What the 2025 Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Report Means for Tech Marketers…
In B2B tech marketing, the temptation is always to focus on the obvious decision-makers: CIOs, CTOs, CMOs, or procurement leads. These are the people who appear in your CRM, take your sales calls, and (sometimes) sign the contracts. However, according to the newly released “2025 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report” from Edelman and LinkedIn, this view is dangerously incomplete. The real power in enterprise buying often lies with hidden buyers – internal stakeholders who are not included in your pipeline reports but can make or break your deal. The report makes one thing crystal clear: if you’re not actively engaging hidden buyers through thought leadership, you’re stalling growth.
The Rise of Hidden Buyers
Edelman’s research finds that more than 40% of B2B deals stall due to internal misalignment within the buying team. The key culprits? Hidden buyers. Unlike target buyers (the obvious decision-makers and functional users of your product or service), hidden buyers often sit outside the expected user group. They might be legal, finance, operations, or middle management stakeholders who don’t make the final decision but wield significant influence. Here’s the kicker: hidden buyers are active. They research, consume and evaluate thought leadership content just like target buyers. They aren’t passive observers. They’re scanning industry media, vendor websites, downloading reports and forming opinions about which vendors deserve a place at the table. For tech marketers, this means the buying group you are trying to target is bigger and less visible than you think.
Thought Leadership as the Trojan Horse
One of the most powerful findings in the Edelman–LinkedIn study is that hidden buyers rarely take sales meetings. Traditional outbound sales tactics don’t touch them. But what does? High-quality thought leadership. Compelling content acts like a Trojan horse, breaking through organisational walls to earn trust with these unseen stakeholders. Instead of product pitches, hidden buyers want to engage with bold, perspective-shifting ideas that challenge assumptions and expand their thinking.
This is where B2B tech marketers have a unique advantage. Emerging technologies like AI, edge computing, cybersecurity and cloud automation are complex and fast-moving. Hidden buyers are actively seeking clarity, insight and frameworks to make sense of these changes. If your content educates, simplifies or reframes these challenges in a way that feels human and actionable, you’re more likely to win advocates where you least expect them.
What Hidden Buyers Value
Top tips: Edelman’s report highlights a set of themes that hidden buyers consistently prioritise:
- Clarity and Style Matter
Hidden buyers want content that is stylish, straightforward and human. Jargon-heavy whitepapers rarely land. Storytelling, design and simplicity do.
- Fresh Perspectives Over Safe Thinking
Far from being risk-averse box-checkers, hidden buyers value bold thinking that questions assumptions. The safest choice is not always the winning choice. Only 41% said “vendor is the safest choice” was the most important in final purchasing decisions.
- Industry Relevance
A full 76% prioritise vendors who demonstrate a clear understanding of trends affecting their industry. Another 85% want proof that a vendor understands their business’s specific challenges and needs.
- Expertise Builds Trust
74% of hidden buyers say that being a leading expert in a relevant area heavily influences their decision. Authority is earned not through advertising but through insights.
This shift is a wake-up call for B2B marketers: your credibility is no longer based on being the “safest” vendor. It’s based on how effectively you educate, inform and inspire a diverse, invisible audience inside the buyer’s organisation.
The Competitive Advantage for New Market Entrants
Perhaps the most exciting insight for B2B tech startups and scaleups is that hidden buyers can be powerful advocates for new or lesser-known brands. Big, established players often rely on reputation and relationships to secure deals, but at the critical moment of final decision-making, strong content can level the playing field. If a hidden buyer believes your brand understands their industry trends, grasps their unique challenges and provides fresh perspectives, they may champion your solution internally, even against entrenched incumbents. For tech startups trying to break into enterprise accounts, this represents a massive opportunity. Great thought leadership doesn’t just build awareness; it builds internal advocacy.
Top 5 Practical Steps for Tech Marketers
So how can B2B tech marketers use these insights to influence hidden buyers?
1. Invest in Thought Leadership, Not Just Lead Generation
Hidden buyers aren’t filling out your demo forms. They’re the ones reading your insights, watching your explainer videos and allocating budget to long-form reports and conducting data-driven research.
2. Build for Multi-Stakeholder Audiences
Don’t just target the CIO or CTO. Create content that finance, legal, operations or HR could find valuable. A cybersecurity white paper that explains compliance implications may resonate more with the CFO than the CISO.
3. Lead With Insights, Not Products
Product-heavy collateral won’t reach hidden buyers. Position your brand as a thinking partner by highlighting market trends, benchmarking data or new frameworks for solving industry challenges.
4. Humanise Your Content
Use stories, analogies and design that feels accessible. B2B content often defaults to corporate speak, and tech companies use buzzwords and acronyms in abundance that put people off. Don’t discriminate against your own audience in this way; talk in plain language because hidden buyers want clarity and style.
5. Create Challenger Content
Don’t be afraid to push back against conventional wisdom. Hidden buyers reward vendors who expand their thinking, not just validate it. There is no point having a disruptive solution if you’re not prepared to challenge the status quo.
The New Playbook for B2B Tech Marketing
The Edelman–LinkedIn 2025 Thought Leadership Impact Report is a useful resource for anyone marketing in enterprise tech. Hopefully I’ve offered a helpful summary, but you can download the full report at the link below. It confirms what many of us suspected: the real buying power often lies in unexpected corners of an organisation. If you only focus on target buyers, you risk missing the quiet influencers shaping the conversation behind closed doors. However, if you engage hidden buyers with thoughtful, bold and human content, you unlock powerful internal champions.
For tech marketers, the message is clear: content isn’t just about filling the top of the funnel, it’s about equipping hidden buyers to advocate for you inside their organisation. Done right, this doesn’t just have the potential to streamline sales engagements, it could level the playing field by empowering challengers. Now is the time to turn invisible stakeholders into one of your most valuable allies.
Download the full Edelman report HERE
You may want to read: “Why B2B Tech Startups Must Invest in Marketing.”
