The Momentum Content Strategy: Building Authority in Adjacent Categories

The Momentum Content Strategy: Building Authority in Adjacent Categories

Most B2B content teams optimize for search volume in their product category. Preston Bryant’s content team ignores their product category entirely.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Preston Bryant, Founder and CEO of Momentum, explained why his recycling marketplace invests zero content resources in recycling-related keywords. Instead, his single content person focuses exclusively on ESG and sustainability—categories that seem adjacent to Momentum’s business but actually sit at the center of how customers make buying decisions.

The insight: your customers aren’t searching for your product category. They’re searching for the organizational problems your product helps solve.

The Standard Content Playbook

Most B2B content strategies follow a predictable pattern. Conduct keyword research in your product category. Identify high-volume search terms. Create comprehensive content targeting those keywords. Optimize for rankings. Drive traffic. Convert visitors to leads.

For a recycling marketplace, this playbook says: target “recycling services,” “waste management solutions,” “commercial recycling,” “Momentum recycling,” and similar product-focused keywords. Build comparison pages. Create buyer’s guides. Rank for bottom-of-funnel search terms.

Preston took one look at this orthodoxy and recognized a fundamental flaw: nobody who becomes a Momentum customer starts their journey by Googling recycling marketplace solutions.

Understanding the Real Buyer Journey

The insight that shaped Momentum’s entire content strategy came from mapping how enterprise customers actually discover and evaluate recycling solutions.

Large companies don’t wake up one morning and decide to optimize their recycling vendor. They face organizational pressures around sustainability reporting, ESG commitments, waste reduction mandates, and regulatory compliance. These pressures create problems that need solving. Recycling optimization is the solution, not the problem.

“We have one person that works on content full time,” Preston explains. “He’s really focused on anything and everything sustainability and ESG related.”

This singular focus reflects a clear thesis: Momentum’s buyers are sustainability managers, ESG directors, and operations leaders tasked with hitting corporate environmental goals. They’re not searching for recycling vendors—they’re searching for guidance on sustainability reporting frameworks, waste reduction strategies, ESG compliance requirements, and carbon footprint reduction tactics.

Building Authority Where Decisions Get Made

The genius of Momentum’s approach becomes clear when you understand corporate buying dynamics. The person who eventually signs the contract with Momentum isn’t usually the person who initiated the vendor search.

The journey typically starts with a sustainability team member researching how to meet new ESG reporting requirements or reduce waste metrics. This person isn’t empowered to buy anything yet—they’re still defining the problem and exploring potential solutions.

By building content authority in ESG and sustainability, Momentum becomes visible at this crucial early stage. The sustainability manager researching waste reduction strategies discovers Momentum’s content, learns from it, and begins to understand how recycling optimization fits into their broader sustainability goals.

“He’s creating content that sits at the intersection of what people care about with ESG and sustainability, but like tangentially introduces Momentum as a mechanism to help them achieve those outcomes,” Preston shares.

The content doesn’t pitch Momentum directly. It solves the reader’s immediate problem—understanding ESG frameworks, improving sustainability metrics, meeting reporting requirements—while naturally positioning recycling optimization as part of the solution.

The Economics of Adjacent Category Content

Preston’s strategy only works because he’s not trying to compete on content volume. “We have one person that works on content full time,” he notes. One person. Not a content team. Not an army of freelancers. One dedicated content professional.

This resource constraint forces strategic focus. With limited capacity, Momentum can’t compete in crowded, competitive keyword spaces. They can’t produce enough content to dominate recycling-related search terms against well-funded competitors and established industry publications.

But they don’t need to. The ESG and sustainability content landscape, while growing, is less saturated than recycling-specific content. Competition for keywords around sustainability reporting frameworks or waste reduction strategies is lower than competition for “recycling marketplace” or “Momentum recycling services.”

More importantly, the readers discovering this content are earlier in their journey and more valuable. They’re not comparison-shopping vendors—they’re defining problems. When Momentum helps them understand and frame those problems, Momentum becomes the natural solution.

Why This Works in Low-Search-Volume Categories

Traditional content marketing wisdom says: target keywords with substantial search volume. If only 100 people per month search for a term, it’s not worth creating content for it.

Preston’s approach inverts this logic. Momentum isn’t trying to drive massive traffic. They’re trying to reach a small, specific audience: enterprise sustainability and operations leaders with budgets and authority.

This audience doesn’t need to be large to drive meaningful revenue. A few dozen well-qualified enterprise prospects discovering Momentum through ESG content delivers more value than thousands of small businesses finding Momentum through recycling-focused content.

The search volume obsession makes sense for businesses with low average contract values that need massive top-of-funnel volume. For businesses selling to enterprise customers with high contract values, search volume becomes less important than search intent and audience quality.

The Content Format Strategy

While Preston doesn’t elaborate extensively on content formats in the interview, the strategic implication is clear: the content must actually solve problems for readers, not just mention Momentum.

This means avoiding the common trap of creating “SEO content” that’s optimized for search engines but provides minimal value to readers. Sustainability managers researching ESG frameworks can spot thin, keyword-stuffed content immediately.

The content must demonstrate genuine expertise in sustainability and ESG topics. It must help readers understand complex compliance requirements, navigate reporting frameworks, and improve environmental metrics. The tangential introduction of Momentum comes only after establishing credibility by actually solving the reader’s immediate problem.

This requires hiring or developing content creators who understand sustainability and ESG deeply enough to create genuinely useful content—not just writers who can research keywords and create derivative content.

When Adjacent Category Content Strategies Work

Preston’s approach isn’t universally applicable. The conditions that make it effective are specific.

First, your product must solve problems that stem from broader organizational priorities. If customers discover the need for your product directly rather than through adjacent concerns, product-focused content works better.

Second, the adjacent category must have active search volume from your target audience. If sustainability managers weren’t actively researching ESG topics, Momentum’s content wouldn’t reach them.

Third, you must have genuine expertise or the ability to develop it. Creating authoritative content in adjacent categories requires actual knowledge, not just keyword research and content briefs.

Fourth, your average contract value must be high enough that small amounts of high-quality traffic justify the investment. If you need volume conversion, adjacent category content may not generate sufficient leads.

Fifth, the adjacent category must have a clear, logical connection to your product. The link between ESG goals and recycling optimization is obvious. If the connection requires extensive explanation, the strategy fails.

The Compounding Authority Effect

The long-term advantage of adjacent category content comes from authority building. As Momentum’s sustainability and ESG content gets discovered, linked to, and shared within the sustainability community, Momentum becomes recognized as a knowledgeable voice in the space.

This authority transfers when readers eventually need recycling solutions. The sustainability manager who learned about ESG reporting frameworks from Momentum’s content naturally thinks of Momentum when tasked with optimizing the company’s recycling program.

The authority also creates sales advantages. When Momentum’s sales team reaches out to enterprise prospects, they’re not unknown vendors cold-calling—they’re the company that published the helpful guide on sustainability metrics the prospect read last quarter.

What B2B Founders Can Learn

Preston’s content strategy reveals several transferable principles for B2B founders.

First, map the organizational priorities that create demand for your product, not just the product category itself. Content addressing these upstream priorities captures buyers earlier in their journey.

Second, small content teams with strategic focus can outperform large teams optimizing for search volume. One person creating genuinely valuable content in the right category beats ten people creating mediocre content in crowded categories.

Third, search volume is less important than audience quality for high-ACV businesses. Better to reach 100 qualified enterprise prospects than 10,000 unqualified small businesses.

Fourth, content authority in adjacent categories transfers to your core product when the connection is clear and logical.

Fifth, content that tangentially introduces your product works better than content that directly pitches it—when you’ve first provided genuine value to the reader.

The Contrarian Truth

Most B2B content teams obsess over ranking for product category keywords. Preston built a $150 million business by ignoring product category content entirely and focusing on the organizational problems that create demand for his product.

His buyers aren’t Googling “recycling marketplace.” They’re Googling “ESG reporting framework” and “sustainability metrics.” By building authority where his customers actually search, Preston captures them before they even know they need recycling optimization.

For B2B founders, the lesson is clear: your best content strategy might have nothing to do with your product category. Map the organizational priorities upstream of product demand, build authority there, and become the natural solution when customers eventually need what you sell.