2026 marks Forefront’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate, we’re sitting down with each of our practice area heads to get the inside scoop on their specialties, new technologies they’re exploring and their take on the B2B marketing landscape’s biggest trends.
In this installment, we go inside our Content practice area, speaking with Forefront VP and Head of Content Sam Belden about how the team is evolving its approach to storytelling, format and distribution in the age of AI search — and what it takes to create content that actually stands out.
Q: Beyond the obvious blogs and whitepapers, what types of content does the Content practice area produce for our clients?
A: Our work goes well beyond traditional long-form assets. We put a lot of care into sales enablement — not just product descriptions, but how a sales deck is structured, how it flows and how it tells an organization’s story, along with corporate brochures, one-pagers and internal battlecards.
We also do a significant amount of copywriting, making sure our clients’ messages come through loud and clear in every setting, from their websites to email marketing and social media. Forefront has always believed that a unified messaging foundation is an indispensable part of any marketing program, and the Content team is the keeper of that flame across our entire client roster. We always work in lockstep with the Digital team, making sure those messages are amplified through premium design and proven distribution strategies.
Newsletters are another big piece of what we do, as are podcasts and video. We’ve helped clients launch their own podcasts with talking points and talk tracks, and we produce our own show, At the Forefront, which gives our clients good practice for media interviews while also generating short, attention-grabbing clips for their social feeds.
Q: What’s a recent project that captures the Content practice area’s range?
A: A great example is the multifaceted campaign we ran around FORWARD, a recent one-day conference on prediction market surveillance and compliance, hosted by our client Eventus. Our work went well beyond written content — we delivered promotional materials, on-site coverage including live LinkedIn posting and on-site interviews with key attendees, a branded post-event recap report and a sizzle reel.
It was a great example of helping a company embrace one of their big events of the year as a marketing opportunity, turning in-person insights into tangible assets that captured what it was like to be in the room. In many ways, an event is like one giant intake interview, resulting in content that can’t be replicated by anyone else.
Q: What content formats or approaches are gaining traction with clients right now?
A: Video and podcasts are clearly gaining traction — B2B is quickly catching up to B2C in terms of how comfortable audiences are consuming information that way, and it matters for AI visibility too, since closed captions, transcripts and recap blogs have become a significant source of material for tools like ChatGPT and Claude to find, interpret and synthesize.
That said, tried-and-true formats like blogs and whitepapers still work well when they’re delivered the right way — with differentiated messaging, a premium, consistent brand and a high-quality user experience. A generic piece from a firm with poor brand discipline won’t carry the same credibility as one with a strong hook, a polished social card to invite users in and a compelling landing page when warranted. Beyond format, though, the real differentiator is what a client can bring to a piece that no one else can. We place real value on intake interviews, where we ask SMEs questions that lead them to genuine insights rather than summaries of what’s already out there.
Q: How do you decide which format is the right fit for a given topic?
A: It comes down to the client’s goals and the material we have to work with. If a client wants more top-of-funnel leads, we might suggest a substantial flagship piece that can be used for a paid LinkedIn or content syndication campaign to extend their reach. If a client already has a healthy pipeline and just needs to stay in front of prospects, we usually shift toward awareness and education. And for firms whose prospects are stuck at the bottom of the funnel, we often recommend more practical content, like case studies or how-to guides.
We also think about distribution. Can the topic be addressed via a LinkedIn article, a sales email, a newsletter or even a video? We also think about attribution and who should get the byline — a more technical piece might work well as a personal LinkedIn post from someone on a client’s product team, then get repurposed as a post on the company page highlighting a key quote or takeaway.
Q: As AI search and answer engines reshape how people find information, how is that changing your content strategy across structure, format and distribution?
A: It’s influencing the kinds of topics we recommend and how we structure pieces, for sure. We’re recommending FAQ blocks, Q&A articles and clear, plainly written informational pages on clients’ websites far more than we used to — content that’s almost specifically designed to be crawled by AI, so that when someone asks a question on ChatGPT or Claude, that language gets pulled into the answer. This is a real shift from traditional SEO, where the goal was securing a ranking on Page 1 of Google for a given keyword. LLMs pull from dozens of sources across the web and synthesize them into a single response, so publishing clear, well-structured information gives you a better shot at being part of that answer.
Q: How do you make sure you’re not over-optimizing for AI and other emerging trends at the expense of great writing?
A: It’s the flipside of the same coin — if everyone is writing for an algorithm, whether that’s Google, LinkedIn or an AI model, there’s a real risk that content starts to sound like the same generic voice. I’ve always believed that truly great writing happens when two unexpected ideas collide, and that kind of creativity is still something only humans can bring, given that AI is fundamentally about pattern-matching.
Where AI is most useful is as a thought partner: a first pass at proofreading, a sounding board for brainstorming, help with wordsmithing when you’ve been stuck on a sentence. That frees up more time for the parts of the craft that matter most, like thinking through the narrative, honing better questions for intake calls and staying immersed in what’s happening across the industry.
Thank you to Sam for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the Content practice area. Stay tuned for more conversations with Forefront leadership as our practice area highlight series continues!