‘Slop’ was named Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year – a term now almost always prefixed by ‘AI’.

You don’t need to work in marketing to recognise it: formulaic blog posts, dodgy imagery. Content that looks fine at a glance but says very little once you actually read it. What’s often missing is real data and insight from real people, whether that be your own experts, customers, or wider industry or academic voices.

Not all AI-assisted content is bad. Used properly, it is a helpful tool for structuring ideas, refining language and speeding up production. But the part that really matters – the insight – still has to come from somewhere credible.

If content is going to land with journalists, search engines or senior decision-makers, it needs expertise and evidence behind it. And that’s where many brands get stuck. Research feels expensive. Experts are hard to access.

Originality starts to feel out of reach. But it doesn’t have to be, even when budgets are tight.

Why research-led content works

The internet doesn’t need more opinions. It needs fewer recycled ones.

Research-led content stands out because it introduces something genuinely new. It moves a brand from reacting to conversations to shaping them, and from commenting on trends to creating talking points.

There are two reasons it works so well.

Original data builds trust. It gets cited, referenced and shared. Over time, that leads to stronger backlinks, improved authority and content that continues to deliver value long after it is published.

It also drives engagement. People stop scrolling for insights they have not seen before. A fresh statistic, a challenged assumption or a new perspective will always outperform generic advice, no matter how polished it looks.

Gather your experts

You don’t need to position your brand as the loudest voice in the room. In fact, content is often stronger when your expertise speaks for itself.

Research-led content works best when it brings together multiple perspectives. External experts, partners or industry voices add immediate credibility and prevent the content from feeling insular. They also signal confidence. Opening up your point of view shows you are more interested in accuracy and relevance than control.

Expert commentary is where research starts to mean something. Data on its own tells you what is happening. Experts explain why it matters. They provide context, challenge assumptions and draw out implications that numbers alone cannot. This analysis is often what journalists quote and what senior readers remember.

Collaboration can also make research more achievable. Working with trade bodies, professional networks or industry groups helps share the cost and effort, but just as importantly, it broadens reach. You gain access to a pre-qualified audience that already trusts the source you are partnering with.

Mine for gold-dust insights

Original insight does not always come from commissioning something new. Often, it is already there – it just has not been treated as content yet.

Your customers are a good place to start. Their questions, frustrations and priorities reflect what your wider market is thinking. When analysed properly, this type of insight becomes powerful because it is grounded in real behaviour, not theory. It shows how decisions are actually made, rather than how we assume they are made.

Internal data is another underused resource. Sales conversations, CRM trends, onboarding feedback or platform usage patterns all reveal how a market behaves in practice. When anonymised and aggregated, this information becomes proprietary insight – the kind competitors cannot replicate because it is based on your lived experience of the sector.

This is often where the strongest stories sit. Not in broad industry statistics, but in patterns that only emerge when you look closely at what is happening inside your own business. Alongside data, consider the language your customers and prospects are using. Chances are many are not talking about “scalable solutions”, but real problems that impact their working day. These insights can act as a springboard for research into what matters to them.

Match your research to your project

Research does not need to be complex to be credible. It just needs to fit your purpose.

Surveys are a good example. Large-scale studies are highly valuable, especially if they can be repurposed multiple times or repeated yearly. But smaller, tightly focused surveys are also effective – particularly when tied to a specific issue or moment in time, and they are more affordable.

Short “pulse” surveys allow brands to react quickly, capture sentiment and contribute something meaningful to an ongoing conversation without investing tens of thousands of pounds. As long as you use a credible survey company with a robust methodology, you can produce valuable insights.

Roundtables offer a different kind of value. Bringing together a small group of industry leaders creates space for discussion rather than declaration. These sessions surface nuance, disagreement and off-the-record sentiment that no survey question can fully capture.

The insight from a roundtable is rarely a single quote or statistic. It is the shared themes, tensions and perspectives that emerge when people speak openly. That qualitative insight is often what gives research depth – and what turns a piece of content into something genuinely thought-provoking.

Creativity counts

And creativity counts. It doesn’t matter what sector you’re in – presenting your research in an engaging way, and pushing boundaries where appropriate, will make potential customers take notice. Take a look at this campaign from a supply chain software company, and winner of a CMA award in 2024.

It doesn’t have to be as bold as that. Know your audience. How far can you push the boundary without it becoming a distraction?

Put the user first

Research-led content isn’t an opportunity for marketers to showboat. Right from the start, think about whether the research is useful, whether it tells people something they already know, or whether it offers genuine insight.

Are you answering the “so what?” question and giving practical guidance? Are you creating a narrative that makes sense to your audience? Present findings in a digestible way, rather than bombarding people with information.

Making the research work harder

Research is an investment. If it is treated as a one-off asset that quickly disappears into the abyss, its value is limited.

Strong research should underpin your content strategy. Findings can feed blogs, PR, LinkedIn posts, webinars and presentations, each reaching a different audience without requiring new work.

One core report can be broken into multiple sector- or audience-specific articles, each pulling out a different implication from the same data set. This approach maintains consistency while allowing for relevance.

The most effective way to maximise impact is to annualise research. Year-on-year data creates comparison, narrative and anticipation. Being able to say sentiment has shifted, confidence has dropped or priorities have changed gives journalists a reason to return and readers a reason to trust you.

That is how content moves from campaign to credibility.

Original does not have to mean impossible

Avoiding content slop in 2026 is not about rejecting AI or chasing perfection. It is about being clear on what you want to achieve.

Start with insight. Bring in real voices. Design research around how your audience actually thinks and works.

When the foundation is strong, everything else becomes easier – PR angles, lead generation, social content and search visibility.

Original content is achievable. It just requires resisting the shortcut that leads to everyone else saying the same thing.

Find more advice on original content and tightening up your content marketing strategy in Catherine's "What's Working, What's Not" report, here.