Each organization is promoting with content, however only one out of every odd organization is doing content advertising. The contrast between the 2 is much of the time only straight-up terrible substance. What’s more, there’s a ton of it. Be that as it may, what is the expense of this awful satisfaction?
As indicated by eConsultancy, awful happy costs B2B organizations $50 billion. What’s more, that is simply B2B organizations. Customer brands make up around 40% of the economy so add them in with the general mish-mash and we’re taking a gander at a $90 Billion issue. That is a ton of Benjamins.
Here, we’ll jump somewhat more profound into the expense of awful happiness, cover the motivations behind why such a lot of terrible substance exists, and how we can make content that really comes to, connects with, and changes new clients over completely to our business.
Fast Action items:
- Awful happiness costs organizations billions of dollars consistently
- The great substance is sound, significant, and arranged for a connected experience
- Awful happy disintegrates your believability and pipeline by making boundaries to trust and commitment
- Making a client-centered content system gives the arrangement expected more, greater substance and better return for money invested
What is Good Content?
High-quality content accomplishes the goal of answering a customer question with authority and credibility. For example, I’ve written more than 1,000 articles here on this blog. And while quantity certainly doesn’t mean that what I write is any good, practice does help.
Good content not only serves customers, it serves the business as well. Quality content-marketing reaches, engages, and converts new customers based on trust built through a quality content marketing strategy.
We define quality content marketing as:
- Customer-focused
- Consistent
- Comprehensive
- Cost-effective
Here are some additional components of good content before we dive into the bad.
Good Content Is Credible
When I trained hundreds of writers at SAP to publish on our blog, I told every one of them that the first thing they ever write may not be very good, but the hundredth will be awesome. Some of the things I trained them on was to build credibility over time by being a curious students of their topic, sharing what they learned, and what they thought about what they learned on their topic of interest.
Good Content Shows Interest or Passion
One of my favorite content marketing quotes is from Mark Twain who said “write about what you know.” Ok so maybe good content doesn’t need to come from a deep-seated passion for your topic. I struggled to have a passion for Cloud Computing. But I found a way to make it interesting.
Good content should convey a natural curiosity to answer the question and requires at least some level of interest on the writer’s part.
Good Content Delivers On Search Intent
There’s been a lot of talks lately about writing for humans vs writing for people. And while we use SEO to research topics, we write for people to answer their search intent. So we imagine we’re standing with someone in real life, and when that person asks a question, we try and make sure our content answers that question as well as possible.
I don’t believe even the best AI can do that yet!
Good Content Is Only As Long As It Needs To Be
We get a lot of questions about content length and quality.
How long should a blog post be? Only as long as it needs to be to answer the question!
Our research concluded that under 1,000 words and Google is less likely to show your answer. Longer content is more likely to rank but when time and budget is limited, it makes the most sense to publish more often than to publish longer content.
Good Content Is Formatted For Viewer Engagement
Do you like to read 12-sentence paragraphs where the sentences are 3 lines long, written like a PhD student? Probably not. We use a checklist to write what we think is a perfect blog post format to try and use white space as much as possible. To use summary points in headlines, bullets, and short sentences.
Some other format considerations:
- 3-5 key takeaways
- Visuals that add to the content
- Videos
- Links to internal and external sources
- Active vs passive voice
We use the following checklist for every single piece of content we deliver for our clients. Feel free to download for your own use or send me a quick message and I’ll send you a google sheet you can use.
What is Bad Content?
Most content stinks because it focuses on promoting your business or your point of view. There’s a name for people that make everything all about themselves. (Message me if you don’t know it!)
Bad content is overly promotional, self-serving, poorly written, duplicative, un-original, or hard to read.
And yet the majority of people rate their own content as better than average. This is called illusory superiority, a form of cognitive bias that makes most of us think we are better than average when that is mathematically impossible.
I have said that the biggest mistake most content marketing makes is trying to sell in your content marketing. But actually, the biggest mistake is creating something that never gets used at all.
What is The Cost of Bad Content?
According to Forrester, 60-70% of content goes completely unused!
That’s the worst kind of content because it never even gets the chance to be judged as bad. You would be better off throwing your budget in the trash and going out to lunch for the whole day every day. OK, so take your marketing or communications budget, multiply by 60%, and that is the cost of bad content.
I’m totally serious. When I was at SAP, I asked our marketing team to show me how many demand-generation campaigns delivered at least 1 lead. The answer: is 44%. That’s right nearly 60% of our demand generation campaign budget was for campaigns that didn’t produce a single lead. How does that happen? (Answer below).
The success I achieved there was not because I was above average in any way. I just suggested we stop doing the stuff that produced no value. And start doing the stuff that helped our customers and drove ROI. 7x ROI was the result. The average marketing campaign at SAP at the time delivered negative ROI. (I’m excluding events. SAP events were awesome ROI generators – at least at the time.)
So if 60% of the content we create never gets used, and nearly 60% of lead gen programs don’t produce a single lead, the just use my simple math above to calculate the cost of bad content.
And if you think you are better than average (haha – see what I did there), you’re not! I’ve done this analysis at about a dozen companies and guess what the answer was to the question: how much content did we produce that created any value at all? The answer was an average of 40%. 60% produced zero value of any kind.
More than half of what you do is likely wasted, bad content!
Why Do We Create Bad Content That Never Gets Used?
I believe the main problem stems from the common marketing mistake of focusing on activities instead of results (my blood is starting to boil).
We create stuff because someone told us to. And that stuff is overly promotional and self-serving because that is the natural instinct of most people.
Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it!
We need to resist our natural instinct to promote our business and just try and answer a customer’s honest question.
How To Create Less Bad Content
Here are some additional tips to making sure you create more, good content. That is, tips to create a higher quantity of quality content. See? This isn’t even an easy thing to say, let alone an easy thing to do!
- Train your team on what content marketing really is.
- Document your content marketing strategy to gain alignment around the objectives and support from senior executives.
- Emulate some of the best examples of quality content marketing from companies like Nutanix, Televerde, DivvyHQ, and more.
- Consider mapping content to the buyer journey based on keyword/search signals.
- Invite your readers to engage more deeply through subscriptions and offers and turn your blog into a lead generation machine.
- Measure your content all the way to revenue.
- Spell stuff really well, make all the good words and take the time it takes to write a quality piece of content.
Busting Some Myths
Finally, a couple of myths I have heard so many times I want to puke: content needs to be original and it needs to present a unique point of view. I call BS on these points because:
- A. There are no completely new thoughts. Not really. We’re all just synthesizing the data around us and some of us are more skilled than others at presenting our thoughts about this data in creative and effective ways.
- B. No one cares about your unique point of view. Answering a customer question only requires you to uniquely care about your customers. Not about yourself.
Besides, even considering whether your thought is unique or new is selfish by nature. Consider instead whether your content is helping someone!
Recommended Reads
Continue exploring our insights
Signal-First Demand Generation: Turning Buyer Intent into Predictable Pipeline – Market Wavegen
Most pipeline problems are not caused by a lack of activity. They are caused by poor timing. By the time most B2B buyers speak with sales, their decision is already taking shape. Research shows that buyers complete up to 70 to 80 percent of their evaluation before engaging with a vendor. They research independently, compare options, consult peers, and align internally long before a form fill ever occurs. This white paper from Market Wavegen introduces a new approach called signal-first demand generation. It explains why traditional demand models fail to deliver predictable pipeline and how revenue teams can identify buying intent earlier, activate outreach at the right moment, and convert signals into measurable revenue. Rather than chasing leads, signal-first demand focuses on detecting buying motion while decisions are forming. You will learn how: The paper begins by outlining the reality of modern B2B buying. Buyers now self-educate, compare vendors digitally, and delay sales engagement until late in the decision process. Traditional demand systems, built around form fills and linear funnels, are poorly suited to this reality. Market Wavegen explains why this mismatch creates common failure patterns. Marketing reports activity while sales questions lead quality. Outreach happens too late. Pipeline appears full but fails to convert. Forecast confidence declines because timing signals are missing. Signal-first demand generation addresses this problem by reversing the model. Instead of waiting for leads, it identifies high-intent behavior early and activates engagement based on signal strength and context. The white paper defines a six-stage signal dependency framework: Each stage depends on the one before it. If signal quality is weak, everything downstream breaks. Market Wavegen emphasizes that signal-first demand is not a channel strategy but a sequencing strategy. The paper also clarifies what qualifies as a meaningful buyer signal. High-value signals include competitive research, pricing evaluation, technology replacement activity, and role-based hiring trends. Low-value signals such as one-off content views or anonymous traffic spikes are filtered out. Once signals are validated, activation becomes highly targeted. Vendor comparison signals trigger competitive positioning. Replacement signals trigger migration messaging. Expansion signals activate use-case driven outreach. Timing determines message, and message determines conversation quality. The white paper includes a visual framework showing how signal-first demand connects buyer behavior, activation, and sales engagement into a single revenue system. It also contrasts traditional funnel models with signal-based pipelines, showing why early intent leads to higher conversion and faster deal velocity. Market Wavegen outlines common failure modes, including over-triggering weak signals, delayed response, lack of sales context, and unclear attribution. To prevent these issues, the framework includes built-in controls such as minimum signal thresholds, decay rules, and mandatory context delivery to sales. Sales adoption is central to the model. Every routed opportunity includes a signal timeline, inferred buying stage, recommended messaging, and disqualifying indicators. Sales teams are not asked to trust marketing. They are given evidence. The paper concludes with an adoption roadmap covering three phases: signal foundation, activation alignment, and revenue measurement. It also outlines the role of Market Wavegen as a signal-first GTM partner that helps organizations identify real buying intent, activate accounts precisely, and tie activity directly to pipeline and revenue. This white paper is designed for CMOs, CROs, revenue leaders, demand generation teams, and GTM operators who want to replace volume-driven lead models with predictable, signal-based pipeline creation. Download the white paper from Market Wavegen to learn how signal-first demand generation transforms buyer intent into forecastable revenue.
Beyond the First Sale: How Retention Marketing Boosts Lead Gen ROI?
Home – Single Post About Us Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Recent Articles
The Future of Social Selling: How to Generate Leads Without Pitching?
The Secret Weapon for Converting High-Intent Buyers.
Why SIRS + Intelligent Database ABM Is the Future of B2B Growth Every B2B company has been there: Your sales team is chasing leads that seem promising but go nowhere. They download an ebook, maybe attend a webinar — and then disappear. It’s frustrating. Time-consuming. Expensive. Here’s the real issue: Most B2B pipelines are built around lead quantity, not lead intent. And in today’s market, that’s not enough. You need a reliable, repeatable method for identifying and converting buyers who are already in-market and ready to engage. That’s exactly where Strategic Information Retrieval Systems (SIRS) and Intelligent Database Account-Based Marketing (ID-ABM) come into play — your secret weapons for turning intent into revenue. The Real Problem: Misaligned Effort and Buyer Timing Let’s be honest: Traditional lead generation still hinges on outdated models — mass email campaigns, form-fills, and reactive sales follow-ups. But modern B2B buyers don’t behave that way. Without the right systems in place, you miss the moment they’re ready to talk — and your competitors swoop in. SIRS: Strategic Intelligence That Targets Real Intent Strategic Information Retrieval Systems (SIRS) are advanced data models designed to spot high-intent behavior across your total addressable market. Using signals like: SIRS surfaces accounts that are not just a good fit — they’re actively exploring solutions in your category. For example, if a mid-sized SaaS firm in the healthcare space suddenly increases their engagement with “HIPAA-compliant CRM tools,” that’s not random. That’s intent. And if you’re the one offering that solution? That’s your moment. The Power of Intelligent Database ABM While SIRS uncovers who to go after, Intelligent Database Account-Based Marketing (ID-ABM) shows you how to engage them. Most ABM efforts fall flat because they start with static data — firmographics, company size, industry codes. But intelligent databases layer in: This means your marketing and sales team don’t waste time on lookalikes — they focus on the 5% of your market actually ready to buy. What Makes This a “Secret Weapon”? The real differentiator lies in precision timing and message alignment. Imagine this: That’s not just marketing. That’s intelligent orchestration — and it’s winning deals faster. Industry Success Ratios Back It Up Teams using SIRS + Intelligent ABM strategies through Market Wavegen are seeing serious traction: These aren’t vanity metrics. These are pipeline performance numbers — the ones that CEOs and CROs care about. Who’s Using This Now? 📌 Agencies use SIRS to offer smarter prospecting and more strategic client campaigns.📌 SaaS companies use Intelligent ABM to shorten sales cycles and reduce CAC.📌 Publishers and platforms are leveraging SIRS to uncover advertisers with growing budgets or shifting strategies.📌 Tech firms are layering SIRS into RevOps, integrating real-time buyer intent into CRM workflows. Final Thoughts: Stop Guessing. Start Converting. The gap between intent and engagement is where most B2B companies lose deals. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With Market Wavegen’s SIRS and Intelligent Database frameworks, you can transform your lead generation from reactive to predictive — and unlock higher conversion from the buyers who actually matter. Home – Single Post About Us Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Recent Articles
The Content-First Sales Strategy: How to Sell Without Making a Single Cold Call.
Cold calls are dying. Content is closing. If you’re still relying on outbound dialers and SDRs grinding through prospect lists, your sales strategy isn’t just outdated — it’s inefficient. Buyers in 2025 are tuning out the noise and tuning into value-driven content. Welcome to the Content-First Sales Strategy — a system where your content does the selling, your audience comes pre-warmed, and your pipeline builds itself. Why Cold Calling is Losing Its Edge B2B buyers now do 70-80% of their research before ever talking to sales. They read, compare, stalk your LinkedIn, binge your blog, and scroll your case studies. Here’s the hard truth:👉 If your content doesn’t exist, you don’t either. Cold outreach has a <2% response rate. But strategic content? It brings the right leads to you — with interest, intent, and urgency. The New Funnel: Education → Trust → Demand Forget “awareness → interest → desire → action.” In the content-first era, the funnel looks more like this: 🔹 Educate with real insights🔹 Build trust with consistency and transparency🔹 Create demand by solving problems publicly You’re not pitching. You’re publishing. You’re not chasing. You’re attracting. How to Sell Without Cold Calls (The Playbook) Here’s how modern B2B brands are filling their pipeline without picking up the phone: 1. Turn Your Founders, Experts & Salespeople Into Creators Thought leadership isn’t fluff — it’s strategy.When your team shares real takes and micro-case studies on LinkedIn or Substack, you earn visibility and authority. → Tip: Start with 1 story a week that answers a question your buyer would Google. 2. Map Content to Every Buying Stage Not just TOFU blogs. You need: → Build content that acts like a silent salesperson at every touchpoint. 3. Use Lead Magnets that Don’t Feel Like Lead Magnets Forget outdated eBooks and whitepapers. Instead, offer: → Give value, not gated fluff. 4. Retarget With Purpose When someone engages with your content, follow up — not with a call, but with high-intent retargeting.Warm traffic converts at 3x the rate of cold. → Think: “We noticed you downloaded our churn calculator — here’s how one SaaS founder used it to increase LTV by 45%.” Real Results: Content That Closes One of our clients — a B2B SaaS platform — cut cold outreach by 90% and tripled inbound leads in 6 months.How? A content engine powered by: ✅ Weekly expert posts✅ Niche LinkedIn newsletters✅ Video case studies✅ Demand-gen landing pages Cold calls became optional. Content did the qualification for them. Final Thought: Sales Is No Longer a Department — It’s a Content Outcome The best salespeople in 2025 won’t just be good talkers.They’ll be great storytellers, insight sharers, and content creators. And your brand?It’ll sell silently — in your buyer’s feed, inbox, browser tab, and memory — long before any discovery call. Welcome to content-first selling.No pitch. No pressure. Just pull.
The Dark Side of “Marketing Automation” (And Why It’s Costing You Deals)
Marketing automation has long been praised as the secret weapon of modern marketers. From streamlining email sequences to routing leads into CRMs, automation has made it possible to do more with less. But what if the very system designed to help you scale is actually causing you to stagnate? In this blog, we dive into the darker, less talked-about side of marketing automation—how it silently sabotages sales, erodes trust, and leads to missed opportunities if not implemented correctly. 1. Automation Without Validation Amplifies Weak Messaging Most companies jump into automation early—before their messaging has been properly tested. The result? Poorly written sequences, generic outreach, and tone-deaf campaigns get scaled to hundreds or thousands of contacts. Instead of building brand trust or driving action, these messages get ignored—or worse, flagged as spam. Tip: Start by testing your core messaging manually through 1:1 emails, LinkedIn outreach, or sales calls. Once you identify what resonates, then build automation around those winning messages. 2. Tokenized Personalization ≠ Real Personalization Adding {first_name} and {company} tags doesn’t make your outreach personal. Buyers today expect relevance, not robotic familiarity. Automation often creates the illusion of personalization—while completely missing the context of where the buyer is in their journey or what problem they’re facing. Tip: Use automation to trigger timely, behavior-based content that reflects the user’s real-time actions, such as pages visited, assets downloaded, or previous touchpoints. 3. Flawed Lead Scoring Wastes Sales Team Time Most lead scoring models are based on arbitrary metrics—like email opens or webinar attendance—that don’t always translate to purchase intent. This results in sales chasing “hot” leads that are simply curious, not committed. Meanwhile, real buyers fall through the cracks. Tip: Refine your scoring by collaborating with the sales team. Integrate behavioral signals with buying triggers such as demo requests, pricing page views, and repeat visits. 4. Overreliance on Chatbots Frustrates Real BuyersChatbots can streamline support and qualify leads—but only if they’re intelligently designed. Too often, visitors get stuck in poorly scripted flows that never lead to real answers. High-intent buyers get blocked instead of guided. Tip: Use bots as a routing layer—not a replacement for human interaction. Always offer the option to speak with a real person, especially for enterprise or high-value leads. 5. Rigid Workflows Ignore the Non-Linear Buyer Journey Most automation workflows are built on a straight-line assumption: Step 1 leads to Step 2 leads to a conversion. In reality, the modern buyer zigzags. They drop off, revisit, loop back, and research across multiple touchpoints. Rigid automation doesn’t adapt to this. It pushes leads down the same funnel regardless of behavior, leading to irrelevant follow-ups and missed opportunities. Tip: Design flexible, behavior-triggered automation journeys that adapt to each user’s real-time actions and intent signals. 6. Automation Is Often Used to Avoid Real Work The biggest danger? Automation becomes a shield. Instead of doing the hard work—customer research, copy testing, talking to real prospects—marketers hide behind sequences and dashboards. But real insight comes from friction. From learning what buyers say, do, and want. No amount of automation will substitute that. Tip: Use automation to reduce busywork, not replace strategic work. Let it clear your schedule so you can focus more on strategy, creativity, and real customer engagement. Conclusion Marketing automation isn’t the enemy—but how you use it determines whether it becomes a powerful ally or a silent deal-killer. If you’re seeing lower engagement, disjointed funnels, or frustrated prospects, it’s time to look beyond the automation tool and revisit your marketing fundamentals. Key Takeaways:
Why Paid Ads Are Getting More Expensive? (And How to Beat the System)
The Paid Ads Crisis: What Every B2B Marketer Needs to Know If you’ve noticed your cost per lead skyrocketing lately, you’re not imagining things. Whether you’re running campaigns on Google, LinkedIn, Meta, or programmatic platforms, digital advertising costs have surged up to 30–50% in some B2B verticals. But the question is—why is this happening… and more importantly, how can you beat the system without throwing more budget at the problem? At Market Wavegen, we’ve been watching this closely while deploying Strategic Interest Reversal Sales (SIRS) and Intelligent Databases to help agencies, publishers, tech, and SaaS companies outsmart—not outspend—the competition. Let’s break it down. Industry Trend Breakdown: Why Paid Ads Are Getting More Expensive 1. More Competitors, Same Eyeballs As more companies enter the digital race post-pandemic, demand for ad placements has exploded—especially in high-value B2B sectors. But audience size hasn’t grown at the same pace. Result? Ad auction inflation. 2. Algorithm Fatigue & Declining Ad Performance Major platforms constantly tweak their algorithms, prioritizing engagement over intent. That means you pay more for less-qualified traffic—and your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) takes a hit. 3. Privacy Laws & Data Loss Third-party cookie deprecation, GDPR, and iOS updates have made precise targeting harder. Marketers now need to pay more to reach broader audiences just to stay visible. How to Beat the System: 4 Cost-Saving Strategies That Work At Market Wavegen, we help clients flip the ad model by focusing on data-first intelligence, not guesswork. Here’s what actually works today: 1. Leverage Intelligent Databases for Precision Targeting Generic personas won’t cut it anymore. Our Intelligent Database Account-Based Marketing (ABM) identifies and profiles high-fit accounts based on real-time behavioral signals—so your ads only target decision-makers who are actively in-market. Result: Lower cost per lead. Higher conversion rates. 2. Use SIRS to Find Hidden Demand Pockets Our proprietary Strategic Information Retrieval System (SIRS) analyzes untapped intent data, industry shifts, and competitor activity to pinpoint emerging demand pockets before your competitors even notice. Result: First-mover advantage in micro-segments with lower ad competition. 3. Segment Smarter, Not Broader Instead of spreading your budget across large, high-competition audiences, we segment prospects based on industry-specific buying triggers, funding events, tech stacks, and more. Result: Sharper targeting. Better ROI. Less wasted spend. 4. Integrate Paid with High-Intent Organic Signals Paid ads should amplify—not substitute—your demand generation strategy. We guide B2B clients in blending organic ABM intelligence with paid media buys so every dollar accelerates conversion—not just clicks. Result: Stronger marketing ROI with long-term compounding returns. Spend Smarter, Perform Better Paid ads aren’t dying—they’re evolving. The winners won’t be the ones with the deepest pockets but the ones who know where and how to focus their spend. With Market Wavegen’s SIRS and Intelligent Database strategies, you don’t need to outbid. You need to outsmart.
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