How leading B2B brands turn marketing research campaigns into revenue

About 5 years ago, Buzzsumo and Mantis Research surveyed marketers about their use of original research in content marketing. At the time, less than half of marketers had published original research in the past year, but more than half planned to in the year ahead. And for those who had published a proprietary marketing research campaign, 90% said their research met or exceeded their campaign goals.

Fast forward to 2025. Today, B2B buyers have come to rely on original research in the decision-making process. 55% of B2B decision-makers report that the most important characteristic of thought leadership content is referencing strong research and data.

But, 30% of marketers feel that their company doesn’t know how to use thought leadership as a sales and marketing tool.

We’ve been working on marketing research reports like HubSpot’s State of Marketing campaign, Owl Labs’ State of Remote and Hybrid Work reports, DoorDash’s annual Restaurant Online Ordering Trends Report, and more for the past 10+ years. We’ve learned a few things about how to create and promote marketing thought leadership campaigns to reach your target audience. Let’s get into it.

Marketing research is the B2B marketer’s secret weapon for lead generation

Take a look at these findings from Edelman’s B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report:

• 70% of B2B decision-makers are “very likely” to think more positively about companies that publish consistently high-quality thought leadership content.
• 75% of B2B decision-makers say that a piece of thought leadership content has influenced them to research a product or service they weren’t considering before.
• 60% of B2B decision-makers say that thought leadership content has made them realize their company was missing out on a “significant business opportunity.”
• 60% of B2B decision-makers say that quality thought leadership makes them open to paying more to work with that company.
• 90% of B2B decision-makers are more receptive to sales and marketing outreach from companies with consistently high-quality thought leadership content.
• 52% of B2B decision-makers and 54% of C-level executives spend at least an hour each week reading thought leadership content.

7 effective ways to promote your marketing research for lead generation

After conducting a marketing research study, whether that’s analyzing product data, running a survey among a representative sample of your target audience or key buyers, or pulling data from public and private databases, the next step is creating a compelling piece of thought leadership content. Then, you need to get your data in front of the right audience.

First, remind yourself of who you want to speak to. Is this content more geared towards your B2B SaaS product users, or the decision makers who approve the budget for your platform? Or, is this more relevant to the executive who runs the entire company?

Once you have a clear vision for who you want this specific piece of content to reach, you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

1. Create a multi-format and multi-channel content promotion strategy

Take your research and integrate it into pieces for different formats and channels. Here are some examples, based on who you want to reach.

A comprehensive, data-backed playbook or guide

This is a web-based or downloadable guide, like the State of Marketing that blends data, strategy, and resources to give a manager or individual contributor a playbook based on the latest trends.

A webinar or live panel at an event

Get in front of leaders in your industry and showcase your own executives as thought leaders to their peers, like how DoorDash for Merchants presented a panel at the National Restaurant Association conference.

A LinkedIn post from a leader at your company

Give your company’s perspective on the research and highlight your leadership team as experts in the field, like how Carly Stec shared about the State of Marketing and how Chris Savage shared about Wistia’s State of Video.

A social media series with data visualizations

Shareable social media posts, like HubSpot’s top 5 marketing trends post can boost your brand awareness and encourage media attention, driving organic traffic and backlinks to your research, while also generating engagement on social channels.

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Consider using AI tools to repurpose your research findings into different formats for the channels where your audience is active. HubSpot’s State of Marketing found that using AI to turn text-based content into multi-format campaigns is the top strategy B2B marketers plan to adopt in 2025.

2. Develop a strategic gating approach

One of the biggest questions we get during the strategy phase of any marketing research project is, ‘Should we do a gated landing page and PDF download or ungated web-based report?’

And we always respond the same way. ‘What are your goals for the campaign?’

Here’s why. If your primary goals are organic traffic, brand awareness, and backlinks from media or other websites citing your report, then a web-based report makes sense. But, if your goal is to generate qualified leads, it makes sense to require readers to provide an email and some additional information. 

‘But what if we want to accomplish both?’

That’s where we’d recommend a hybrid approach. Provide key insights and takeaways on a more robust landing page, like the LP for the HubSpot State of Marketing or DoorDash Restaurant and Alcohol Online Ordering Trends report. Then, require an email for the full report with all of the insights and data points.

When gating their content, B2B SaaS brands like HubSpot and DoorDash see view-to-download conversion rates upwards of 20%, and bring in tens of thousands of qualified leads, many of which are brand new contacts. 

3. Run a targeted paid promotion

When we worked with one of our SaaS clients on a recent market research report, we produced some ads featuring the biggest takeaways and most surprising insights from the report. These ads performed so well, the company’s media team boosted the report ads and created their own, then put an additional $50,000+ in budget towards the paid campaign because the cost per click was so low compared to other campaigns.

Work with your paid team to figure out what type of ads you want to test out, and ramp up your investments based on initial performance. Try out:

• Static ads featuring data visualizations or takeaways from the report.
• Animated ads or video ads with key data points or a leadership team member speaking to the findings.
• Carousel ads with key stats from the report.
• Newsletter ads in your industry niche.

4. Build strategic partnerships for distribution

Think about your distribution strategy before you even begin conducting your research. Does it make sense to join forces with a partner or two in your space to increase the audience size and get your findings out to new folks in your space? Or, can you bring in expert perspectives and commentary from leaders in your industry, then ask them to share the campaign with their followers?

Working with partners takes time, even for seasoned marketing teams. Start this outreach early, and consider conducting interviews with experts or leaders to get their perspective on the research. Then, incorporate their commentary in the report to provide qualitative findings that complement the quantitative results, and bolster your research.

5. Optimize for search

Whether you choose to publish the entire report on a web page, or create a landing page that leads to a PDF download, you need to consider SEO and searchability. 

Think about the title of your report and webpage, and structure the page in a way that’s easy to navigate. Include a ‘key findings’ section with the most compelling statistics, making it easy for readers to grab interesting datapoints and link back to your page. And consider the intent of your readers — is this page designed as a list of benchmarks, or a comprehensive snapshot of the state of your industry? How they’ll consume the content varies depending on their goals for reading.

6. Create shareable data visualizations

Data storytelling is an art, and it takes real skill and experience to turn datapoints into narratives. Marketing data analysts are growing in demand, as teams look for people who can make decisions like ‘What’s the best way to display this data?’ 

Use sites like The Data Visualization Catalogue for explanations of each data visualization type, like this geographic dot map from The State of Global Unicorn Startups. 

Keep data analysis and visualization best practices in mind — certain survey question types, like select one vs. select all that apply allow for different types of data visualizations. For example, if a question is a ‘select all that apply,’ you can’t use a pie chart because the results don’t add up to 100%.

To create data graphics, use a marketing data visualization tool like Canva’s charts feature or Flourish. Explore r/infographics and r/dataisbeautiful for some inspiration on creative ways to display data. 

7. Put together an executive insights and internal enablement program

Marketing teams put an incredible amount of work into industry trends report campaigns. It takes months to create a content strategy, conduct research, analyze survey findings, produce a marketing report, promote the report, and understand the impact. It’s easy for the internal enablement piece to get lost in the sauce.

When putting together your initial content strategy for the report, think about how you’ll get each internal team to use and share your findings, and how you’ll track the results. 

Sales team

Create one pagers and sales enablement materials with quick-hit information from the report that relates to key product features or sales objections.

Marketing team

Make marketing promotional materials like a landing page, promotional images, ads, emails, social media posts, and any other assets your marketing teams need.

Executive team

Ghostwrite LinkedIn posts or talking points for executives, and put together a quick presentation outlining the research findings, highlighting what could be most interesting for investors or board members. Use these materials to pitch executives for speaking engagements and events.

Product team

Highlight the findings that relate to your product and package up the results in an easy-to-process format, like a presentation.

Customer service team

Share any results that could help your customer service and success teams better advise your users.

Measuring the impact of your research-based lead generation

For any marketing research report campaign, there are a few key metrics you’ll want to track, and attribution considerations to keep in mind. Remember — research-driven marketing reports continue to generate leads for a year or more after launching (in our experience). Track your results after the first month, six months, and year to capture longer sales cycles influenced by your campaign.

Use tracking UTMs specific to CTAs in your report and promotional efforts. 

Key metrics to track

• Landing page or webpage visits
• View-to-download conversion rates
• Net new contact rates
• Leads generated
• Sales generated
• Increased product adoption among report readers
• New backlinks

A B2B SaaS research campaign that generated quality leads

When Lightcast published their first Global Talent Playbook, the results were solid, but they knew there was more they could do to get it out to their HR leadership audience. They turned to our team at Datalily to rethink their report distribution and production strategy. 

We created an engaging landing page with key findings and a teaser of the data, with CTAs throughout the page driving readers to download. And in the report itself, we featured leadership insights and commentary, unique data visualizations, and relevant CTAs. 
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The report resulted in a 36% view-to-download conversion rate with 30% net new contacts. “Datalily’s strategic expertise helped us beat the entire previous year’s campaign results in the first month after launch,” shared Jon Hedlund, VP of Marketing at Lightcast.

Ramp up the lead generation potential for your marketing research campaigns

Getting your proprietary research report out into the world isn’t just about generating more leads, it’s about bringing in the leads that convert into customers. 

Partner with our team at Datalily to establish your brand as a thought leader and get the most out of your marketing research.