How to create B2B content that buyers keep using | MarTech

AI is changing the economics of B2B content. Teams can produce more, faster, which shifts the content challenge from capacity to judgment: Which resources deserve the time, expertise, and ongoing investment to remain valuable?

For years, one of content marketing’s biggest challenges was keeping up. There were always more topics to cover, campaigns to support, and questions to answer than most teams had the time or resources to address. Now that constraint is starting to loosen.

Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) 2026 B2B research found that 89% of marketers using AI use it for written content creation, and 87% say it has improved productivity. But only 39% say it has improved content performance.

That gap points to a bigger shift. Producing more content doesn’t necessarily mean creating more value. AI makes it easier to scale content, but scale alone doesn’t make content distinctive or valuable. The more content we can produce, the more deliberate we need to be about what deserves to exist — and what deserves to keep getting better after publication.

The problem is the publishing mindset

Content marketing often follows a familiar rhythm: Find a topic, create the content, publish it, promote it, measure the initial performance, then move on.

That model works for some content. Timely articles, campaign content, and thought leadership can have a specific purpose and shelf life. The problem starts when every resource gets treated as a finished product once it goes live.

A full editorial calendar can make a team feel productive because there’s always something moving forward. But volume isn’t what separates the strongest content programs from the rest. In CMI’s 2026 B2B research, 65% of marketers who described their content efforts as effective cited relevance and quality as contributors to that success.

The pressure to keep publishing can also make it easy to overlook what happens after launch.

Another article on the topic. Another annual trends report. Another ebook. Another variation of something you’ve already covered. The calendar keeps moving, so the content team does too.

Meanwhile, a resource that could help buyers solve a recurring problem or make an important decision may receive most of its attention at launch and very little afterward.

That creates a different question for content teams: What deserves to keep working after we publish it?

The answer won’t be every article or campaign asset. Some content serves its purpose quickly. But when a resource addresses a recurring need, supports an important decision, or gives buyers something they can put into practice, it may deserve a longer life — and a different level of investment.

Buyers don’t need more information. They need help making progress.

B2B buyers aren’t looking for more content simply because they want more to read. They’re trying to understand a problem, evaluate options, establish requirements, build internal consensus, justify a recommendation, and decide what to do next.

They’re doing that while surrounded by more information than they can reasonably process. About 56% of B2B buyers feel overwhelmed by the amount of content available to them, Demand Gen Report’s Content Preferences Benchmark Survey found. At the same time, 72% say they share content with relevant team members.

That combination matters. A resource needs to help the person who finds it, but it may also need to help that person explain an issue, defend a recommendation, or move a decision forward with someone else.

The buying process makes that even more important. First seller contact happens about 61% of the way through the buying journey, per 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report. The vendor that buyers prefer before speaking with sellers still wins roughly 80% of the time.

By then, buyers have already done substantial research and evaluation. They’re also rarely making the decision alone.

Forrester’s 2026 State of Business Buying research found that an average B2B purchase involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external participants. Gartner has found that 74% of B2B buying teams experience unhealthy conflict during the decision process.

In other words, buyers aren’t simply looking for information. They need help making sense of what they’ve gathered, comparing options, aligning stakeholders, and deciding what to do next.

I’ve explored this through the lens of customer decision-making: As information becomes easier to create, clarity becomes more valuable.

That changes the question content teams should ask. Instead of asking whether you’ve covered a topic, ask whether the resource helps someone make progress.

Can they use it to evaluate an option, build a case internally, explain the issue to finance, IT, procurement, or leadership, or take the next step with more confidence?

If the answer is no, more information may only add to the noise.

What makes something a reference asset?

A reference asset isn’t defined by its format. It could be a calculator, a benchmark, a template, a guide, or even an article. What matters is whether people have a reason to return to it, share it, or use it to make a decision. That’s a higher standard than simply asking whether something was good enough to publish.

A 50-page guide may represent a significant content investment, but if someone reads it once and moves on, its useful life may be short. A simple calculator or checklist may become something a buyer returns to throughout the decision-making process.

The difference is what the resource helps someone accomplish. It might help them:

• Understand something difficult, such as industry benchmarks, regulatory requirements, or complex market data.
• Make a decision through a comparison framework, ROI calculator, or scorecard.
• Do the work with a template, implementation guide, checklist, or playbook.

That’s why I don’t think of reference assets as a content format. They’re resources with a reason to be used again.

What reference assets look like when they’re genuinely useful

Once I started thinking about content this way, I began noticing examples everywhere. What stood out was how clearly these resources helped someone answer a question, make a decision, or get something done.

Help buyers solve recurring problems

Some reference assets address practical problems buyers encounter repeatedly.

Procore’s Asphalt Calculator helps contractors estimate material needs for a paving project. Its Construction Daily Report Template helps project teams document jobsite activity, resources, delays, safety issues, and other daily information.

Neither is particularly complicated. That’s part of the point. They solve problems that come up again and again in the course of doing the work.

Instead of asking, “What should we publish about asphalt?” start closer to the work itself: What does this person need to figure out or accomplish?

Turn proprietary knowledge into a decision tool

Other assets become valuable because they give buyers access to information they can’t easily get elsewhere.

Carta’s Round Benchmarking Tool uses data from roughly 20,000 U.S. startup equity rounds. Founders and investors can filter by funding stage, sector, geography, and time period to compare round sizes, valuations, and dilution.

A founder could read an article about typical Series A valuations. The tool answers a more specific question: What does a company like mine look like right now?

That’s where the value gets harder to replicate. Carta isn’t simply explaining a topic. It’s turning something the company uniquely knows into a resource its audience can use.

Give people a way to put knowledge into practice

Some resources are useful because they help people do the work rather than simply understand it.

Atlassian’s Team Playbook takes this approach with research-backed Plays for recurring situations such as retrospectives, project kickoffs, role clarification, decision-making, and working agreements.

Its 4Ls Retrospective Play shows teams how to run a retrospective, with guidance on preparation, timing, templates, and turning observations into actions.

An explanation can help someone understand a practice. A resource they can pull up during a meeting helps them put it into practice.

Help buyers work through complex decisions

The most valuable reference assets can also help buyers navigate decisions where the stakes are higher, and the answers aren’t obvious.

Trilliant Health’s Field Guide to Healthcare Strategy organizes questions around market share, physician strategy, consumer strategy, pricing, and capital allocation. Its SimilarityIndex | Hospitals lets users identify 50 empirically similar peers and compare performance across quality, financial, competitive, and price measures.

The Field Guide helps leaders work through a strategic problem. SimilarityIndex answers a specific question with data: Who are our true peers, and how do we compare?

Across these examples, the formats vary, but the principle is consistent. Each resource gives the audience a reason to return by helping solve a recurring problem, check a benchmark, run a process, or make a meaningful decision.

Not every topic deserves this level of investment

Reference assets require more time, expertise, and maintenance than typical articles, so not every topic warrants one. With content teams already working under significant constraints, the challenge is deciding where to invest more deeply to create the most value.

Start with a recurring buyer need

Gartner’s research on B2B buying describes the journey as a series of jobs buyers need to complete rather than a neat, linear funnel.

“Learn about CRM” doesn’t tell us much. “Evaluate which CRM can support our requirements” points to a specific decision.

From there, consider whether the need will recur. Will buyers face the same question over time? Will they return to the resource as they evaluate options or move through implementation? Recurring decisions and repeatable tasks offer stronger opportunities than one-time informational needs.

Consider the stakes

Vendor selection, budgeting, compliance, implementation, benchmarking, and internal approval all carry consequences. When the cost of getting something wrong is high, a resource that helps buyers evaluate options and make a confident decision can deliver more value.

Consider the wider buying group, too. Can someone take the resource into a conversation with finance, IT, procurement, leadership, or another stakeholder? Can it help them explain an issue, compare options, or make a stronger internal case?

Those are signals that a resource can do more than attract attention.

Identify what you can contribute

AI raises another important question: What can your organization contribute that another company or an AI system couldn’t recreate in five minutes?

That doesn’t have to mean proprietary data. It could be implementation experience, specialized domain knowledge, a methodology, customer insights, regulatory expertise, benchmarks, or a useful way to bring fragmented information together.

Make sure you can maintain it

If buyers rely on a resource, someone needs to own its accuracy over time. Data may need refreshing. Guidance may change. Templates may need updating. Customer or sales feedback may reveal opportunities to improve the resource.

If your team doesn’t have the capacity or expertise to maintain it, that’s worth knowing before making the investment.

The strongest opportunities bring these factors together: a meaningful and recurring buyer need, something distinctive your organization can contribute, and a commitment to keep the resource useful after launch.

Your next reference asset may already exist

Building a reference asset doesn’t always mean starting from scratch.

Before adding something new to the content calendar, look closely at what’s already working. An article may keep bringing people back months after publication. Sales may keep sending the same resource to prospects. A page may earn backlinks long after launch. Customers may reference it in conversations, or the same piece may generate recurring follow-up questions.

These aren’t just performance signals. They can reveal where your audience sees more value than your original content plan anticipated.

Say you have an article called “10 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a CRM.” It performs well, and sales keeps using it in conversations with buyers.

The obvious response might be to publish “12 More Questions to Ask Before Choosing a CRM.”

A better question is: What could the original resource become?

You could turn it into a customizable vendor scorecard, add stakeholder-specific questions for finance, IT, or procurement, or develop a weighted evaluation framework or an internal business case template that someone can take into a meeting.

You don’t need to turn every successful article into something bigger. But when people keep using, sharing, referencing, or revisiting a resource, pay attention. Your audience may already be telling you where a deeper investment makes sense.

Sometimes the best next step isn’t creating something new. It’s investing more deeply in something your audience already values.

Building reference assets changes the content operating model

Reference assets change what happens after you hit publish. A lot of content has a natural finish line: Create, launch, promote, measure the initial results, then move on.

That rhythm works for timely content, campaign support, and pieces that aren’t meant to have a long shelf life.

But when buyers rely on a resource over time, the operating rhythm needs to change:

• Build → Distribute → Observe → Maintain → Improve

That requires ongoing ownership. A subject-matter expert may spot guidance that needs to change as the market evolves. Sales may hear a question that the resource doesn’t answer. Customer success may see customers using it in an unexpected way. Product may have new technical guidance to add. A benchmark may need new data, or a template may start to feel dated.

How people use the resource can provide another source of insight. If buyers keep returning to one section, skip another, or ask for a tool to help them take the next step, those behaviors can indicate opportunities to improve it.

Over time, the asset becomes something the business maintains and develops rather than something the content team publishes and leaves behind.

That’s a different kind of investment. You’re investing in the resource’s continued value, not just its launch.

Measure useful life, not just launch performance

If reference assets create value over time, measure them over time, too. A resource designed to remain useful for months or years shouldn’t be judged primarily by its first 30 days.

Look at what happens after launch.

• Do people return to it?
• Does sales continue to share it?
• Do target accounts use it? Does it earn backlinks or get referenced elsewhere?
• Does it support opportunities or help existing customers?

These signals reveal something launch traffic can’t: whether the resource continues to earn a place in the buyer’s decision process.

There can also be value beyond direct usage. A strong reference asset can support sales conversations, customer education, future campaigns, and new content without requiring the team to start from scratch each time.

That doesn’t require a completely new attribution model. It requires a longer view of performance. If you build something to remain useful for a year, evaluate its contribution over that year.

What do you want to become the source for?

Some questions deserve more than another piece of content.

It might be a problem buyers repeatedly try to solve, a decision that creates ongoing uncertainty, a resource sales keeps reaching for, or an area where your organization has knowledge that could genuinely help people make progress.

Those are the opportunities worth considering. AI makes content easier to create. That makes judgment about where to invest more important.

Some topics need a timely article. Some ideas deserve thought leadership. Campaigns still need content. Not every topic warrants a calculator, benchmark, playbook, or resource that a team maintains for years.

But when a resource solves a recurring problem, supports an important decision, or helps someone get work done, deeper investment can make sense.

The goal isn’t to create more things for your content library. It’s to create resources that become useful enough to earn a place in how buyers research, decide, and work. That’s a much more durable form of content value.