When every B2B marketer has access to AI, how will anyone stand out?
This is a challenge not only of differentiation with customers but amongst LLMs choosing resources as answers. B2B marketers are also challenged by the increasing size of buyer groups from 5 to 13 stakeholders (Forrester) and the fragmentation of information discovery. Buyers now interact with an average of 10 channels during their journey (McKinsey).
Rand Fishkin summarizes these challenges well,
”If you’re not present in the places *your* audience pays attention, it’s all over.”
Despite the ease of using AI for creating content, today’s B2B buyers don’t want more content. They want answers. And more importantly, they want information and sources they can trust and believe in.
Our survey of nearly 800 B2B marketers with Ascend2 (The State of B2B Thought Leadership in 2026) found that 93% of B2B marketers using original research-based content feel that it is effective at driving engagement and leads.
That same research also found that 74% who frequently collaborate with influencers report their research based content as very effective vs. just 29% of those who don’t. Further, 78% say interactive and experiential content increases repeat engagement, but only 33% regularly build it into their campaigns.
These findings reveal an interesting pattern that illustrates where B2B thought leadership trends are going and what top performers are doing that others are not.
But here’s the interesting thing, these insights alone provide clues about how to improve effectiveness of thought leadership for B2B audiences. When you also consider that original research, influencers and experiential content like video are also some of the most important differentiators against AI generated content AND contributors to the signals that LLMs pick up for citations when deciding on sources for the answers they provide.
It’s tempting for some marketers to put out content and call it thought leadership. But gated lead gen ebooks, demos posing as webinars and native advertising promoting industry trends are not thought leadership – they’re content. And that’s fine, just don’t expect the same outcomes as true thought leadership.
In our research we asked questions to uncover what characteristics represented top performers and we found that those that self identified as performing well, exhibited some common characteristics. We call them Best Answer Brands.
1. Full Customer Lifecycle Strategy
- 69% Create awareness
- 64% Influence decision
- 47% Engage post-sale
2. Source questions from data
- 56% direct customer feedback
- 44% SEO/search behavior data
- 32% AI/LLM-generated insights
3. Research + Influence = Trust
- 93% using research-based content say it drives engagement and leads
- 74% Use influencers very frequently
4. Content is an Experience
- 31% dedicated microsites
- 55% interactive content most effective
- 78% find interactive, experiential content drives repeat engagement
5. Content is Multi-Channel
- 50% webinars
- 45% paid media
- 42% short-form video
- 35% podcasts
- 40% GenAI optimization
So how can these insights be used by B2B marketers to become a best answer brand in their category?
Create your own answer engine. By that I don’t mean crating your own ChatGPT or Claude. I mean a thought leadership content engine that delivers the kinds of answers that get picked by LLMs and preferred by humans. And not just for awareness, but through the entire customer lifecycle.
To do that, we’ve developed a framework from our research and experience working with B2B brands over the past 25 years that we call Best Answer Marketing. BAM has 6 pillars that can be customized to any content focused marketing discipline.
What the rest of this post will do is highlight how BAM pillars can be applied specifically to B2B thought leadership for integrating original research, influence and experiential content like video to help B2B marketers become more effective at differentiating their content for humans and LLMs alike.
Data Informed
Develop your hypothesis about what business or marketing problems your customers need to solve relevant to your solutions. Then research the questions those buyers are asking.
Inputs to formulate questions can include
- ICP, business goals
- Key business problems
- Customer insights
- CRM, sales data
- PAA keyword & query fan out tools
Then use that question research to inform topics for your original research, survey, sourcing proprietary data or other evidence for your thought leadership content strategy.
Integrated Strategy
Achieving success in a world of fragmented discovery requires integration. This strategy aligns narratives, formats and channels across the customer lifecycle. This type of integrated strategy includes decisions about:
Topics, Narratives & Trust Activations
ICP focused question/answer themes backed by research/data and validated by influencers, 3rd party media
Content Formats
Align answer content with buyer stage (tofu/mofu/bofu). Content formats: text, image, video, audio, interactive, events
Channels for Publishing
Coordinate publishing and promotion on owned, earned, shared media. Activate influencers and repurposing tactics.
Discovery and Engagement
Optimize question/answer narratives for AI discovery, search visibility, earned media, paid media, influencer sharing, social engagement, and subscribed audiences: newsletter, podcast, blog.
Conversion Pathways
Map goals to metrics and outcomes. Thought Leadership: Awareness, credibility, influence. Brand: Affinity, share of voice. Demand: Consideration & preference. Lead gen: Pipeline acceleration, deals, and revenue.
Elements of an Integrated BAM strategy for thought leadership might include:
- Research report as the content engine
- Internal SMEs provide context
- External influencers, earned media, analyst validation
- Content topics driven by question/answer research
- Content formats including video, audio, interactive, image, text, events
- Multi-channel distribution for best answer visibility
- Unified analytics to dashboard KPIs & opportunities
Trust System
According to research from LinkedIn, 94% of marketers agree that trust is the key to B2B success. Building trust for your thought leadership can come from data but you can achieve a force multiplier effect when you add the validation of third party experts.
As I mentioned above, our research found that 74% of B2B marketers who frequently engage influencers say that their research based content is very effective vs. just 29% of those who don’t.
A Best Answer Trust System can help you build trust across the customer journey with influencers, analysts, and earned media. From brand, to demand to revenue and growth, here are ways to think about incorporating trust building efforts into your thought leadership:
Brand:
Analyst + influencer commentary in the report
Executive SME bylines in tier-1 industry media
Video reactions by influencers to key findings
Demand:
Influencer-led webinar panel
Research-backed use case briefs co-created with SMEs
Earned media placement covering report insights
Revenue:
Benchmark comparison co-signed by a neutral analyst
Influencer-backed RFP template or buyer’s guide
Influencer + customer engineer joint consultation
Growth:
Customer optimization workshops with industry experts
Quarterly customer insight briefings featuring an analyst
Customer advocacy program to inspire case studies
Experiential Content
When we asked the nearly 800 B2B marketers who answered our survey about what would make their thought leadership more impactful, experiential content formats dominated responses.
- Video content
- Live/virtual events
- Interactive experiences
Creating full funnel content experiences involves content sequencing to meet the buyers information needs at different stages of their journey. For example here’s what an enterprise private 5G provide might sequence:
Benchmark Report
Private 5G Advantage Research Report: Use Cases, ROI, and Adoption Drivers
Playbook
Private 5G Deployment Playbook: How to Choose Between Wi-Fi 6, Public 5G & Private 5G
Readiness Assessment
Private 5G Readiness Check: Is Your Environment a Fit?
Post Sale Enablement
Unlocking Maximum ROI from Private 5G: Architecture, SLAs & Automation Enablement
Now to take it a step further to provide experience driven content sequencing, it might look like this:
Brand
- Flagship Research Report
- Bylines in Tier-1 Media
- Short, zero-click social video
- Reel of influencer quotes
- 60 second insight video
Demand
- Interactive playbook – gated
- Webinar – registration
- Interactive data explorer
- Email nurture
Revenue
- Readiness assessment
- Customized benchmark report
- Toolkit, template download
- 1:1 consultation
Growth
- Customer optimization workshop
- Quarterly customer insight briefing
- Use-case deep dive
- Training modules
- Customer advocacy program
Multi-Channel Discovery
Being easily found on the surfaces or channels where your audience is looking is at the heart of Best Answer Marketing.
Our research found that the top distribution channels for thought leadership content for the top performers are:
- LinkedIn 54%
- In-Person Events 54%
- YouTube Video 51%
- GenAI Tools 32%
However, these are general indicators. It’s important to conduct audience intelligence research against your ICP to identify the channels where your buyers are actually discovering and engaging with content so you can build a multi-channel visibility plan that reaches buyers as well as fuels AI and Google search visibility.
SEO + AEO optimized research hub:
FAQ markup for key buyer questions
Comparative tables
Schema-marked data highlights
Go deep on answers to the exact queries buyers use
Publish content on industry media:
Tier 1 Publications
Tier 2 Publications
Blogs
Newsletters
Activate industry influencers:
Internal SMEs, practitioners, specialists, analysts:
“Expert reactions” to the research for brand social channels
Short-form videos to publish on influencers’ channels
Multi-influencer + internal SME webinar
Distribute via partners:
Systems integrators
Channel partners
Resellers
Sponsored placement & ads:
Sponsor relevant podcasts
Sponsor relevant newsletters
Run sponsored content & thought leader ads on LinkedIn
Run paid search ads on Google for comparison queries
Unified Analytics
When asked about the top challenges limiting their ability to drive full funnel success with thought leadership, the respondents to our survey with Ascend2 the top response was, limited visibility into funnel performance and attribution.
This is why a unified analytics solutions is so important for understanding performance, reporting and optimizing B2B thought leadership that is expected to drive outcomes across the entire customer lifecycle.
A unified analytics solution involves a number of detailed steps but here is a simplification:
1. Data inputs
- Content & Web Analytics
- Media, SEO & GEO
- Paid & Social
- Influencer & Partner Programs
- Pipeline, Revenue & Product Signals
2. Unification & modeling
- Data Integration & Normalization
- Data Warehouse / Lake
- Modeling & Attribution
- SEO, AI Search, Social, Etc Channel Metrics
3. Dashboards & views
- Executive View (C-Suite / Board)
- Marketing & Growth View
- Sales & RevOps View
- Customer Success & Growth View
The Best Answer Marketing approach to B2B thought leadership is designed to be a framework that helps B2B marketers integrate some of the last remaining types of information that are distinct from what AI can produce: original research, influence and experiences. Hopefully this post was useful in helping you understand how to create your own answer engine to help your company become a Best Answer Brand for your customers.
This post represents the presentation I am giving tomorrow at Content Marketing World in Denver. I’ll be presenting B2B Thought Leadership That Drives Brand, Demand and Revenue Outcomes on Tuesday, October 6 at 2:00 PM in Room 207
This is my 16th consecutive time speaking at CMWorld and I am looking forward to reconnecting with veterans of the event and making new connections as well. Debbie Friez published a post about some of the sessions we’ll be attending here.
If you’d like to access the TopRank Marketing/Ascend2 B2B Thought Leadership research, you can find the un-gated report here.
