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From Reads to Leads is a newsletter for B2B tech founders and marketing leaders whose marketing isn’t working. It’s about positioning, messaging, content strategy, operations, and results. If this was sent to you, subscribe here so you don't miss the next email.
In today's newsletter:
I had a call with a potential client this week. Before the call, I read four of their latest articles.
All bullshit.
Generic stuff that starts with “The industry is growing,” doesn't add anything new or anything useful, and reads like a boring instruction manual.
On the call, I was direct: "If you want mediocre SEO pieces, hire freelancers. It'll be cheaper than working with us. But I'd recommend writing better quality content than what you currently have."
I showed them examples.
Guess what they said? "But ours IS expert content! We have a writer who interviews our experts." As if interviewing an expert automatically produces expertise.
Many companies think all you need to create expert content is get your CTO on a call, ask about a project, transcribe the conversation, clean it up. Boom, expertise.
What they actually get:
"We conducted thorough research, selected the optimal approach, and implemented the solution using best practices."
Find any B2B "expert guide" and look for the problem it solves. Not the topic. The actual problem.
"A Guide to Cloud Migration" isn't a problem. It's a topic.
The problem is: "We're on legacy infrastructure. Moving to cloud seems right, but we're not sure if we should go all-in or hybrid, and we can't afford to screw up our uptime during the transition."
Most expert content never defines this. It just assumes you already decided to migrate and jumps straight to "our process:"
Step 1: Assess your current infrastructure
Step 2: Design your cloud architecture
Step 3: Execute migration
Great. You've documented that migration involves... migrating.
Where's the expertise? Where's the part that helps someone think through their specific situation?
Expertise should address the decision someone's stuck on.
For example, when you need to choose between tax regimes for your LLC, or buy a stroller for your first-born baby, you want an expert who says: "Here's how this decision works. Here are the pitfalls. Here's what I've seen go wrong 15 times."
You want someone who's been there to walk you through the thinking.
What companies write:
"We selected microservices architecture for scalability."
What expertise looks like:
"Choose microservices when you have: 1) team size above 15 engineers, 2) at least 3 distinct product areas that change independently, 3) budget for operational complexity. Otherwise, a modular monolith will serve you better for 2-3 years."
That's answering a problem: Should we go microservices or not?
Every piece of expert content needs to answer at least one of these. The best pieces answer all three.
Your readers aren't stuck on what you chose. They're stuck on how to choose. They're staring at two options, both seem reasonable, and they need to know which signals matter.
What companies write:
"We built a custom CMS for the client."
What expertise looks like:
"Custom CMS vs WordPress: Choose custom when you need complex workflows (multi-stage approvals, custom user permissions) or you're integrating with internal systems. Choose WordPress when you need standard blogging plus some custom fields. The tradeoff: custom takes 3 months and needs ongoing maintenance. WordPress ships in 3 weeks but fights you on anything non-standard."
The formula:
Nobody needs another article on best practices. It's way more interesting and useful to learn which "best practices" are traps.
What companies write:
"We followed Agile methodologies to ensure project success."
What expertise looks like:
"Two-week sprints don't work when you're building hardware. You'll spend sprint planning waiting for parts that take 6 weeks to arrive. And 'ship working software every sprint' falls apart when firmware needs full device testing. We learned this on three projects. Now we run 6-week cycles for hardware, 2-week for software."
The formula:
If you've done something once, that's a case study. If you've done it 40 times, you should see patterns. That's expertise.
What companies write:
"We modernized a banking app and a healthcare platform."
What expertise looks like:
"Across 47 legacy modernization projects, we've seen the same bottleneck: teams underestimate data migration complexity. Clients often believe 80% of data is clean enough, but the reality shows 40% needs cleansing. As a result, our timeline blows up mid-project. Now we triple every data migration estimate. When clients push back, we show them the 30 projects where underestimating cost them 2+ months."
The formula:
To be useful, expert content must be specific. And specificity comes from adding context.
What companies write:
"We tailored our development approach to the client's needs."
What expertise looks like:
"E-commerce sites under 1,000 products: Shopify works fine, ships in 3 weeks, costs $5K. Between 1,000-10,000 products with basic customization: Shopify Plus, 6 weeks, $20K. Over 10,000 products or complex B2B pricing: custom platform, 4 months, $100K+. Most clients overestimate how custom they need to be."
Expertise often lives in the moments that experts don't think are worth mentioning:
You have to dig for it. Here are a few questions you can ask experts to extract these insights:
Record these conversations and don't run them as a Q&A. The expertise isn't in the prepared answers. It's in the off-hand remarks like:
"Yeah, we went with React, but honestly if they'd had a stronger backend team, I would've pushed Vue..."
That's a decision framework right there. Most content writers miss it because they're too busy writing down the official answer.
You have the material. Your experts make judgment calls every day.
But then SEO gets involved.
Someone hands you a keyword list: "enterprise software development best practices." Your writer interviews an expert, extracts a project timeline, adds some H2 tags for "best practices," and publishes 2,000 words that could describe any company's process.
This content might rank, but nobody reads it. And when nobody reads, there are no leads.
So my tip for you is this: write things where you actually have expertise. And learn how to dig for it.
I've been thinking about how much great expertise dies in Slack messages and standup meetings because nobody extracts it.
Kateryna
P.S. If we aren't connected already, follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you like this newsletter, please refer your friends.
P.P.S. Need help with quality content? Zmistify your content with Zmist & Copy
People are more motivated by the threat of losing than they are by the prospect of winning. That’s why addressing people’s problems or fears works so well in marketing. Discover 8 problem-oriented copywriting formulas you can experiment with.
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