You can usually tell when a brand truly has a point of view and when they’re performing one. Wendy’s doesn’t just have a sharp social media presence. They have a consistent way of seeing the world, and the wit follows from that. Take away the jokes and the mindset is still there. That’s what makes it theirs.
Now think about the last piece of B2B content you read in your category. Remove the logo. Could it have come from anyone else?
If the answer is yes or if you’re not sure, that’s the problem we need to address. In a market where buyers are reading your content before they ever contact you, interchangeable thinking is how you lose business you never knew you were competing for. Here’s how to tell whether you’re putting out expertise or commodity content.
Why Generic Content Is Everywhere and Why It’s Hard to Spot
The tricky part isn’t that generic content is bad. It’s that it’s completely interchangeable with what everyone else in your industry is publishing.
Volume Became the Metric and Depth Became Optional
The pressure for always-on content output pushes teams toward safe, broadly applicable topics that clear the bar without clearing the room. There are 25,000 times more hours of content produced on YouTube alone than across all traditional TV networks and streaming services combined, and that supply problem isn’t slowing down.1 When the goal is consistency, insight becomes the casualty.
Safe Topics Have Already Been Written by Everyone
If a topic requires no specific experience to cover, it’s already been covered by competitors, by generalist writers, and by every content team chasing the same keyword. The result is a category of content that technically addresses the audience but says nothing they haven’t already read.
Writing for All Audiences Means Resonating with None
Sophisticated buyers can tell when content wasn’t written with them in mind, and they draw conclusions from it. When content is built for a general audience, it signals a lack of genuine familiarity with the problems readers actually face.
According to Gartner, 73% of B2B buyers actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach, and commodity content functions the same way in writing form.2 Before a conversation ever starts, the content has already told them you don’t know them well enough to earn one.
Assumed Fluency Is a Form of Differentiator
When content starts from zero—defining terms, covering basics, hedging every claim—it signals to experienced readers that the writer isn’t one of them. Assumed fluency is itself a differentiator. Knowing what your audience already knows, and skipping past it, is a form of respect that builds trust faster than any disclaimer can.
Buyers Use Your Content to Decide If You’re Worth Talking To
3 out of 4 B2B decision-makers trust thought leadership over other marketing materials,3 but that trust is contingent on quality, not volume. Poor thought leadership doesn’t just underperform. It actively signals misalignment to the buyers who were already evaluating you.
Stop planning content.
Start planning outcomes.
How to Know If What You’re Creating Is Actually Expertise Content
The question isn’t whether your content sounds smart or covers the topic thoroughly. It’s whether it could have come from anywhere else.
Is It Expertise Content or Commodity Content?
Answer five questions about a piece of content you're reviewing or planning. We'll tell you where it stands.
Here’s how to apply that thinking to any piece of content you’re reviewing.
Remove the Logo and Read It Again
If the content feels identical to what a competitor might publish, it’s commodity content regardless of how well it’s written. Expertise content has a point of view embedded in it, one that reflects a specific way of seeing the problem rather than a general survey of it.
That distinctiveness doesn’t come from tone or formatting. It comes from the reasoning behind the conclusions, the tradeoffs named, the conditions under which the advice changes.
Thought leadership content that could belong to anyone belongs to no one.
Check Whether You’re Answering the Question or Avoiding It
Commodity content stays safe by smoothing out the uncomfortable edges, the scenario where the conventional wisdom breaks down, the tradeoff most firms won’t acknowledge out loud. Expertise content names the tension instead of burying it.
If your content makes no claim that anyone in your industry could reasonably disagree with, it hasn’t said anything worth reading. Authority content earns trust precisely because it takes a position.
Ask Where the Question Came From
Generic content answers the questions anyone would ask. Expertise content answers the ones that only surface inside an actual client engagement: the question that came up last week in a real conversation and revealed something true about how the problem is experienced from the inside.
If the starting point was a keyword tool rather than a client conversation, that origin tends to show in the content whether the writer intends it to or not.
Notice What You Edited Out
The detail that felt too specific, the edge case that seemed too niche, the caveat that only applies to a narrow slice of the audience—those are usually the most valuable parts of a piece of expertise content.
Differentiated content is built from specifics, not despite them. If the editing process made the content more broadly applicable, it likely also made it more forgettable.
Stop publishing content that could belong to anyone.
The volume of content being published isn’t slowing down, which means the bar for being forgettable has never been lower to clear. But the bar for being the one a buyer thinks of when they’re ready to have a real conversation has never been higher.
Expertise content is what bridges that gap, built from the problems you actually solve, the frameworks you actually use, and the thinking that could only come from your firm.
Your content should sound like no one else can write it, because no one else can. Allied Insight helps you build expertise content that earns the right conversation with the right buyers. Let’s build it together.
References
1. Ahuja, Kabir, and Marc Brodherson, with Jamie Vickers and Jordan Bank. “The ‘Attention Equation’: Winning the Right Battles for Consumer Attention.” McKinsey & Company, 10 Jun. 2025, www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-attention-equation-winning-the-right-battles-for-consumer-attention.
2. “Gartner Sales Survey Finds 61% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Buying Experience.” Gartner, 25 Jun. 2025, www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-sales-survey-finds-61-percent-of-b2b-buyers-prefer-a-rep-free-buying-experience.
3. Edelman and LinkedIn. “Reaching Beyond the Ready: 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report.” Edelman, Feb. 2024, www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2024-02/_2024%20Edelman-LinkedIn%20B2B%20Thought%20Leadership%20Impact%20Report%20Final.pdf.
