The State of B2B Content in 2026
Content marketing in B2B has reached an inflection point. The volume of content published every day has never been higher, yet the average quality has arguably never been lower. AI has made it trivially easy to produce passable blog posts at scale, which means the bar for attention has risen dramatically.
The result is a market flooded with surface level content that says the same things in the same way. For B2B companies, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that mediocre content no longer moves the needle. The opportunity is that genuinely valuable, expert led content now stands out more than ever.
A strong B2B content marketing strategy in 2026 is not about publishing more. It is about publishing better, distributing smarter, and connecting content directly to pipeline. This guide walks through exactly how to do that, based on what we see working across our client base at ORRJO.
If you want to explore how content fits into a broader demand strategy, read our complete guide to B2B demand generation.
1. Start With Your Buyer, Not Your Product
The single biggest mistake in B2B content marketing is starting from the wrong place. Most companies begin with their product: what it does, how it works, why it is better than the competition. This produces content that reads like a sales brochure disguised as a blog post.
Effective content starts with the buyer. Specifically, it starts with the questions, challenges, and decisions your buyer faces before they ever consider a product like yours.
Here is how to map your content to the buyer journey:
- Problem aware stage: Your buyer knows they have a challenge but has not started looking for solutions. Create content that helps them understand and articulate the problem. Think "why is our pipeline slowing down?" or "what does a modern demand generation function look like?"
- Solution aware stage: Your buyer is actively researching approaches and evaluating options. Create comparison guides, framework pieces, and "how to" content that positions your methodology as credible and proven.
- Decision stage: Your buyer is evaluating specific vendors or partners. Create case studies, ROI calculators, and proof points that reduce perceived risk and build confidence.
Map every piece of content you create to one of these stages. If a piece does not clearly serve the buyer at a specific point in their journey, it is probably not worth creating.
Spend time talking to your sales team and your customers. The best content ideas do not come from keyword tools. They come from real conversations with real buyers about the real challenges they face.
2. Build a Thought Leadership Engine, Not a Content Calendar
Most B2B content calendars are filled with predictable topics and safe takes. "5 tips for better email marketing." "Why data matters in 2026." This type of content checks a box but does not build authority, earn trust, or drive demand.
Thought leadership content is different. It shares a distinct point of view. It challenges conventional wisdom. It draws on real experience and data, not just recycled best practices from the first page of search results.
Here is what separates genuine thought leadership from generic content:
- Original perspective: Your content should say something your competitors would not or could not say. This comes from proprietary data, unique experience, or a willingness to take a clear stance on a debatable topic.
- Subject matter expertise: The most powerful B2B content is written by or with practitioners who do the work. Not by a content writer who has never run a campaign, managed a pipeline, or closed a deal. Involve your experts directly in the content creation process.
- Depth over breadth: One deeply researched, genuinely useful piece will outperform ten thin posts. Invest in fewer, higher quality assets and promote them heavily. A single pillar piece can generate traffic and leads for months or years.
- Consistency: Thought leadership is not a one off campaign. It is a sustained commitment to sharing valuable perspectives regularly. Build a rhythm your audience can rely on.
At ORRJO, our creative studio works directly with founders, CMOs, and subject matter experts to extract their knowledge and transform it into content that positions them as the authority in their space.
3. Choose Formats That Match How Your Buyers Consume
Blog posts are important, but they are only one format in a much larger toolkit. The best B2B content marketing strategies use multiple formats to reach buyers wherever they spend their time.
Here are the formats that deliver the strongest results in B2B:
- Long form articles and guides: These are your SEO workhorses. Comprehensive, search optimised content that captures demand from buyers actively researching. Aim for 2,000 to 4,000 words for pillar pieces, targeting high intent keywords.
- LinkedIn posts and articles: LinkedIn remains the dominant platform for B2B. Short, opinionated posts from individuals (not just company pages) drive enormous organic reach. Use LinkedIn to distribute your ideas and drive traffic back to your website.
- Video and short form content: Video consumption in B2B continues to grow. Short explainer videos, behind the scenes clips, and recorded perspectives from your team humanise your brand and increase engagement.
- Webinars and live events: These remain one of the highest converting content formats in B2B. They create real time interaction with potential buyers and generate engaged leads at scale.
- Downloadable resources: Guides, templates, checklists, and playbooks serve as powerful lead magnets that capture contact information while delivering genuine value. For inspiration, see our guide to effective lead magnet examples.
- Case studies: Nothing builds credibility like showing real results for real clients. Structured case studies that follow a clear problem, solution, and outcome framework are essential for decision stage buyers.
The key is not to be everywhere at once. Start with two or three formats that align with where your buyers are most active and where your team can produce quality work consistently. Then expand as you build capacity.
4. Distribution Is More Important Than Creation
Here is an uncomfortable truth: the best content in the world is worthless if nobody sees it. Most B2B companies spend 80 percent of their effort on creation and 20 percent on distribution. The most successful companies flip that ratio, or at least balance it.
A deliberate distribution strategy ensures every piece of content reaches its intended audience through multiple channels:
- Organic search (SEO): Optimise every piece for search. This means thorough keyword research, proper on page structure (headings, meta descriptions, internal links), and a focus on answering questions your buyers are actually searching for.
- Email: Your email list is one of your most valuable distribution assets. Segment your list and send relevant content to the right people at the right time. Do not just blast your entire database with every new post.
- LinkedIn (organic): Repurpose long form content into short LinkedIn posts. Pull out key insights, statistics, or provocative points and share them as standalone posts that link back to the full piece.
- Paid amplification: Use paid social (especially LinkedIn) to put your best content in front of a precisely targeted audience. Even a modest budget of a few hundred pounds per month can dramatically extend the reach of a strong piece. Our demand generation team can help you build this.
- Sales enablement: Equip your sales team with content they can share directly with prospects. When an SDR sends a relevant article to a prospect, it adds value to the conversation and positions your company as knowledgeable.
- Repurposing: Every pillar piece should be broken into multiple derivative assets. A 3,000 word guide becomes five LinkedIn posts, a webinar topic, three email newsletters, an infographic, and a series of short videos. Extract maximum value from every investment in creation.
5. Measure Content by Pipeline Contribution, Not Vanity Metrics
Page views, time on page, and social shares are interesting. But they do not pay the bills. The ultimate measure of B2B content marketing success is its contribution to pipeline and revenue.
Here is a measurement framework that connects content activity to business outcomes:
- Traffic and engagement (leading indicators): Track organic traffic, time on page, scroll depth, and engagement rate. These tell you whether your content is reaching and resonating with your audience. But treat them as leading indicators, not end goals.
- Conversions and leads: Measure how many visitors convert into known contacts through form fills, content downloads, newsletter sign ups, or demo requests. Attribute these conversions to specific content pieces and channels.
- Pipeline influence: Track which content pieces a prospect engaged with before entering your pipeline. Most CRMs and marketing automation platforms can show you the content journey of every opportunity. This is your most important metric.
- Revenue attribution: Where possible, connect closed revenue back to the content that influenced the deal. This may not be a perfect science, but even directional data helps you understand which content themes, formats, and channels drive the most value.
- Content efficiency: Measure cost per lead and cost per opportunity generated by content. Compare this against other channels to understand where your marketing budget is working hardest.
Review these metrics monthly. Identify your top performing content themes and formats, and double down on what works. Cut or rethink what does not. Content marketing is not a set it and forget it activity. It requires ongoing optimisation.
6. Build for Compounding Returns
The true power of content marketing lies in its compounding nature. A strong article published today can still drive traffic, generate leads, and influence pipeline two years from now. This is fundamentally different from paid advertising, where results stop the moment you stop spending.
To build a content engine that compounds over time:
- Invest in evergreen topics: Prioritise topics that will remain relevant for years. "How to build a B2B content marketing strategy" will continue to attract searchers long after "content marketing trends for Q1 2026" has expired.
- Update and refresh regularly: Your best performing content should be reviewed and updated every six to twelve months. Add new data, refresh examples, update screenshots, and improve the writing. Search engines reward freshness, and so do readers.
- Build internal linking structures: Every new piece of content should link to and from existing content on your site. This creates a web of interconnected resources that improves SEO, increases time on site, and guides visitors deeper into your content ecosystem. Explore more on our blog.
- Own your distribution channels: Social platforms change their algorithms constantly. Email lists, your website, and your SEO footprint are assets you own. Prioritise building these owned channels alongside any rented platform strategy.
The companies that win at B2B content marketing are the ones that commit to it as a long term discipline, not a short term campaign. After twelve months of consistent, high quality content, the flywheel begins to turn. After twenty four months, it becomes a genuine competitive advantage.
Making It Happen
Building a B2B content marketing strategy that delivers real results requires more than good intentions. It requires a clear plan, dedicated resources, genuine expertise, and the discipline to execute consistently.
Here is a practical starting checklist:
- Define your ICP and map their buyer journey
- Identify five to ten core topics where you can genuinely add value
- Choose two to three content formats that match your audience and capabilities
- Create a distribution plan for every piece before you write it
- Set up tracking to measure pipeline contribution, not just traffic
- Publish consistently: quality over quantity, always
- Review, measure, and iterate monthly
If you want help building and executing a content strategy that actually drives pipeline, ORRJO can help. We work with B2B companies to create thought leadership content, build demand generation programmes, and deliver measurable growth. Get in touch with our team to start the conversation.
