Edelman: 71% of Hidden Buyers Rate Thought Leadership Above Sales

What happened

The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, now in its seventh year and updated with 2026 buyer-side follow-up data, surveyed nearly 2,000 global professionals with a specific focus on hidden buyers, the finance, legal, compliance, procurement and IT stakeholders who quietly influence deals but rarely show up on discovery calls. 71 percent of these hidden buyers rated thought leadership more effective than conventional marketing or sales collateral at demonstrating a vendor's value. 79 percent said they are more likely to actively advocate for a vendor's proposal during RFP if that vendor consistently produces high-quality thought leadership. 57 percent favor thought leadership formats built around quick, referenceable takeaways over long-form pieces. And 55 percent said the highest-quality thought leadership is defined by robust research and strong supporting data.

Why Edelman hidden buyers thought leadership matters now

Most B2B content strategies target the champion or the economic buyer. The Edelman data shows the deciding vote in a stalled deal is often a hidden buyer nobody at the vendor has met. That stakeholder cannot be won on a demo, a case study PDF, or a discovery call. They can only be won on content they encountered independently before the deal closed. A well-researched founder essay or benchmark report can move the hidden buyer's internal vote in a way no salesperson ever could. And with 40 percent of B2B deals now stalling inside the buying group, the hidden vote is where the deal is actually lost.

1. 01
   Map the hidden buyers in your last five stalled deals

   Pull your five most recent stalled or lost deals and ask the champion which finance, legal, compliance, or IT stakeholder raised the objection that killed momentum. Those functions are your hidden buyer profile. Every piece of thought leadership going forward should be written with one of them in mind.
2. 02
   Publish one data-backed piece per hidden buyer function per quarter

   For each hidden buyer function you identified, commission or write one piece of research-backed content per quarter that addresses their specific objection pattern. A CFO piece on the total cost of ownership math. A legal piece on data residency. A procurement piece on switching cost. Cite primary sources in every one.
3. 03
   Optimize format for the quick-takeaway preference

   57 percent of hidden buyers prefer content built around quick takeaways. Restructure long-form pieces to lead with a single-sentence key finding, then a three-bullet summary, then the deeper analysis. Add a downloadable one-pager to every published piece so a champion can forward it inside their buying group without asking a hidden buyer to read 2,000 words.

By the numbers: More than 40 percent of B2B deals stall due to internal misalignment within buying groups, and hidden buyers in finance, legal, and compliance are the most common source of that misalignment.

What to do this week

Interview your top three champions from the last quarter and ask which internal stakeholder raised the biggest objection. Write down the function and the objection verbatim. Then commission one 800-word founder essay per hidden buyer function, backed by at least two primary-source stats, and publish it on your company site with a matching one-pager. Distribute through LinkedIn using a text-first native post and a pinned link comment.