Today’s guest post is by Peppercommer Matt Purdue.

I see too many company content hubs that rely on generic content.

Some of it is curated by third-party content providers, which leaves me scratching my head wondering how this content gets posted.

The other day I found a content hub hosted by a company targeting restaurant owners. But the hub was filled with generic small business “news articles” from the BBC, Business Insider and the like.

Remember, this is a company targeting restaurateurs, yet most of the content was very broad. For example, a retired army general offering leadership lessons.

Here at Peppercomm, we adhere to a few key principles when we create content for clients:

Be unique: Our recent Peppercomm-Economist Group content marketing study, Missing the Mark, shows that two-thirds of business executives prefer uniqueness and timeliness in the content they read. While the BBC is a great news organization, there’s nothing unique about reposting one of their old articles on your company’s content hub.

Be relevant: Executives don’t come to brands looking for news. Our survey shows that three-quarters of them seek out content to research a business idea. Unless your content is laser-focused on what’s keeping your customers awake at night, they’ll go elsewhere.

Be flexible: Executives want their content in different formats. For example, younger executives are more than twice as likely to open video content compared to veteran executives. If your content hub is filled with text articles, you’re turning off a large part of your audience.

The bottom line: Content that drives people to action takes strategic planning and carefully deployed resources. There are no shortcuts.