♾️ Part 1: Building an Expert Advisory Board

You’re reading The Content Loop — a 5-min read on how B2B SaaS marketers can use original research and product-led content as a growth lever.

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This issue is Part 1 of a 4-part series I’m creating on building a realistic Expert Advisory Board—a roster of experts you can lean in on to build high-value content assets.

I was two weeks into writing a thought leadership series for an enterprise e-signature SaaS company’s healthcare segment when I had what can only be described as a mid-project existential crisis.

Despite having three research reports, a customer webinar series, and what I thought was solid preparation, something felt off. The content was technically accurate but lacked the depth that would make healthcare leaders actually stop and think.

That's when I realized what the problem was. I was treating expert insights like a drive-thru order. One voice, one perspective, call it a day.

But healthcare is complex. Government experts focus on regulatory compliance. Practicing doctors worry about workflow disruption when they're already stretched thin. Policy specialists think in 5-year strategic arcs while everyone else is managing quarterly pressures.

When I finally had all the pieces (and perspectives), the series of posts we created were so much more concrete.

Not because I suddenly became a healthcare genius, but because I stopped pretending one expert could represent an entire industry's complexity.

Plot twist: they can't.

The "expert" industrial complex is broken

Let's be real about how most of us source expert insights.

You post on HARO asking something complex like "What's the future of sales enablement?" Then you get flooded with responses from people who learned about your industry from a weekend blog binge.

But hey, at least you got quotes from ✨ experts ✨ right?

Or maybe you're more sophisticated. You reach out to your network, find one genuinely knowledgeable person, conduct a thoughtful interview, and publish their insights as The Definitive Truth™ about your industry.

That's still not truly expert-backed content if you just rely on one person. That's one-person-backed content with delusions of grandeur.

When you rely on a single expert, you're basically playing Russian roulette with your content strategy:

• You get tunnel vision disguised as expertise. Your VP of Sales sees everything through a revenue lens. Your product manager thinks every problem needs a new feature. Neither perspective is wrong, but neither tells the whole story.

• You create a single point of failure. Expert gets busy? Content execution stalls. Expert changes jobs? Back to the drawing board. Expert decides they're "too senior" for interviews? Time to start networking again. 🫠

• You miss the nuance that actually makes people think. The most interesting insights happen when perspectives clash, not when everyone nods along in harmonious agreement like a corporate stock photo.

Enter the Expert Advisory Board—a way to build a roster of SMEs

What if instead of frantically hunting for The Perfect Expert™ every single time, you built a roster of 6-10 people (or roles) you could actually rely on?

People who bring different lenses to the same problems. People who've already proven they can articulate their thoughts without resorting to buzzword bingo.

Think of it like having a research dream team on speed dial. Your company probably has an actual advisory board—smart people who provide strategic guidance because they each bring something different to the table.

Your content deserves the same treatment.

The beauty is you're not asking these folks to commit to monthly meetings or formal advisory roles.

You're building relationships with people who are already comfortable sharing insights publicly, then strategically tapping them when their expertise matches your content goals.

It's a more thoughtful approach than the spray-and-pray method most of us default to.

The 5 types of voices your content is probably missing

Without spoiling the entire framework (that's coming in part 2), here are the 5 types of experts you need:

• The visionaries who see around corners and predict industry shifts

• The practitioners who know what actually works vs. what sounds good in theory

• The scaling experts who've been there, done that, got the organizational trauma

• The in-the-trenches humans (aka prospects/customers) who live with your industry's pain points daily

• The researchers who have data to back up everyone else's hot takes

Each type brings something your content desperately needs. Visionaries give you the "here's where this is heading" context. Practitioners give you the "here's how it really works in the wild" reality checks. Customers give you the "this is what actually keeps me up at 3 AM" insights.

You need to combine their perspectives to make sure your content feels comprehensive instead of one-dimensional.

Your homework (yes, I'm assigning homework 😆)

Think about the last piece of expert-led content you published. Now honestly ask yourself: whose voice was missing?

If you interviewed a CEO about industry trends, did you balance it with someone who actually implements those trends without a team of 12 people? If you quoted a customer about their challenges, did you also talk to someone who's solved similar problems at scale?

Nine times out of ten, you'll identify at least 2-3 missing perspectives that would've made your content significantly less... basic.

That's the power of thinking beyond the single-expert approach that everyone else is stuck in.

P.S. If you're already building some version of an expert network and it's working (or not), I genuinely want to hear about it. Reply and let me know—and maybe I can help you troubleshoot it.

Next week, I'm breaking down the exact five-role framework I use to build these advisory boards. Including how to identify the right mix for different content types and why your research-backed content is probably missing half the voices it needs.

P.S. Liked the issue? Share it with someone who could benefit from it.

That’s all for today!