Content marketing should not be a "side project" for your business for the moments when the marketing team has spare time. It is one of the ways B2B companies earn attention, help buyers make sense of a problem, and create a more productive conversation with sales.
Still, making the case for investment can be difficult when the discussion stays abstract. The five statistics below come from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs’ 2026 B2B Content and Marketing Trends report, which surveyed 1,015 B2B marketers. They offer a more useful starting point than recycled platform statistics: they point to the work that makes content more effective.
97% of B2B marketers say they have a content strategy
Having a content strategy for your company is no longer the differentiator. The practical question is whether the strategy guides real decisions: who the company needs to reach, what questions its content should answer, how sales can use it, and how success will be measured.
For a marketing leader, this is a strong reason to move beyond a loose publishing calendar. Think more strategically. Document the audience, buying-stage questions, subject-matter experts, distribution plan, conversion path, and measurement framework. That turns content from a collection of assets into a system.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026
61% say their content strategy improved in the past year
Improvement is possible without starting from zero. In the survey, 13% reported significant improvement and 48% reported some improvement. That is a useful reminder that content strategy should be reviewed and refined, not treated as a one-time planning exercise.
Use a regular review to identify which pages answer high-value questions, which offers attract the right people, where sales needs better material, and which topics deserve an update instead of another net-new article.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2026 B2B survey
74% of marketers with an improving strategy credit strategy refinement
New technology matters, but it was not the leading explanation for better content strategy. The biggest contributor was refining the strategy itself. That's a healthy corrective for teams tempted to solve a planning problem with another tool or technology.
Before buying software or increasing output, tighten the fundamentals: customer research, editorial priorities, clear points of view, KPIs, subject-matter-expert input, and a process for measuring what happens after someone consumes the content.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2026 B2B survey
40% say creating content that prompts a desired action is a top challenge
Publishing is not the same as producing momentum. B2B marketers most often identified creating content that prompts a desired action as a challenge, ahead of resource constraints and measurement.
That makes conversion design part of content strategy. Each article should make a clear next step sensible: continue learning, assess a problem, compare approaches, subscribe, or start a conversation. The call to action should match the reader’s stage of consideration instead of asking every visitor to make the same leap.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2026 B2B survey
63% measure thought-leadership success through business impact
Views and shares are useful signals, but they don't tell the whole story. The research found that 63% of B2B marketers measuring thought leadership track business impact, such as leads and pipeline influence.
That is the conversation worth having with leadership. Agree on the business question the content is meant to help solve, select a small set of leading and lagging indicators, and review those measures consistently. A content program becomes easier to defend when the team can connect useful information to the outcomes the business cares about.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2026 B2B survey
Turn the numbers into a practical plan
These findings do not mean every company needs to publish more. They point to a better standard:
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Create useful, credible content around the questions your buyers actually need answered.
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Make the next step clear.
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Measure whether the work is creating the right kind of commercial momentum.
If your team needs help turning that into a focused content and growth plan, start with a diagnostic of your current strategy, content, and conversion paths.
If your team needs help with a content marketing strategy or help executing quality content, please see our content marketing strategy services page for more information.
This article was last updated on 6/20/26.
