Here’s something I hear a lot from insights agencies: “We know we should be doing more marketing, but we don’t have the time or the budget.”
And here’s the thing: I believe them. Running a business in insights is demanding. You’re delivering for clients, managing methodology, keeping up with fast-moving technology and, somewhere in the middle of all that, trying to grow. Marketing (the consistent, strategic, reputation-building kind) keeps sliding to the bottom of the list.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: while you’re heads-down delivering brilliant work, your competitors are becoming famous for it.
The insights industry has a visibility problem
The research and insights sector is full of extraordinary expertise. Original methodologies, deep understanding of human behaviour; and yet so much of it stays locked inside client decks, never sees the light of day, and does nothing to build the authority of the businesses that created it.
Meanwhile, content – not always good – is flooding the market. AI has made it faster and cheaper than ever to produce. But faster and cheaper has also meant blander and more forgettable. A SEMrush analysis of 42,000 blog pages found that purely AI-generated content ranked at the top of search results just 3% of the time. The other 97%? Human-led.
The opportunity is to create the right content, rooted in genuine expertise, that makes you the company people think of first. More quality, less quantity.
Why thought-leadership is different in insights
Your buyers are sophisticated. They can spot a surface-level hot take instantly. They’re not impressed by “AI is changing everything” think-pieces.
What they respond to is specificity. A fresh angle on methodology. A provocation about the future of the sector. A relevant answer to their challenges. That’s the content that gets remembered when procurement comes round.
The problem is that creating that kind of content consistently, and at scale (nearly every buyer uses an average of ten touchpoints along the purchasing journey[1]) is genuinely hard without the right support. It requires strategy, editorial skill, time and creative resource. You have the expertise but often lack the bandwidth to turn it into marketing.
That’s exactly why we built the Secret Sauce™.
What the Secret Sauce™ actually does
The Secret Sauce™ is our end-to-end thought-leadership programme optimised with AI, designed specifically for insights companies who want to build real authority — without adding a full-time marketing function.
It works like this:
Strategic Discovery — We start with a deep-dive into your business: your positioning, your differentiators, your target audiences and your marketing objectives. This isn’t a tick-box exercise. It’s the foundation everything else is built on, and it’s where Keen as Mustard’s strategic expertise does the heavy lifting.
- Content planning — We build a tailored content plan around your pillars, your voice and your goals — including flagship content ideas, campaign concepts, channel strategy and a 90-day action plan. You always know what’s coming and why.
- AI-powered production — With a rigorous strategic brief in place, we use AI to generate high-quality first drafts at speed. This is where the time-saving happens — without sacrificing relevance or quality, because the brief that feeds the AI is built on real strategic thinking, not a generic prompt.
- Editorial refinement — Every piece of content gets the final Keen as Mustard expert review. Our team edits for nuance, authority and influence — making sure that what goes out sounds like you at your best.
- Marketing activation —We help you publish, distribute and amplify your content across the right mix of channels and we track performance so we can keep improving.
The result is a consistent, credible, expertly crafted content programme that positions your company as the go-to authority in your niche — without your team needing to find hours they don’t have.
The firms that will win are building their reputation now
There’s a principle in B2B marketing called the 95:5 rule. At any given moment, only 5% of your potential clients are actively looking to buy. The other 95% aren’t ready yet — but they’re forming opinions. Thought leadership helps you own that 95%. It’s a long game — but it’s a powerful one.
If you’ve been meaning to get serious about marketing but keep running out of time, resources, or clarity on where to start — the Secret Sauce™ was built for exactly that moment.
Find out more or book a conversation with the team; drop us a line at iosetta@mustardmarketing.com
[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-surprising-economics-of-b2b-growth-the-new-survival-threshold-and-what-it-takes-to-thrive