Erin Balsa

Content Marketing Consultant and Writer 

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions.

Erin enjoys B2B content marketing, keeping the Halloween spirit alive year-round, and talking about herself in the third person. 

No but really ... 

I've been working in content since 2011 when I landed my first job as an editor. Since then, I've worn a bunch of hats like:

- Content marketing agency leader
- Inc. 5000 B2B SaaS marketing director
- Freelance content strategist, writer, and editor

Over the years, I've written for a bunch of brands you probably know including:

- HubSpot
- Drift
- G2
- Intuit
- And a Fortune 100 that shall not be named

These days, I help marketing teams at B2B SaaS companies (Series A-C) survey a representative sample of their ICP and write a 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 original research report that positions their brand as a credible authority — to secure press mentions and close enterprise deals.

If you're ready to publish research that builds trust instead of skepticism, let's chat. And if you just want to connect with a fellow marketing nerd who decorates for Halloween in July, I'm here for that too.

Hausofbold.com

Content Marketing Consultant

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions. 

Unlike some strategists and agencies, I don't hand you a content strategy and say, "Best of luck!" I ensure your success by helping across four buckets:

▶ People 
▶ Process 
▶ Strategy
▶ Execution 

Learn more and read client testimonials at: hausofbold.com

Anyone else feeling like a bear coming out of hibernation today?

After taking extended time off for the holidays, I'm simply not ready for the onslaught of peppy "Behold my 25 top New Year's resolutions!" posts.

I want less of that and more of this:

- I need a nap but also a marketing strategy. 
- Slowly remembering how to be a professional human.
- Desperately searching for things to say at the start of the Zoom call.
- Pretending to remember what we decided before the break.
- Trying to inspire others while feeling like a potato. 
- Eh, that can probably wait until Wednesday. 

Here's to giving yourself (and others) some grace. 🥂

I help B2B marketers create original research reports

An influencer once posted about how to publish an original research study in a week. 

When I asked a technical question about data analysis, it was clear we weren't talking about the same kind of "research."

I could end the story here because IYKYK. 

But for those of you newer to publishing survey-based research reports, I'll add a pinch of color.

*𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘵 𝘉𝘢𝘦 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘫𝘪*

You can NOT publish a 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 study in a week. 

Even if you collect enough quality responses in two business days — and even if you use AI to analyze the data and surface trends — that leaves you only THREE business days to do everything else:

Report strategy
Survey design
Soft launch
Data cleansing
Human review of AI output
Outline building 
Outline review
Copywriting
Editing
Revisions
Graphic design
Proofreading
More revisions
Autoresponder creation and testing
Nurture campaign creation and testing
Rev ops
Sales enablement
PR
Launch day prep
etc. etc.

Shoot, I spend an entire day writing survey questions!

So yeah, it's possible to publish 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 in a week. But there will be trade-offs, like:

- Potential inclusion of AI hallucinations 
- Rushed survey design that produces obvious, shallow insights
- Limited analysis (no time for meaningful cross tabs or synthesis)
- Weak narrative cohesion that undermines thought leadership
- A report that screams "we built dis 4 leads!"

If your goal is credibility, increased trust, and research that actually shapes the conversation in your space, one week simply won't cut it.

I help B2B marketers create survey-based research reports 📈 Next available report kickoff date → April 6

Turns out the rumors are true. 







Washing machines really DO eat socks. 

I’m enjoying a typical morning of juggling work and home responsibilities. 

Today, the appliance repair guy is here fixing our front load washing machine, which has been leaking due to a rip in the door gasket. 

As the guy was fishing around inside the recesses of the machine, he pulled out a freaking sock. 

45 years old and I’m still learning something new almost every day. 🤭

The most difficult part of transitioning from a retainer-based biz to a project-based biz?

Scheduling 

Survey-based research reports are complex projects with lots of moving pieces. 

And even though I’ve developed — and refined — my report project management template over the past 8 years, scheduling multiple overlapping timebound reports has been surprisingly challenging. 

That said … 

Back in my agency days, I used to manage writer resources for 15+ full-time writers to the 30-MINUTE UNIT! 

Imagine your agency has 350 clients.  Each client gets different types and amounts of content. In order to maximize profits, you need to assign each writer as much work as they can humanly handle — and keep their assignment log full at all times, in spite of frequent delays on the client side. And now imagine that one 30-minute unit is equal to 200 words of “standard content,” 150 words of “premium content,” 100 words of “responsive content,” 1 page of an e-book, a 250-word “gold infographic,” a 500-word “silver infographic,” a 300-word video script (and so on and so forth). 

It was nuts. 🥜 

But that’s the kind of workload I managed — by hand, inside various spreadsheets, long before ChatGPT — for 3.5 years. 

So yeah, scheduling multiple report projects for myself is tricky, but I got this.

No alternative text description for this image

🎬 Behind the scenes of making a Navattic research report 🎬 l

Multiple marketing leaders have told me they love Navattic's reports, so Natalie Marcotullio and I figured it would be cool to show you how Navattic "makes the sausage."

I'll be sharing bits of our 30-minute Q&A across a few different posts.

Erin: When did the idea for your "State of the Interactive Demo Report" first come about?

Natalie: The first report was published in 2023, which means the idea came about in 2022. We kept getting questions from customers and prospects asking for data. When you sell to marketers, they really love data — so it was a no brainer! Let's build a resource that succinctly answers all these questions that we can share whenever someone asks a question.

Erin: What questions were your customers and prospects asking?

Natalie: Customers ask questions like, "How long should I make my demo?" and "What kind of language should I use?" Prospects usually want help making their case internally. So with the benchmarks in hand, they can say to their leadership: "Demos convert at a higher rate than other assets we use," or "If we invest in this, here's what we can expect."

Erin: What was the primary question you were trying to answer when you created your first report?

Natalie: What do top-performing interactive demos have in common? 

Erin: How has that primary question evolved, if at all?

Natalie: In the 2026 report, we're still trying to answer what top-performing interactive demos have in common ... but we're getting more granular. People don't just want to hear how their demo compares against ALL the demos built on Navattic — they want to measure performance within their industry or for their company size. Also, we now have lots more features, and people have specific questions about those. For example, "That extra CTA banner that's always across the demo — is that commonly used in the top 1% of demos?"

👉 Navattic's 2026 State of the Interactive Product Demo 2026 report drops next week. 

Want to be the first to see it?

Get early access here: https://lnkd.in/edZ_e7aJ

Meanwhile in Boston ... 

Just sitting here playing the "Should I try to get some work done even though there are five children in the next room?" game. 

Considering it took me 15 minutes to hear myself think long enough to write this three-word post, I’ll see myself out.

Your research report launched ... and nobody seemed to care. 

What do you do?

Welp, your first instinct might be to stick your head in the sand in shame. Totally understandable. But just know that this is fairly common.

(I recently spoke with a former colleague who spent MONTHS and THOUSANDS on a survey-based research report that didn't do a damn thing for the business.)

Fortunately this is a solvable problem — if you're willing to run a project post-mortem. Here's a simple plan of attack plus the kinds of questions that reveal what went wrong:

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗼𝗻𝗲 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱. 

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘸 𝘪𝘵?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝘄𝗼 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰.

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩 𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘴?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦?
𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵? 
𝘐𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. 

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸?
𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘦?
𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?

And if you'd like an outside opinion on where things broke down, I'm always here to help!

The 2026 State of the Interactive Product Demo report just dropped! 👀 

Navattic analyzed the top 1%, 10% and 25% of demos built on their platform to uncover what actually works.

They found that top 1% interactive demos do 7 specific things:

1) They keep it short (5-13 steps).

2) They offer choices. 

Demos that give people options (explore different product lines, personas, or use cases) have a 57% completion rate vs. single-flow demos, which have a 35% completion rate.

3) They get Step One right.

On step one, 29% use "you/your" language, 24% add visual beacons to indicate where users should look, and 15% give explicit instructions. 

4) They use multiple CTAs inside the demo.

Believe it or not, they use 4-5 CTAs per demo on average! Most CTAs are actionable (Try for free, Book a demo, Get started).

5) They deploy interactive demos all over the dang place.

50% of top performers have demos in multiple places:

- Product pages: 62% (up from 19% last year)
- Homepage: 48% (up from 8%)
- Demo centers: 45%

6) They tend to be ungated. 

7) They use HTML/CSS web capture. Web captures refer to HTML/CSS cloning of the front end of your product. This means the demo looks and feels real and you can edit the product data for personalization. 

👉 Download the full report for more helpful insights — like interactive demo performance and adoption by industry! 

Link in the comments.

And keep an eye out for more posts from my "Behind the scenes of making a Navattic research report" interview with Natalie Marcotullio!

Chart from Navattic's State of the Interactive Product Demo report

Yesterday I was a bear coming out of a cave. Today I'm a marketer talking about research reports.

More specifically, how brands do it wrong.

Mistake no. 1: Sloppy methodology.

You may have heard the phrase "Garbage in, garbage out."

If you build your report on a foundation of garbage data, you wind up publishing a garbage report that spreads misinformation.

And that's likely at odds with what you're trying to accomplish as a brand. 

Got 30 seconds? Watch the clip.
Got 30 minutes? Watch the full video. 

Thanks Justin Vajko for inviting me on your podcast!

What's the ROI of a research report?

As I told Justin Vajko, while there's nuance, you should generally see two outcomes:

1) In the short-term, press mentions.

There are three things you gotta get right here. 

- Your research has a newsworthy angle.
- Your report is built on high-quality data.
- You let the market know about your study.

If you get those things right, you should see press hits right away. As an example, one of my clients got a write up in an industry publication with 2.6 million daily readers on day one of their report going live.

2) In the longer-term, deal impact.

It generally takes a couple of months to see deals you can confidently attribute to the report, which is why I check in with my clients at the 3-month mark.

At the time of this recording, the same client had just told me that their report had already influenced a few enterprise deals and a few renewals.

Enterprise deals are big, and they take time. 

If the report was that one thing that helped buyers think, "This brand gets it. They seem credible," then I've done my job. 

👉 Liked this clip? Check out the full interview where I explain my approach: Believable Research.  

I'll drop the link in the comments as per usual.

My face when I see someone make sweeping claims about an industry based on their survey of 50 people.

(jk jk — I’m not here to judge, I’m here to help.)

If your survey sample was itsy bitsy teeny weeny, don't present your findings using words like:

everyone
no one
all

That's like walking into a room where all 50 people are wearing Nike sneakers and declaring, "Everyone wears Nike sneakers!" 

No. 

Everyone in that ROOM wears Nike sneakers.

There’s nothing wrong with surveying a small group and sharing what you found. It's a great way to spark interesting conversations on social. 

Just don't frame your findings as universal truths.

Instead, use language like:

"Of the 50 senior leaders we surveyed ... "
"The majority of respondents said ... "
"1 in 3 surveyed BDRs ... "

That way you come across as credible instead of just another vendor who stretches the truth to push their narrative and sell shit.

Bani Kaur

Who am I?
I am a content strategist and writer for B2B SaaS brands, with clients like Writer, Jasper, Litmus, Typeform, Shopify and a writer for the SaaS Nordic CEO and Executive Network. I combine design thinking with deep research to create content that doesn’t just inform—it influences.

What I can do for you
1. Content Management
Scaling content is two parts management and one part strategy. You need to keep all your opportunities organized, yes. But you also need to strategize for automation, repurposing, and efficient communication. 

I work with teams to:
✔ Build content calendars that align with business goals
✔ Establish internal processes for research, writing, and approvals
✔ Maintain consistency across formats and distribution channels

2. Research Reports & Thought Leadership Assets
B2B audiences value depth. I have a team of analysts and designers in-house to build assets that cater to both logic and aesthetic. 

✔ Interview your team to distill insights into premium reports, whitepapers, and long-form blogs
✔ Develop original research reports with proprietary data and trend analysis
✔ Structure content in a way that drives direct revenue

3. Repurposing & Distribution Strategies
Your best ideas shouldn’t be limited to one format. I help brands maximize reach by transforming existing content into new, high-performing assets.

Want to talk content strategy? Let’s connect.

Email: hello@banikaur.net

Long form SEO writer

In the span of three years, I've watched my reaction to public-use AI go from pure delight to abject horror.

When ChatGPT came out, I was part of a very small community of writers who were excited. Hell, I was positively giddy. To the point that I didn't even care if it "took away my job". I couldn't say with confidence that ChatGPT wouldn't be able to write well eventually. I was mentally prepared for it to.

So I double-down HARD on interview-based content. I knew I was good at asking questions, so I perfected talking to the C-Suite for a unique POV, customer stories, and multi-expert interviews.

As a result, I was brought in to write content that AI couldn't. And my clients loved both the pieces and the results.

Meanwhile, I watched AI go from novice, to novice + a few new features, to a tech-version of a person who thinks they can bullshit their way through tasks (and life).

I've gone from collecting prompts to being repulsed by brands that use AI-output as is.

Believe me, no one in my life has seen looks of annoyance, exasperation, and horror rolled into one, as much as ChatGPT has.

If you are in any way responsible for producing content, do not start with ChatGPT. It'll start you off on a sub-standard idea, give you the most generic brief, and mimic Gartner's verbiage in the name of strategy.

I anticipate it becoming even harder — and even more crucial — for companies to find reliable content leads and content writers. Strong thinkers over fast producers. Results, referrals, and testimonials will do most of the talking.

If you're in a content-based role and charge of category creation, demand generation, do not rely on AI for strategy or execution. When your goal is to build visibility and trust in a new market, you can't afford to be blacklisted by customers. 

It's not that people hate AI-generated content, it's that they hate their time wasted and their attention directed to bots.

Do not rely on AI for first drafts of even top of funnel content. You can't build awareness with generic ideas that everyone else might also be starting with.
If you must use AI, use it for tasks like finding synonyms, pointing out gaps, coming up with illustrative examples. (And even these tasks require repetitive, smart, and measurable prompting).

How's your journey with AI been?

Content strategist, writer, and Research Report Creator for B2B SaaS in Fintech, Marketing, AI and Sales | Clients: Hotjar, Klaviyo, Shopify, Copy.ai, Writer, Jasper

A project that you’d be perfect for, have availability for, and are excited about getting cancelled has got to be one of the worst feelings as an freelance writer. 

How do you get over it? What are your best tips?

Sharing 2025 in numbers and a nutshell (and the occasional takeaway) ☀️ 

🔥 My biggest win: Had almost no retainer clients graduate. Everyone I signed on retainer at the end of 2024 has stayed with me as we head into 2026. 2 of them have asked to expand the contract with more strategic work. Only one client moved on after our contract ended. 

I also have to note that this is incredibly rare. We can't anticipate, and much less control, how marketing gets budget, when they're looking for contractual support, and who gets laid off. Even though I've made it a point to keep my clients super happy, I've also been really lucky here.

😭 My biggest low: Three prospects I was really keen to work with ALL dropped out in the same month (2 due to internal restructuring and 1 got laid off). I can't even begin to emphasize how excited I was about these projects and had mentally nearly finished the strategy to guide all these pieces. This happened in May 2025 and I'm still not over it. 

I've been working for myself for a long time and I've come to anticipate these lows and now I'm much better prepared for them financially. Doesn't mean they don't sting emotionally. 

🔥 Other interesting metrics (total clients, project, divisions)

👉 1. Number of clients I worked with: 10

This is down by ~50% from 2024 (19 clients) because I chose to work with a select few teams that are squarely in my niche. I passed on from standalone blogs and refreshes and focused more on building up my research report studio. 

👉 2. No. of recurring clients: 5/5 (The rest were standalone, state of industry reports).

This was *THE* metric for me since 2024. When I started the year, I promised myself that I'd focus on building long term relationships and creating systems that delivered more value the longer a client worked with me.

(More on these systems in the coming week!)

👉 Dream clients I worked with: 0 in terms of big industry names. 4 in terms of the exact kind of work I've wanted to do. More strategic, higher impact.

HUGE shout out to my network for the introductions, referrals, and recommendations! 

👉 Average content assets produced for one client: 9 

👉 Busiest month: Feb; 7 clients at once. (This used to be my average number of clients in 2024 and I'm SO glad it's gone down over the other months).

👉 No. of interviews conducted: 38 🤯 

PSA: There's a very strong correlation with brands who create interview-based content and brands with VERY HIGH conversions from content. 

👉 Split of content types:

1. Thought-leadership/interview-based ebooks: 10
2. Product-led blogs: 26
3. Research reports: 17 (up from 6 last year)
4. Content strategy projects: 6 (up from 2 last year) 

👉 Lightest month: September; 4 clients (same month as last year) 

Anything else you'd like to know about my year?

Freelancers often talk about how retainers are essential to their business but retainers are a MUCH bigger win for clients. Let me tell you why (through the lens of my work): 

👉 1. There exists a lot of nuance with writing that you can't codify into a brand guide. How you want paragraphs to flow, how you prefer to use certain words, how your brand defines "wit" or "whimsy." 

When you work with a writer over months, they just get this without you having to explain it. 

This will save you so much time and money because you won't have multiple rounds of edits, you can focus on strategic tasks, and you get almost publish-ready pieces. 

👉 2. I have a brilliant in-house editor (helly Kelly Fiorini) who works on all my pieces for my retainer clients. She knows their brand guides inside-out and also points out stuff like "they changed a sentence like this one to something like this in the last piece."

Again, this means much less editorial work for your in-house team 

👉 3. I build a vision doc for all retainer clients where I document and analyze all their edits over time so they never have to repeat themselves. Headaches saved = money made. 

👉 4. They get first dibs on any additional availability I have and usually those spots get snatched up immediately. This means they can almost always count on support for reports, ebooks, and other quarterly assets. 

Looking for a B2B writer for help with your content strategy and execution? DM me and let's chat!

It’s been a while since I introduced myself and what I do here! And what better time to do it than at the start of the year.

So here we go (with details on how I work with clients): 

👉 1. I'm a content marketer for B2B brands across Sales, Email Marketing, AI and Fintech. I specialize in interview-based, product-led content and original research. 

All of 2025, I worked with clients at the intersection of these niches and formats. 

For example, I built Exit Five’s B2B Marketing Salary Report that has 13.5K downloads and counting. It increased organic traffic, newsletter signups and paid membership. 

👉 2. I build content strategies for startups building AI-use cases over their core product or shifting to a B2B audience. I also create LLM-ranking strategies and have had multiple series show up as THE resource in ChatGPT and Perplexity searches. 

For example, I built a refresh strategy for a B2B marketing company that wanted to talk more about their newly launched AI use cases but had a strict budget to experiment with. 

We identified 10 high performing blogposts and 5 new untapped opportunities to rank and updated these pieces with newly released AI features. 

For the 5 new blogs, we identified SMEs and wrote posts with strong, industry-leading opinions. 

👉3. I work extensively with the C-suite for thought-leadership content.

For a year, I was a part of a B2B SaaS mastermind where the C-Suite would bring their challenges and similar profiles across other companies would share what worked for them.

As a result, I have a deep understanding of cross-departmental mechanisms in SaaS and can ask questions that make for an insightful read.

📩 In need of a content partner to support you with similar initiatives? Drop me a note.

"Success" is always a moving goalpost when you work for yourself. A lot of the skills that have helped me land impressive clients and create work I'm proud of are also sticky, nosy things that topple my work-life balance. 

But here are three things that I see as widely unacknowledged success metrics as a content writer:

👉 1. Getting to work with brilliant, kind, and gifted editors. I've learnt so much from my editors, especially:
- Tracey Wallace
- Tommy Walker
- Aaron Orendorff
- Alaura Weaver 🌈♾️
- Erica Schneider

I've compiled lists and lists of their edits and broken them down into common themes. I worked with Tracey 3 years ago but her first few edits still give me direction during the self-editing phase. 

👉 2. Clients who take me wherever they go and refer me to their network. 

I've had lots of clients do that this year. Introduce me to opportunities in their network and even refer me to other teams internally. 

👉 3. Navigating tricky client situations with confidence.

Working for yourself comes with its fair share of scope creep, tricky money talks, and negotiating rates. The 2021 me was terrified of bringing up difficult topics. "What if they never work with me again if I follow up on an unpaid invoice?," I'd think.

But not anymore. 

Business ownership and timidness don't gel. 

I now have the difficult conversations and my clients respect me more for it. 

By these metrics, I'm immensely successful. And even more grateful. ❤️ 

👉 What are some metrics you use to measure success in your journey?

This quarter I'm working on a juicy "ultimate guide" refresh for one of my favorite clients. The original guide was published in 2023 is ripe for a makeover.

And as I'm going through the original version, I realize that the framing needs to change completely because so much of what was imminent in 2023 is already behind us.

We've moved away from the launch of AI to a full-blown AI scaling strategies. We're no longer speculating whether marketing departments will cut budgets or whether the economy is on the brink of collapse. 

Now, had I been a new writer, this project would've been a massive undertaking. 

But because I've been writing for them for over a year, have conducted 15 expert interviews, and created a 50-quote library, I know exactly where to look:

1. The SME list for the people doing the work we're going to be talking about.
2. 15 hours of transcripts talking about each of these topics in detail.
3. My own list of questions from previous interviews
4. A quotes library 
5. A vision document with microanalysed edits. 
6. An editor who knows my client's preferences inside out.

We're still going to be doing a fresh round of interviews to add fresh perspectives and relevance. But when there's a near-immediate launch date to be met, your time-tested writers are going to bail you out. 😉 

I'm now taking booking for ebooks and research reports for Q2, if you're planning on doing one but don't know where to start, give me shout out!

I'm working on a tell-all video marketing strategy guide for Storyblocks and I'd love to highlight advice from some of the pros. 

Video has moved so quickly in the last 2 years, thanks to AI and the subsequent push for deeply human content. I want to interview the industry experts to see what's working, what's not, and what the future holds. 

Who should I be talking to? 👇

I know it's one of the toughest times in content right now (without a light at the end of the tunnel), BUT it's also a time of excellence. 

AI is pushing brands that care about their readers to be creative and create content that is enjoyable and reference-able. 

In the glory days of content (2021, I'm looking at you), a lot of what I read was an unofficial round up of the top search rankings. The best ones included some cool examples. 

But now? 

I'm reading ebook after ebook filled with brilliant expert takes. Multiple in-house employees contributing to content engines. "Series" style content where I'm actually excited to read the next edition.

Here are 3 ways I've been upping my game to create content that matters:

👉 1. For tool round ups, I've been reading multiple G2 reviews and adding sections on what matters to users. For example, do multiple users complain about this tools customer support? Are people especially excited about the tool's integrations?

In short, answer: what is it that humans are excited about that an AI round-up of the websites features can't convey?

👉 2. Introducing contrarian takes without resolving the tension: if one expert says "its best to follow up at least 5 times on a cold email" and another says "follow up once and stop," I let both takes stay. I just add background so readers can contextualize expert opinions without considering them gospel truths.

👉 3. Try to interview at least one subject matter expert per piece to add authenticity and a human voice to every piece. 

What about you? How are you creating content that goes beyond "AI snippets"?

I've been working exclusively in the B2B SaaS space for and after the initial chaos and reshuffling after AI, I think I'm finally starting to see the dust settle. 

At least the teams I work with, have quite the protocol around AI-use and a strong human-first policy. Here's how I've seen the shift play out and where I think we're headed:

👉 Stage 1 (early 2023): The AI frenzy

Teams were under a strong mandate to do "more with less" and more often than not leadership said that to mean "fire people and replace them with AI tools." This was when a quite a few of my clients requested AI-edits and I spent hours editing generic, boring-sounding articles for them to be 15% better. 

But what I really learnt is that you can't write (and shouldn't publish) anything without a perspective. Even pieces I used to think are "typical TOFU pieces" and can be handled by AI were barely readable when written by AI. 

There's something to be said for better and continuous prompting BUT in 2023 that effort would equate with the effort of writing the piece yourself. 

👉 Stage 2 (2024): The wait

This is when content teams waited for AI slop to show results. Teams were under pressure to publish 10 pieces a week to drive traffic and, miraculously, a lot of them DID publish decent, AI-edited pieces. 

But when everyone is publishing semi-decent AI content, the bar for great becomes higher and the tolerance for poor becomes *considerably* lower. 

Which is what happened. 

Not only did throngs of people NOT flood in to read the AI content, but they were now flocking to AI engines to answer their queries. So the even though content volumes quadrupled, the viable audience halved. 

To make matters worse, the results that AI engines were surfacing or quoting were the exact opposite of the basic, high volume, TOFU blogs content teams were being forced to create. What was ranking was:

- Proprietary research
- Interview-based content 
- Customer stories
- Feature comparisons from In-depth competitor pieces 

👉 Stage 3 (2025): The resurgence of relevant content 

The title is a tad dramatic but I'll stand by it. 

The second half of 2025 is when the wheat separated from the chaff. 

➡️ I saw research reports pull in BIG results. For example, the B2B Marketing Salary Benchmark report I created for Exit Five had over 8K downloads. It also helped them acquire a whole new strata of customers and position themselves as true pioneers. 

➡️ I saw interview-based content get quoted, referenced and remembered. We worked on an in-depth video marketing guide at Storyblocks and that content surfaced in multiple ChatGPT dives and Google searches. 

➡️ But it was the competitor pieces that truly surprised me. These aren't a new play but they've taken on a whole new energy. Multiple #1 features and a conversion rate par none. 

So, finally, after 3 years of panicky plans on LOOP, the smarter content teams have figured out a stance. A play. A direction. 

What are you seeing in 2026? 👇

3 dead simple things you can do today before adding another item to your content calendar:


1. Talk to your customers.
2. Talk to your customers.
3. Talk to your customers.


That's it. That's the strategy.

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