What Is B2B Marketing? Meaning, Types, and Trends

From navigating the risk of “blanding” to building trust, B2B marketers explain how they use AI for content, creative and to “get ahead of bad ideas”. Claiming events are “more important than ever”, B2B brands explain how they map their event portfolio to “every stage of the funnel”. Marketers explain why prioritising critical thinking, learning to listen and beefing up your business acumen is the route to greater strategic influence. Tie these metrics to broader strategic goals like revenue impact, customer satisfaction, and innovation outcomes rather than technology adoption alone. By 2029, at least 50% of knowledge workers will be expected to develop new skills to work with, govern, or create AI agents on demand for complex tasks The gap between experimentation and impact isn’t technical—it’s strategic.

Because when it comes to business deals, it’s all about people, right? We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise brands, small businesses, and agencies how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. Eleven percent say content is a stand-alone strategy for content used for marketing, and 6% say it’s a stand-alone strategy for all content produced by the company. Access the full report and reach out to schedule a guidance session to apply the research in your business’s specific context.

The marketing funnel guides potential customers from discovery to purchase. That means people buy products — even if they don’t have an immediate need — based on how well you market the benefits. My experience in the B2B space tells me that buyers are always motivated to solve a clear problem statement and improve business ROI through a purchase.

A detailed look at B2B marketing based on our exclusive data

Your videos could range from high-level overviews to detailed, step-by-step guides on specific features. AI gives you more shots on goal, more data to learn from, and more room to experiment. Awareness and trust are essential elements of modern B2B growth. They are a core driver of visibility, trust, and pipeline. Momentum isn’t about pressure — it’s about matching the buyer’s pace.

• Many B2B marketers are finding success using the same social media strategies as B2C brands.
• The term B2B is becoming increasingly common as industries digitalise and organisations rely more on inter-company collaboration.
• The brands pulling ahead aren’t optimizing brand, customer, and employee experience in isolation — they’re aligning them into a system that drives measurable growth.
• Forrester’s 2026 global Total Experience Score and research show that when promise, delivery, and the people behind both move in sync, companies build strong, sustainable momentum.

The final transaction, a finished vehicle sold to the consumer, is a single (B2C) transaction. It consolidates similar transactions from various industries into one platform, offering trading opportunities for both buyers and suppliers. Alternatively, the website can be created for business purposes, where the seller advertises their products to promote and expand transactions. Through the website, the company can promote its products vigorously, more efficiently, and more comprehensively, enriching transactions by helping customers better understand their products. As an example, Dell works with upstream suppliers of integrated circuit microchips and computer printed circuit boards (PCBs).

B2B sales involve selling products or services to other companies through structured processes and strategic communication. B2B strategies emphasise education, trust and long-term partnerships. A B2B company might serve manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, corporate teams or government institutions. If the end-user is another company (not an individual consumer), it is a business-to-business service or product. A B2B business is any company whose primary customers are other businesses. A commercial transaction where one company provides products, services, technology, or support to another company.

Using copy, imagery, animation, and interactivity, we guided users into the dark abyss below the surface to reveal the value of dark data. To make it more engaging and captivating, we proposed an interactive microsite that would immerse users in the story—through the b2b marketing metaphor of an iceberg. To position the brand as a thought leader and provide much-needed education about data, Lucidworks wanted to create a fresh piece of content around the provocative subject of dark data.