well but doing very little commercially.
So what can you do to fix that?
Brief every piece around intent, persona, and funnel stage
A content brief should be built around the buying decision the content is supposed to support.
B2B buyers do a lot of the heavy lifting privately, before sales ever get involved. Your content is basically acting as a salesperson in the background.
Since B2B deals are made by committees, your content must also act as a peacemaker. Your content must provide enough targeted information to help every stakeholder resolve their internal arguments before you ever meet them.
For example:
- Intent tells you what the reader is trying to do right now.
- Persona tells you whose questions need answering.
- Funnel stage tells you how much depth, proof, and detail the content needs.
That’s the difference between content that covers a topic and content that helps move a deal.
Build enough value to earn the next step
Adding a ‘good CTA’ won’t move the reader to the next step.
You need to give the reader something they can use:
- Clarity to make a decision
- Stronger evidence that the solution fits their use case, team, or setup
- Pricing clarity early enough to rule options in or out
- Enough implementation detail to judge effort, rollout, and likely risk
- Material they can use to build internal buy-in
The problem is marketers are using AI content, which explains well enough to inform, but not to influence a decision.
Use AI to speed production, not decide the journey
AI is useful for drafting, planning, and production support.
It shouldn’t be deciding the path through the funnel.
The marketer needs to decide what buyer moment the content is for, what friction needs removing, what proof needs adding, and what the next step should be.
Otherwise, the result is the same thing we keep seeing now.
Content that looks fine, but does nothing.
2) Resource Constraints Are Still Holding B2B Teams Back
B2B content teams waste resources because the operating model is messy.
Too much work starts from scratch.
Too many channels want their own version of everything.
Too many requests get added because they sound useful, not because they are tied to a goal.
That’s where resources disappear.
AI can make this worse, not better.
If it’s used to pour more output into a weak system then you’re not solving the mess. You’re just creating more content to manage, update, distribute, and explain later.
Do this instead:
Repurpose from core assets, not random finished pieces
Repurposing should come from a source asset with enough substance to support multiple outputs.
That source asset might be:
- A webinar
- Original data
- A customer interview
- A sales call pattern
- A product lesson
Split it into the formats that match the use case. One version for search demand. One for the newsletter. One for LinkedIn.
That’s a much better model than creating isolated assets for every channel from scratch.
Automate the repetitive parts with AI
This is where AI is useful: removing repetitive production work.
Use it for things like:
- Transcript cleanup
- First-pass summaries
- Content cutdowns
- Metadata and title options
- Structural rewrites
- Basic refresh support
- Turning one source asset into multiple first drafts
That’s the work that takes time without adding strategic value.
The more of that you remove, the more room you get for important work.
Protect resources by controlling what gets made
A lot of B2B content teams have a problem with scope.
Too many topics. Too many formats. Too many low-intent pieces. Too many requests from different parts of the business that never should have made it into the plan in the first place.
The fix isn’t to keep feeding every request into the content plan.
It’s to focus on the content that captures demand, helps buyers evaluate, or supports sales.
3) Measuring Content Effectiveness Is Difficult
This is still one of the weakest areas in B2B content.
Not because teams have no data. Because they usually have too much of the wrong kind.
So they end up with dashboards full of numbers and still can’t say what the content is doing for the business.
Part of the problem is that different content types keep getting forced into the same reporting model.
A newsletter, a search-led article, a case study, and a comparison page are not there to do the same job.
They shouldn’t be measured the same way either. Here’s what to do:
Track fewer metrics
More metrics usually create more confusion and misdirection.
It’s better to track a small set of metrics that match the purpose of the content.
For example:
- Awareness: Qualified traffic, engaged visits, and returning visitors.
- Consideration: Assisted conversions, scroll depth, or movement to high-intent pages.
- Sales Support: Asset usage, influenced opportunities, or win-rate support.
That’s more useful than reporting on everything and learning nothing.
Give each content type its own success criteria
Reporting usually gets messy because different formats are being measured by the same model.
A newsletter won’t perform the same as a comparison page.
A case study is not there to do the job of a how-to article.
If the success criteria stay the same, the reporting tells you very little.
Set the metric around the role of the asset. That’s how you start seeing what’s working.
Measure content by funnel contribution
B2B content usually works across a sequence.
One piece creates discovery.
Another builds confidence.
Another supports comparison.
Another helps sales close.
That means overly aggressive single-touch measurement can hide the real value.
A page might be the thing that gets the conversion. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t doing important work.
A better question is this: Is the content attracting the right audience, helping buyers evaluate options, reducing hesitation, or supporting conversion?
