B2B marketing teams today have to approach content marketing with a whole new strategy than they may have two or three years ago. Audiences have changed, how people search for information and build trust has changed, and how information is surfaced online has changed.

Here’s why content marketing is shifting:

• 58% of buyers start their research process using AI tools, according to a recent UserEvidence study among B2B SaaS buyers. 
• 55% of “hidden decision-makers” use thought leadership to vet software, and 86% are actively looking for “fresh perspectives and ideas that challenge assumptions,” as found in the 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report.
• 51% of B2B buyers in DemandGen’s Content Preferences Survey Report agree that content should use data and research to support its claims, and respondents said this is what makes content memorable and convinces them to take a sales call.

The content strategy built for goals of ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), growing traffic, and appealing to use cases is no longer the goal. Buyers are conducting more of their own research, and they’re influenced by thought leadership, original research, and LLM results. 

For marketing teams, this means conducting research is no longer an option. And while it may seem intimidating, it’s more feasible than you may think. 

If you’re wondering if it’s worth the investment, Datalily’s 2026 State of Data-Driven Content Marketing report found that over 1 in 5 B2B SaaS marketers say that original research reports generate the highest ROI among all content types, and 86% plan to increase proprietary research budgets next year.

To pull off a research study, you’ll need to gather a strong team, assess your available data sources, understand the marketing research process, and build a promotional plan. 

The marketing research team, and the skills they need

First, you’ll need to gather your team. This can honestly make or break the success of your research campaign. 

The team members, and skills, you’ll need covered are:

• Content strategist: They’ll need to conduct background research, make the plan for the project, identify the goals, target audience, and survey audience, and align cross-functional teams. 
• Data scientist: They will design the survey, if that’s the data source you use.
• Data analyst: They’ll analyze the data and pull out key findings, data visualizations, and meaningful results.
• Content writer: They will write the report, and associated content, like one pagers, mini reports, or landing pages.
• Designer: They will design the report, create custom data visualizations, and design associated assets, like the landing page, one pagers, or promotional materials.
• Developer: They will develop the content as a web page, and help build any associated assets like the landing page, interactive calculators, or custom AI agents.
• Content marketer: They’ll promote and distribute the report and related content, like blog posts, social media posts, and sales enablement content, then they’ll analyze the results from the campaign.
• PR/media specialist: They will work with the content marketer to further promote the report and get placements with publications, at events, or on podcasts.

You may not have all these team members or skills in-house, or they may not be available for the timelines associated with original research. Tap into freelancers or agencies to fill the gaps, or work with a team that can do it all. 

The process goes much smoother when folks have experience with original research campaigns—trust me. There are a lot of moving pieces, and for first-timers, it can be overwhelming and take twice as long, then result in a poorer quality final product.

Understanding the different marketing research data sources

Marketing teams can source data from a few different sources for original research reports. And B2B SaaS teams are uniquely positioned to gather proprietary data from their own platforms and users.

Here are some of the most common data sources for marketing research:

• Survey panels: Run a survey to gather qualitative and quantitative data from your target audience, or your buyers’ target audience.
• Platform data: Analyze anonymized platform data from your software to find benchmarks, correlations between certain user types or activities and performance, or regional differences.
• Qualitative interviews: Conduct interviews with your target audience, or with industry thought leaders to collect qualitative insights.
• Databases: Pull custom insights from public or paid databases like the US Census Bureau, Pitchbook, or Data.gov.

Breaking down the 6 steps of the marketing research process

Ready to conduct marketing research? Every good research study starts with a plan. 

1. Do a background analysis to understand the landscape and establish your research goals.

First, identify your target audience who you want to read and find value in your report, and the goals of your research. 

Answer these questions:

• What questions might your audience be asking that your research will be able to answer? 
• What are your goals for the research? Generating leads? Driving traffic to your website? Getting media attention? Guiding your product roadmap? 
• What research is already out there in the space, and where are there gaps?
• What keywords is your target audience using to search for information on the topic?
• What questions might you want to ask in a survey?
• What headlines would you like to be able to share after you’ve gathered your data?
• Which thought leaders could potentially provide commentary on the research?

2. Choose a way to gather data.

Decide how you’ll gather the data, looking at the data sources from the previous section. During this phase, if you’re conducting a survey panel or interviews, you’ll need to design a survey, or create interview questions. 

This is where you’ll work with a data scientist to create a survey that follows best practices, and doesn’t sway your audience, while gathering the information you’re looking for as efficiently as possible.

3. Analyze your data.

Look for meaningful insights in the data. This is where your data scientist and content marketer or strategist can collaborate. It’s one thing to find all the statistically significant findings from the data, but it’s another thing entirely to pull out the insights that will be meaningful for your target audience.

Some datapoints that you can pull out may include:

• Industry benchmarks
• Cross-tabs — looking at the data for specific sub-groups, like by region, age/generation, company size, or level of tech adoption
• Predictions
• Budgets

4. Write and design your report.

Incorporate the data into a report that tells a story that will resonate with your target audience. The format you choose should align with your goals for the report. 

For example, if you want to drive organic traffic, use a digital asset like a web-based report or long-form landing page. Or, if you want to generate leads, add a form and require readers to provide some information in exchange for the full PDF report.

Show off your brand in the report, and include a few CTAs to your brand or product where relevant, but don’t overwhelm readers with too much promotional content.

5. Create promotional materials.

What’s the value of a campaign unless it gets in front of your target audience? Promotion is one of the hardest parts of the report process. 

Think about where your audience is most active — are they on LinkedIn? Do they read newsletters? Are they involved in industry organizations and events? 

Then, create content that will help you share your report across channels, like:

• A landing page
• Sales enablement content like one pagers
• Mini reports
• Social posts
• Emails
• Event promotional assets
• Videos

Here’s a hot tip: Interview a leader at your company about the findings from the report, then use quotes from the interview within the report, and share the video clips on social media as thought leadership content.

6. Promote and distribute your report. 

Get your report out in the world. Remember that this step can last several months, and it starts with getting internal buy-in. 

Start early by hyping up the research early on, and involving teams like sales, PR, product, and social in the report strategy, then support them with promotional assets when the report is ready to launch.

Use tracking URLs to understand which channels and teams have gotten the most engagement, and continue promoting the report until you have new data to share, or when it’s time for the following year’s report. 

Think about promoting and distributing your marketing research via:

• Social media
• Email
• Paid ads
• Events
• Podcasts
• Newsletters
• Blogs
• Sales conversations
• Website banners

Explore new insights on marketing research from Datalily

As you go to plan out your marketing research report, use the latest data to guide your strategy. Datalily’s 2026 State of Data-Driven Content Marketing has new insights, benchmarks, and executive commentary for content marketing teams in the year ahead.

And if you’re looking for support across the entire marketing research process, reach out to us at Datalily to see how we can help.

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