Content for service firms: mapping topics to buying stages
Content marketing for service firms: how to map topics to three buying stages, pick the format, source topics from sales calls and cut the ones you don't need.
How do you choose content topics for a service firm? Assign each topic to one of three buying stages: problem (the buyer is naming what’s wrong), solution (they compare approaches, costs and risks) or provider choice (they compare firms and look for proof). Match the format to the stage: blog posts and LinkedIn posts for problem and solution, case studies and service pages for provider choice. Take topics from your sales call notes and lost proposals. Record each one in a backlog with its stage, the buyer’s question and the source of proof, and cut the ones only people in your industry would care about.
In this post I’ll show why this works in services, what the three stages and formats look like, where to find topics, and how to build a backlog your team can actually ship.
Service buyers make up their minds before they get in touch
In 6sense’s 2025 study (nearly 4,000 B2B buyers, with services the largest share of purchases described, 41%), buyers first contacted a vendor on average when they were 61% of the way through the buying process. In 79% of cases, the buyer started the conversation. The vendor the buyer favored before first contact won roughly 80% of the time. According to the same report, 94% of buyers use language models, but they still rely on vendor content and third-party experts.
In services, there are also referrals. Promethean Research writes in its 2025 report on digital agencies that most agencies generate the bulk of their leads and revenue through referrals, and adds that referrals are unpredictable and often come from people within the same network (report, p. 38). In my view, a referred buyer reads first too: they check whether the firm they were referred to writes about their problem and has proof from similar projects. That’s why I think content doesn’t replace referrals, but it helps a referral turn into a conversation.
Three buying stages: problem, solution, provider choice
You can split the buying process into more stages, for example researching costs and risks separately, or getting approval inside the client’s company. For planning content in a small service firm, three are enough in my view:
- Problem: the buyer sees that something isn’t working and tries to name it. They ask: “why are sales flat even though we get more inquiries?”
- Solution: the buyer knows what they’re looking for and compares approaches: do it in-house, hire someone or outsource it to a firm. They ask about costs, risks and how long it takes.
- Provider choice: the buyer compares specific firms. They ask: “who has done this for a company like mine, and with what result?”
The questions at each stage depend on who is buying. I covered how to describe the buyer and their questions in the post on the B2B buyer persona.
You choose the format based on the stage
| Stage | Buyer’s question | Format | Example topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Problem | “What’s actually wrong?” | blog post, LinkedIn post | “Why proposals come back with questions about scope” |
| Solution | “How do I solve it and what does it cost?” | blog post (comparison, costs), LinkedIn post | “In-house team or outside firm: costs and risks” |
| Provider choice | “Why this firm?” | case study, service page | case study of a project for a similar client |
Case studies and service pages fit provider choice because they answer the question about a specific firm and its proof. At the problem stage, the buyer isn’t looking for a provider yet, so a case study won’t hold their attention. Blog posts and LinkedIn posts work at every stage, but they most often answer the questions from the first two.
You take topics from sales calls and lost proposals
The best topics are in what buyers have already told your firm. I recommend looking in three places:
- notes from sales calls in recent months: questions that came up more than once,
- lost proposals: the reasons the client gave, and the questions the proposal didn’t answer,
- emails from clients after a project started: what they didn’t know before they bought.
If nobody takes notes on calls, ask the people who sell for the ten questions they hear most often, and go through your inbox of proposal requests.
You write the question in the client’s words, not yours. “How to work out whether outsourcing pays off” is a topic for the buyer. “Our approach to outsourcing” is a topic for you.
A backlog you can actually ship
A backlog is a list of topics to write. For it to be workable, each topic has six fields:
- topic,
- buying stage,
- the buyer’s question, in the client’s words,
- the service the topic relates to,
- source of proof: a project, data or an example the piece will rest on; if all you have is your own view, write “author’s opinion” so it’s clear the piece has no proof,
- format.
A topic without a buyer’s question or without a service drops off the list. A case study without a real project and the client’s permission stays in the backlog as an idea, but you don’t write it. Numbers and client names in the text come only from your projects or from sources.
Match the number of topics to the time your team really has for writing. A few pieces a month, published regularly, will do more than a plan for twenty that stalls after the third.
Cut topics only your industry cares about
For each topic, check whether a buyer has asked this question in a conversation or would type it into a search engine. If not, the topic will probably interest mostly other people in your industry. A post about a new project management tool for agencies will be read by other agencies. An agency’s client is more likely to ask how long implementation takes and who on their side has to spend time on it.
Such topics aren’t bad if you want to recruit or build contacts in the industry. Just don’t expect them to bring inquiries from clients, and keep them on a separate list, outside the backlog of topics for clients.
Example: a consulting firm’s backlog
This is an illustration, not a real firm: take a consulting firm that streamlines sales processes in mid-sized manufacturing companies. After going through its call notes and lost proposals, it has these topics:
| Topic | Stage | Buyer’s question | Service | Source of proof | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Why salespeople at a manufacturing company don’t update the CRM | problem | “Why have a CRM if nobody fills it in?” | sales process streamlining | examples from earlier CRM clean-up projects | blog post |
| How to tell your sales pipeline has too many stages | problem | “Why do proposals wait so long for a decision?” | sales process streamlining | author’s opinion | LinkedIn post |
| An in-house sales operations team or an outside firm | solution | “Hire someone or outsource it?” | sales process streamlining | salary costs from job ads | blog post |
| How long it takes to streamline the sales process and who has to be involved | solution | “How much of my people’s time will it take?” | sales process streamlining | schedules from past projects | blog post |
| Case study: the sales process at a machinery manufacturer | provider choice | “Who has done this for a company like mine?” | sales process streamlining | project for a machinery manufacturer; client permission: to be obtained | case study |
| Service page with scope and project flow | provider choice | “What exactly will I get?” | sales process streamlining | list of projects and schedules from past engagements | service page |
A post about a new proposal automation tool that the team suggested dropped off the list, because no client had asked about it. The case study waits for the client’s permission, and until then you don’t write it.
Frequently asked questions
How many topics to start with?
As many as the team can write in two or three months with the time it has now. I recommend starting with the questions that came up most often in conversations, a few per stage.
Should we write about prices?
Yes, if buyers ask about them. The question about costs belongs to the solution stage. If you don’t publish a price list, you can describe what the price depends on and the typical cost components.
What about LinkedIn?
A LinkedIn post is the same topic from the backlog, with the same stage and buyer’s question, just shorter. You don’t need a separate list of LinkedIn topics.
Summary
If your team comes up with content topics today, I recommend starting with your notes from recent sales calls and lost proposals. Write down the buyers’ questions, assign each to a stage and a format, cut the industry topics and keep as many as your team can write. In our open repo (files with knowledge about the firm and instructions that an AI agent such as Claude Code uses), the content ideas instruction saves each idea as a separate file with its buying stage, the buyer’s question and the source of proof (open source).
Every method on this blog also runs as a skill in the open-source B2BForce repo. About the repo