Mention ‘the funnel’ to anyone in marketing, and odds-on they’ll know what you’re talking about. The marketing funnel has been a familiar model for decades, starting with awareness at the top and tapering down to conversion.
But does this accurately reflect the reality of modern B2B marketing?
It’s what’s inside that counts
Back in 1898, when the funnel was initially conceived, purchase journeys were relatively linear. Jump to 2026, and buying journeys are messier, longer and far less predictable than the funnel envisages.
People are engaging with huge amounts of content and information before, during and even after converting. It’s also rare for prospects to encounter and engage with your content in a strict ‘awareness to consideration’ sequence, most will move back and forth, looking over a range of content for many months while they consider a purchase.
And in the B2B context specifically, many purchases involve multiple stakeholders, extended research phases and long periods of inactivity that don’t map cleanly to predefined stages.
Overall, what’s happening inside the funnel is far from straightforward. It’s multiple buyers moving forwards, backwards and sideways, revisiting content, sharing it internally, disengaging and then returning weeks later with new questions.
In short, the middle is messy.
What really happens between awareness and conversion
The middle is also where the most important B2B marketing takes place.
This is where your prospects develop their understanding of your brand, its products and how well you can solve their challenges. It’s not linear, but plenty of high-quality content is key to help buyers shape their knowledge, see their challenges reflected in your messaging, explore how your solutions can help them and refine their understanding of what you can do for them.
Different stakeholders will engage with your brand in different ways, consuming different types of content at different times, each focused on their own priorities and pressures.
Inside the funnel, your marketing matters less for how quickly it moves people on, and more for how effectively you engage different members of your target audience with the messages they care about.
How confidence supports conversion
This is why producing a range of relevant, high-quality content is so important to build confidence in your brand and solutions. In complex B2B decisions, it takes more than a single asset or campaign to move all relevant stakeholders to conversion.
It’s vital that your content provides the information and assurance that will help a purchase decision stand up to colleagues, procurement and leadership, long before formal sales engagement begins. This is all work that happens in the middle of the funnel, as prospects look for clarity, consistency and relevance across multiple touchpoints.
It’s the type of progress that’s hard to quantify. Even though it doesn’t create a neat data point, content sustains momentum by maintaining shared understanding and facilitating internal discussions even when the conversion decision is paused. To support this, effective B2B content strategies should prioritise continuity across core themes, rather than stage-of-the-funnel based assets. Content must work in multiple contexts, be able to stand alone, be revisited and shared internally, all while speaking to multiple stakeholders at once.
Creating content that’s effective
Does your content convey the confidence your prospects need to convert? Get in touch to find out how we help clients elevate current content, create effective new materials and move diverse B2B stakeholders towards purchase.
So-called 'thought leadership' is a crowded space in 2026. Most B2B brands share opinions and predictions, but many don’t help their audiences make better decisions over time.
As more and more rapidly produced, easy-to-consume marketing appears, the brands that stand out will be those who take their role as thought leaders seriously, providing long-term guidance over short-term commentary.
Opinions aren't enough
We’ve talked before about the proliferation of AI-generated content, much of which follows trends rather than establishing them. Common examples include opinion pieces about this week’s news cycle or a host of opinionated social posts designed to spark debate.
These might be intelligent and engaging, but unless they come as part of a longer-term thought leadership presence, they don’t have the authority to resonate with B2B audiences. One-off insights don’t change behaviour. Today’s B2B buyers are deliberate, risk-aware and driving sales journeys to become longer, not shorter.
As your audience’s budget is squeezed and their marketplace rocked by an increasingly volatile world, they’ll become even more likely to look for repeated reassurance, consistent thinking and evidence that a brand understands their world beyond a single interaction. Without that consistency, even strong ideas and opinions won’t land in a meaningful way.
What modern thought leadership really involves
At its core, thought leadership is about taking responsibility for a topic over time. It means guiding an audience through complexity, rather than simply commenting on it from the sidelines.
That responsibility shows up in how brands return to the same challenges again and again, exploring them from different angles, updating their thinking as markets shift and being honest about uncertainty. Over time, this creates a connected body of work that stands apart in the market.
These brands don’t necessarily dominate the conversation or bombard their target audiences, but they become a trusted reference point.
How to build trust with your audience
In the B2B marketing space, trust is built gradually. The more your audience sees you address an issue with consideration and care, the more likely they are to take note when your next piece of content shows up in their inbox or on their feed.
This confidence is a key point where B2C and B2B diverge, as B2B buying is typically far less impulsive. Buyers often engage with content over months, sometimes years, before they’re ready to act. Thought leadership, when treated as an ongoing commitment, supports that longer journey by reinforcing credibility at every stage, not just at the moment of first contact.
In 2026, focus on leadership, not output
For B2B marketing professionals looking to give their brand a boost, stepping back and focusing on what problems your brand should lead on is often the most valuable question.
Rather than chasing the market, lead with your experience and expertise, prioritising content that’s part of a series or campaign, giving space for in-depth discussions and collaborating with subject-matter experts (SMEs).
The most effective thought leaders bring lived experience, deep subject knowledge and a clear sense of where they can add value, making SMEs invaluable. By trusting SMEs to develop their personal voice and supporting their content long-term, brands can offer consistent, practical perspectives that build familiarity and trust around key topics.
Brand thought leadership is most powerful when it's built around real people who prioritise a small number of topics over shifting trends, showing up consistently with thoughtful or practical perspectives. For brands, this means trusting subject-matter experts to develop their personal voice and supporting them over the long term.
Measuring influence over attention
The impact of long-term thought leadership isn’t visible in short-term metrics, so it’s harder to quantify overall. But it’s commercially meaningful because you’re seen as a credible option to potential buyers who are more likely to understand your core propositions, making sales conversations easier.
We can help make your brand a thought leader
So, if you’re looking to shake up your marketing, reclaiming thought leadership could be the way to go.
Why not get in touch to find out how we can help your brand to show up consistently, with purpose, perspective and practical guidance for your audiences?
As we take stock of another busy year, 2026 is shaping up to be a time of reset for marketing departments.
With AI sweeping through the industry and leaving new ways of working in its wake, upheaval has been the watchword of B2B marketing for the past few years.
Few people like change. Even fewer actively move towards it. So, it’s been an anxious time for many of us working in marketing and beyond as we waited for this surge of evolution to settle.
A tremor not an earthquake
As we end 2025, a good way to frame AI’s influence is as a recalibration, not a disruption. The reality is we’re ‘just’ in the middle of another wave of media evolution. In the same way that blogging exploded the amount of content available to readers, AI is changing production and audience dynamics.
When the deluge of blogging started, industries like marketing and journalism were – briefly – at sea. Was there going to be space online for these industries amidst the endless hobby bloggers? In short, yes, there was. Why? Because great content rose to the top. And the same process is happening again.
How to communicate better than AI
1. Think: who are we talking to?
AI word-soup is now so commonplace that it’s easy for readers to spot and avoid. To make sure they don’t skip your latest piece of content, the best place to start is to ask, “Who is this for?”
Not just titles or market segments, but the people behind the job roles. What are their day-to-day pressures, ambitions, frustrations? What professional challenges keep them up at night? Can your sales team help you flesh out the details?
Once you know that, you can craft messages that resonate. Messages that feel real, trustworthy and pique interest.
2. Think: how are we talking to them?
The use of generic ‘business speak’ and vague buzzwords has boomed since AI-generated content entered the B2B space. (Not to mention semi-colons and hyphens.) Sometimes this corporate phrasing works, sometimes it misses the mark, so be careful not to let your content descend into ‘buzzword bingo’.
Use language that reflects your audience’s world. How do your audience members describe their everyday pressures and priorities? How can you use language in a way that shows you understand these and have solutions that address them? Be clear, honest, direct and human.
3. Think: what are we saying to them?
In B2B, clients typically care less about hype and more about clarity. They’re looking for genuine insights and relevant analysis. They want answers to questions like “what will my ROI be?” and “how will it solve my specific challenge?”.
Rather than chasing the next trend, the smart move in 2026 will be to go back to basics: know who you’re talking to, speak their language and offer solutions that resonate with their challenges.
Bringing B2B back to people
2026 is a chance to recalibrate. It’s a chance to become the human, common-sense voice that’s getting lost in AI-generated content.
With a strong understanding of your market and a clear voice, every marketing touchpoint becomes an opportunity to connect with your audience.
Here’s to a year of simpler, stronger B2B marketing!