B2B marketers instinctively target their marketing at decision-makers. This sounds logical and necessary. However, the over-intense focus neglects “hidden buyers” who, for reasons this study describes, can stall the sales cycle and tank deals. Those hidden buyers are buying committee participants from finance, legal and procurement.

That’s according to a “buyability” survey by the research firm NewtonX and commissioned by Bain & Company and LinkedIn. The survey polled 750 “buyers” in February 2026. To the best of my knowledge, a report wasn’t published; rather, LinkedIn and Bain each wrote about the survey separately.

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LinkedIn sets up the buyability findings this way [emphasis added]:

• Hidden buyers influence B2B deals. “Finance, Legal, and Procurement, hidden buyers, rarely show up in your funnel. But they hold roughly 50% of total decision-making influence.”

• Brand awareness and familiarity count a lot in the beginning. Further, “81% of purchases were made from vendors that ‘almost everyone’ in the buyer group already knew.”

• Trust and reputation help things along. “Vendors are 20 times more likely to be chosen when the entire buyer group knows and trusts the brand at the start of the process.”

• The track record beats performance and price. “Buyers are 3 times more likely to choose a vendor heavily recommended by peers or customers over one that promises a better product or lower price.”

• Past experience with a solution provider is gold. Buyers “are 4 times more likely to choose a vendor they have had direct success with before, because past experience is, in effect, a recommendation from themselves.”

• Fear of a mistake trumps FOMO. “40% of deals stall because the buyer group cannot agree, not because a competitor won. Buyers would rather do nothing than risk a decision that damages their career.”

The most significant factor in choosing a solution, according to LinkedIn, was this:

“I felt I could defend the decision even if it went wrong.”

In other words, the group of people who collaborate to procure a solution “are not just buying a solution. They are buying a decision they can defend.”

Among the final points LinkedIn makes about this study has nothing to do with product features or benefits:

“Buyers want to work with vendors who feel like them: same working style, same priorities, same understanding of their world.”

It’s not just the “decision-makers” who need to feel this way. It’s also the hidden buyers from other departments who will not be end users but can float or sink a deal.

And they tend to be an afterthought.

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B2B “loses” the deal in the beginning, not the end

Bain is more pointed in its interpretation of the survey:

“Most sales, marketing, and product executives at B2B companies think they lose deals in the final mile during evaluation, pricing, or negotiation. In reality, they often lose much earlier.”

This is the catch, too. Because B2B marketing and sales think they lose deals in the late stages:

“Companies often overinvest in late-stage sales motions but underinvest in the moments that determine whether they get a real shot at winning.”

Where’s the opportunity?

It’s much earlier in the process:

“Research continues to show that around 90% of buyers purchase from their Day 1 list, and the recent analysis by LinkedIn and Bain found that hidden buyers have half of the influence over that decision.”

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Practical implications for B2B marketing

“Vendors don’t need to fix everything,” according to Bain. “Rather, they need to identify and amplify the few strengths that tip decisions and ensure those strengths are visible where it counts.”

In fact, Bain provides a handy graphic that breaks out exactly what marketing needs to do [emphasis added]:

• Build buyer “confidence in functionality and meeting current and future needs”;

• Establish buyer “confidence in value relative to total cost”;

• Ensure your product is “defendable internally” among prospects;

• Demonstrate a track record of “successful execution and implementation; and

• Be “collaborative” and “responsive” in nature during the sales cycle.

These findings seem to me to substantiate conclusions drawn in other studies I’ve covered on these pages. For example, a sizable study by Dentsu found “I feel safe signing a contract with them” was the top-ranked “decision driver.”

Other studies also suggest marketing can check off many of the requirements put forth in this study by Bain and LinkedIn with a genuine focus on thought leadership.

Why?

Because when a company illustrates in thought leadership that it understands an industry – its strengths, weaknesses, problems and opportunities – buyers stand to reason their products are probably pretty good too.

The keys to effective thought leadership are well documented:

• Develop well-sourced material that informs rather than sells;

• Distinguishes your thinking and view of the world from your competition’s perspective;

• Demonstrates that your business understands your prospect’s market, business, challenges and opportunities; and

• Provides tangible examples and case studies that convey a track record.

In light of the study by Bain and LinkedIn, some of this content has to address the concerns and interests of legal and financial professionals, who work in your target market, but are not the typical decision maker or product end user.

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Two distinct trends have unfolded in the last few years that have created increased demand for PR and communications professionals: the desire for citations in generative AI and audience polarization.

That’s giving skilled communicators new opportunities to climb the corporate ladder, as a recent story in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests: The Revenge of the Publicists: How Comms Execs Stormed the C-Suite:

“After decades of feeling like the forgotten stepsisters of marketers, some CCOs [chief communications officers] are even moving up and into bigger roles that companies have long filled with finance and operations executives.”

The article describes data and anecdotes that show reporting structures and career paths have changed in several ways:

• More communication types are reporting directly to the CEO;
• More comms types are being promoted into CMO-style jobs; and
• More comms types have a chance to land the CEO role.

According to the story:

“Nearly half of chief communications officers surveyed in 2025 said they report directly to their company’s CEO, up from 40% in 2023 and 37% in 2015, according to research from executive recruiter and consulting firm Korn Ferry.”

I’ve seen other credible surveys in recent years that substantiate the general direction of this finding. The WSJ summarizes it this way:

“Communications professionals, previously relegated to the periphery, are now front and center in the C-suite, partly emboldened by CEOs’ fears that even the smallest misstep can swiftly balloon into a corporate disaster.”

That article has been on my mind for a week or so. It validates much of my thinking about the evolution of the comms role, especially in B2B technology circles.

1. Communications is a higher-level function than marketing

In B2B technology circles, PR or comms tends to report to the CMO. That’s especially true for high-growth companies that are reliant on private capital. These organizations have finite resources and runway to make a business profitable and self-reliant. They need every resource they have focused on attracting, converting and retaining customers.

Yet marketing largely speaks to two audiences: the audience they want to become customers and the audience of existing customers they’d like to keep as customers. Communications are bigger than that – there are all sorts of stakeholders that can impact a business.

That point is crystal clear in the NIMBY battles heating up over AI data centers. Companies with communications functions focused on marketing are behind on these issues. It’s certainly a problem for marketing, but it’s not a problem marketing has a lot of experience addressing.

This is what communicators are trained to address. Changing the reporting structure to the CEO, or at least a dotted line to the CEO, is essential for competently addressing such existential debates like these.

Separately, I’d add that it’s unfortunate that the WSJ uses the word “publicist” because that insinuates that the only function of PR and comms is publicity. Publicity can be a part of media relations, which is part of public relations, but “publicity” is not “PR.”  The term publicist views PR through a narrow lens that excludes many benefits the function can bring.

2. Communicators who can take on marketing duties are rare

I love to see communicators rise to the chief marketing role, for the reason just given. CMOs that grow up in comms have a wider aperture.

The problem with this role is that it takes someone special to fill these duties. Why? It’s literally a math problem. Many PR and comms professionals went this career route to avoid math, probability, statistics, and net present value. That’s one of the reasons PR measurement is such a vexing issue: people in these roles don’t have the skills or tools to measure.

Now, communications people can acquire these skills if they keep up with their own professional development. But not a lot do. A PRSA survey published last year found less than 1 in 100 PR professionals invest in professional development consistently.

So, the people who can wear a combined marketing and communications hat are rare. If you find one that can, then make an offer quickly and work to retain those people.

3. There’s a good case for having both a marketing and a comms leader

Even if you find someone with the talent to lead both marketing and communications teams, there’s still a case to keep these teams under separate leaders. Why? Both roles have added new responsibilities every year.

For example, a 2020 survey by Deloitte and the CMO Club found, “More than 50 percent of CMOs indicate they are responsible for 11 or more distinct marketing activities.” Marketing today encompasses duties – digital, CX, technology management, channel marketing – and so many more tasks on top of all the traditional duties that fall under the classic 4Ps of marketing.

It’s similar for communications professionals. The fracturing of audiences on the internet has completely upended mass communications principles taught in schools. The level of polarization is new – and tricky to navigate. Generative AI is but four years old, and many haven’t been tuned as closely since November 2022.

So, there’s a case to have both a CMO and a chief communications officer (CCO) on staff. The key, as has long been the case with sales and marketing teams, is getting these two functions, if you choose to keep them separate, to play well together in the proverbial sandbox.

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More organizations are responding to questions from reporters they don’t like with a phrase such as “no comment.” “Source refusal is now the norm, not the exception,” according to a new study by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, with help from SmithGeiger, a research firm.

The researchers polled “1,021 adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who consume news at least once per week on any platform” for one perspective. They also polled “201 current and former journalism professionals” for the second part.

How often does “no comment” happen?

The Reynolds report indicated is happening with increased frequency. Some “76% of journalism professionals report having experienced a refusal to speak from a politician, government official, or organization in the past three years.”

Further, the findings are more pronounced among respondents who are still doing reporting day-to-day. “Among current reporters specifically, that number rises to nine in ten.”

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“No comment” adversely impacts trust in sources

The study, news and commentators frame this study as a threat to journalism and trust. The key concern is that readers might perceive “no comment” as a sign that a reporter didn’t put enough effort into eliciting a response.

That’s a valid concern for sure. Several previous surveys, including by Gallup and Pew, all point to years of declining trust. This survey had a similar finding on that point. More than three-quarters (77%) of adults say trust in news has waned – and 96% of journalists surveyed said the same.

However, it also has a direct impact on the sources that refuse to comment:

“When news consumers see or hear the phrase in a news story, 60% will question the story in some way with 39% believing the person or organization is hiding something, and 35% saying it makes them trust the official less.

The report offers some verbatim comments from the adults that add context:

• “It usually means they’re avoiding the question, hiding information, or unwilling to provide answers.”

• “It means they feel pressure from the question, more to lose than gain from answering.”

• “That the press wanted the truth and the politician chose not to give it.”

• “That [no comment] means the reporter did a good job when an official says no comment. They know they are in the wrong.”

“No comment” adversely impacts trust in reporters

The lack of comment does seem to affect the perceived credibility of journalism, which is the primary point the report is trying to make:

• “Most importantly 20% of consumers will trust a story less if it has ‘no comment’ featured.”

Again, open-ended comments tell us why:

• “I feel like I’m not getting the whole story.”

• “Everyone spins the news to fit their nerve so it’s not always the full truth.”

• “They’re not telling the full truth about anything. The things we should know about are being withheld.”

The study recommends reporters include an indication of the actions they took to obtain a comment, such as the following:

• “A list of the questions the journalist would have asked if the source had responded.”

• “A link to a verifiable record of outreach attempts, including times, methods, and contact information.”

• “And a link to a pattern of past refusals by the source, documenting a history of non-cooperation.”

“No comment” lets someone else shape the news

The biggest takeaway for PR, especially for B2B organizations, is that “no comment” allows someone else to frame the story. If you don’t comment, someone else will.

This has always been the case, but it seems now the case for commenting is stronger because:

a) the public thinks you are hiding something, and

b) news organizations are going to make it abundantly clear they gave you a chance to comment, which reinforces the perception formed by the first point.

While B2B organizations don’t have rancor or political reporting, nor the same accusations of media bias, they are increasingly facing issues that intersect with the general public. Privacy, security, tax incentives for moving business, and, of course, the growing resistance to the data center build-out that’s essential to AI are prime examples.

The phrase “no comment” isn’t going to stand up in coverage of a local council meeting where residents decry plans for a new data center. The public simply won’t trust you and will feel threatened. They are going to write letters to elected officials and eventually vote in line with their perceptions.

Valid exceptions exist, but are rare

There are some valid exceptions that can’t be avoided. Ongoing litigation is one good reason, and sources and methods in the case of national security are another. In those cases, “no comment” should be followed by a clear and honest explanation.

There are also times in my career when I’ve advised avoiding a specific reporter, based on their coverage history, where a reporter didn’t give one side of the story a fair shake. Yet in B2B, these are exceptional cases, and you have to be prepared to manage the second order of effects. In other words, you really need a strong case for this to hold up in public opinion.

Most B2B businesses don’t have these types of concerns. There simply isn’t a good reason to avoid the media. Don’t miss your chance to frame issues that are directly related to your business.

The full report is a good read for PR people if you want to understand the media environment. Getting their view will enable you to be better at your job. It’s freely available here: No Comment: The Importance of Transparency in American Journalism.

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A Pew Research study published in March 2026 found “50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life.” Another 38% are equally excited and concerned. Just 10% are more excited than concerned.

Another survey by NBC News found “a majority of registered voters, 57%, said they believe the risks of AI outweigh its benefits.” Just 34% said the opposite.

A third survey, this time by Quinnipiac, found 62% of Americans are either “not so excited” or “not excited at all.” In contrast, 35% of Americans are “very excited” (6%) or “somewhat excited” (29%) about AI.

These are credible surveys. It’s clear that public sentiment is turning on artificial intelligence (AI). Those numbers will grow without active engagement. That will weigh on every aspect of AI, from building data centers to selling customers on the value, to convincing workers to actually use this stuff productivity.

Some might say AI companies have lost control of the public narrative; I assess it’s a narrative of their own creation. Why? Executives at these companies have been telling the public AI is going to take their jobs and that’s not a feature people get excited about.

The AI-will-take-your-job narrative was established years ago

This isn’t a result of a misstep or public gaffe. It’s been the primary message AI companies have focused on saying for years.

Sam Altman, who allegedly co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit for the good of humanity but later changed his mind, said in 2019, “entire classes of jobs will go away and not come back.” He has since backpedaled by saying his prediction probably isn’t going to happen.

Yet that neural pathway in the collective consciousness has been paved for six years. It’s going to be really hard to change minds. You might be able to amend an answer in a court of law, as Altman did in recent testimony in response to a question about his truthfulness by a hostile lawyer, but the court of public opinion is rarely so permissive.

Add to it the fact that other AI executives continue to repeat the notion that AI is going to take everyone’s job over and over and over. Be careful what you tell people because they just might believe you.

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Issue after issue piles on that narrative

The technology community has reinforced this notion with tens of thousands of layoffs they attribute to AI. Some pundits say these layoffs are just a convenient excuse for poor business decisions and overstaffing. Either way, a public that generally reacts to headlines isn’t going to deliberate such nuance.

A laundry list of public concerns has followed: trust in the integrity of AI answers, privacy and surveillance issues, energy consumption driving up costs, water consumption to cool data centers, and, I’d contend, a constant drumbeat of hype that’s manifesting as “AI fatigue.”

Some of the AI projects put in place have failed. For example, AI was going to replace customer service, yet one study found 74% of enterprises have rolled back these initiatives because they aren’t working.

Even the Pope has weighed in with moral concerns. About one in five Americans is Catholic. That rural town where AI companies would like to put their next data center? There’s a good chance their only regional hospital is run by a Catholic charity. About 70% of citizens of that faith voted in the last Presidential election.

Skynet is an economic hitman

Alex Kantrowitz summarized some of the problems for a piece in CMSwire: AI has a public relations emergency – and it’s getting worse. He produced the nearby chart, which does a nice job of segmenting a partial list of AI issues by audience.

In his piece, he cites Marc Andreessen’s discharge of many of these issues in his recent podcast interview with Joe Rogan. I listened to that podcast, too. Andreessen is a genius and I want to understand his perspective but was surprised by his dismissiveness.

Energy costs? No problem. Data centers will bring mini-nuke plants. That sounds good. I think nuclear power is the way to go, too. Even as an advocate with a major nuclear facility about an hour away from my residence today, I’m not sure I’d want a miniature one in my backyard. Would he?

Water usage? Not true, he said. The Brookings Institution, which leans left, has a different view:

“A typical data center uses 300,000 gallons of water each day (equivalent to the demands of about 1,000 households), but large data centers can use an estimated 5 million gallons of water each day, equivalent to the needs of a town of up to 50,000 residents.”

Maybe the former Netscape co-founder is right. Maybe Brookings is right. In either case, the number of news stories about water rights battles – outside of cooling AI data centers – has grown in recent years. So, it’s an issue that comes with existing baggage. It’s already a hot-button issue.

Moreover, AI advocates are going to have to make that case, in this context, to a public that has already made up its mind about the benefits and drawbacks of AI. And he and others seem to think those objections can just be easily brushed aside; NIMBY is a formidable opponent.

The fact remains, from a public perception perspective, these AI companies are asking Americans to adjust to higher energy and water costs for tech innovation they’ve been told will take their job. That message is infinitely easier to understand and far more likely to land. It has landed.

Brush concerns aside at your own peril. That’s what people think: the real-life version of Skynet isn’t coming with guns blazing; it’s an economic hitman.

(click image for higher resolution) 

Pragmatic messaging changes

Technology providers have long shifted between two primary messages dictated by economic conditions. When times are good, the benefits espoused center on revenue growth and market share. When economic times are weak, the focus shifts to cost-savings and efficiency.

Much of the messaging AI companies have broadcast has been focused on the latter with the intention of soliciting investors and securing early corporate customers. It’s clearly done well to achieve that goal, but it’s created second- and third-order effects they have to deal with now.

“Now” is a strange time – a seemingly perpetual state of uncertainty for years. Uncertainty seems to call for a message that focuses on cost-cutting. If businesses were the only stakeholders, that would be the logical choice, but they aren’t and the messaging needs to reflect that.

Reinvest the time saved by AI

Some might say, but what if it’s true? AI really is going to take jobs, and we shouldn’t dance around that fact.

For sure, change is coming. Some jobs will go away. But it’s more akin to arbitrage than dissolution. Every technological innovation since the Industrial Revolution has ended some jobs and created many more new ones. The evidence suggests that’s going to be the case with AI.

Case in point? Software developers’ jobs, which were one of the prime functions AI would allegedly eliminate, have surged this year:

“Data from TrueUp, a tech hiring analytics firm, shows more than 67,000 software engineering job openings, the highest level in over three years. Listings have roughly doubled since a trough in mid-2023.”

The previous messaging has been unduly alarmist, and it needs to shift to pragmatism. Put the cup of Kool-Aid down and slowly back away. The focus has to shift to productivity, value creation and the new jobs AI is going to create.

During a recent keynote presentation by Jay Baer, which I had the chance to watch, he said AI could save customer service agents 25% of their time; rather than seeing that as a chance to cut staff and save money, that time should be reinvested in the customer.

At the moment, that’s a competitive opportunity that completely flips the message. Such a message stands out because it’s different, not because it’s shouted louder.

Imagine the realized gains in loyalty and customer marketing potential if those customer-facing AI projects had been rolled out this way instead. Good customer service is great marketing.

It turns out that AI does have a finite runway

The mess AI companies have made with their misguided messaging couldn’t be unfolding at a more inconvenient time. Corporate America is rationing AI usage over spiking costs and questionable ROI. Investors are going to follow suit.

It’s an incredibly expensive market to compete in and much of the market traction has been made on investment dollars rather than retained earnings. Maybe some of these companies can hold out by following the Amazon strategy – delaying profitability for years in pursuit of market share – but it’s not going to be all of them.

We couldn’t see the end of the runway when this all started in November of 2022, but four years later, it’s becoming quite evident there is a finite amount of tarmac. I’m not saying it’s a bubble, but the parallels to dot-com, as many have observed, are strikingly similar.

While every new technology that brings change will have detractors, this particular problem, I assess, is one of the AI companies’ own creation.

The fix starts with a listening tour, not a messaging exercise

I think it’s fixable, but it’s going to take more than words. And patience. And time.

The instinct from AI companies is to counter with facts and stats championing the benefits. They need to resist that urge; it will only feed resistance because it contradicts what these same companies have been saying, repeatedly, over a long period of time. Small-town American resistance works like lighter fluid to a media flame; everyone loves to root for the underdog.

My PR instincts would be to tap into the wave of populism, especially in rural America, which is foreign to the leanings of Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue. Like the space race, it’s exceedingly important that the U.S. win the AI race. But you can’t run on instincts; it has to be researched, refined and, most importantly, pressure-tested. This isn’t a marketing effort or a PR initiative; it’s a grass-roots political campaign.

The starting point isn’t a messaging exercise; it’s a listening tour. AI leaders need to talk to ordinary people in rural America where they want to build their data centers. They must be willing to listen and be receptive to criticisms that they are unaccustomed to hearing.

And they need to do it with grace and humility and action.

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The central benefit of public relations (PR) comes from the credibility of a message shared through a third-party. As I’ve long quipped, nothing you say about yourself has the credibility of someone else saying it about you. Why? Because at the most basic level, a third-party has less incentive to say nice things unless they are actually warranted,

Many of my peers will argue that third-party validation is limited to specific PR duties, like media relations or analyst relations, where the effort produces favorable mentions in news or market research reports. PR is a bigger category than just media relations.

I agree with the latter but have a different perspective on the former. I believe community relations, investor relations, social media and content marketing, which may be better described as “brand journalism,” all rely on third-party validation.

When PR efforts facilitate community interaction – that’s word-of-mouth – arguably the most valuable form of third-party validations. Ditto for investor relations or the content that gets shared, or better still cited with links, mentions and search results. Those are all signals of third-party validation, both for humans and the algorithms that decide what content to show you are factoring. People might say retweets are not endorsements, but such disclaimers can’t override Kahneman’s System 1.

So, in my mind, third-party validation is what sets PR apart from any other marketing or communications activity. It’s essential to the definition. It’s also what makes measurement so vexing: linking the influence of a third-party output to a behavior change is hard, because it’s virtually impossible to isolate that influence from other factors. And, collectively, these things are what make PR so valuable; third-party validation, by definition, has to be earned and cannot be purchased.

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Do AI mentions offer third-party validation?

AI visibility is giving PR a moment. Many big industry thinkers predicted last December that generative AI would make PR a priority this year. That’s largely come true. Just like Google supplanted newspapers as the new front page, so too are LLMs becoming the new-new front page. Even Gartner, the technology analyst firm, chimed in on PR’s opportunity in the AI era.

Certainly, citations in AI searches are similar to mentions in media and analyst reports, which is becoming the de facto measurement practice. Yet there’s something else that’s happening that hints at a more profound behavior change: the AI audio interface is being used to win friendly arguments.

People have friendly arguments all the time. The old way of resolving a disagreement or establishing facts was a Google search. Today, it’s increasingly becoming the voice AI interface. For example, a disagreement over who was POTUS in 1982 is easily solved, with “Hey, Grok, who was President in 1982?”

The machine will read back the answer and it’s accepted as fact. That’s an amazing behavior change when you pause to think about what’s happening. One side of the argument knew the answer, but no matter how deft an orator – the other side wouldn’t accept it as fact from that source – but it would accept it if from AI.

Examples of third-party validation don’t get clearer than that one; there are a gazillion conversations like that happening every day. I find it to be simultaneously an unnerving idea and a business opportunity. Similarly, the capabilities of AI are way overhyped, but at the same time, it’s also having a gradual, yet profound, influence on human behavior.

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This is an age-old question in media relations: Should you take an interview with a publication that has a small audience?

While there could be valid strategic reasons for declining, my answer is usually a resounding “yes,” for most companies.

Sarah Evans recently dusted the question off for the AI visibility era in a LinkedIn post. The post suggests you should take an interview if AI searches pull content from those outlets.

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More specifically, she recommends accepting an interview if any two of the four following conditions apply:

• The outlet’s audience is related to your target market;
• The outlet is cited by an LLM;
• The outlet produces a transcript; and
• The interview request is recent.

She goes on, in the post, to show why one little interview can have second- and third-order effects for visibility.

The first condition – if the outlet is related to your target market – is enough for me. I’d offer several reasons why.

1. A mention in a small publication is still social proof

Media relations is harder than they’ve ever been. There are fewer reporters inundated with pitches. You’ve got to get started somewhere, or if you’re started, keep the momentum going. A placement in a small audience publication suggests your ideas are worth covering.

This applies beyond traditional media, too. The same consideration should be given to podcasts, blogs and other sites managed by independent reporters, influencers and content creators.

That can lead to additional coverage, and I encourage organizations to actively build on those successes and amplify earned coverage: what you do with a media mention after earning it counts for as much as getting it in the first place.

2. Relationships – reporters at small pubs move on to big pubs

Too many in PR overplay the strength of relationships they have with reporters – but this is a genuine opportunity. Reporters who work for small publications, especially those just starting in their careers, tend to go on to work for larger publications later.

This is a golden opportunity to foster a bona fide relationship.

3. Influence the influencers

If the outlet is in your target market, chances are other reporters and influencers interested in that same market read those smaller publications. It’s a chance to reach a segment of potential customers – and influence the influencers – to get on their radar.

4. Every interview is good practice

Media interviews don’t come along every day. It takes practice to get good at delivering messages and answering questions. Every interview is a chance to get practice in – but only if you take it seriously and prepare.

The number one task to do before an interview is to take a few minutes to clear your mind and focus on the topic of the interview. The modern office worker is jumping from meeting-to-meeting and from task-to-task, so it’s crucial to hit the pause button and collect your thoughts.

The risks of refusing a small audience interview

Sarah closes her post with the “cost” of refusal. Refusing an interview, regardless of size, is effectively like opting out of the potential for AI visibility: “The AI systems will remember when you said nothing.”

The bigger risk in my book is the human element: “The editors will remember when you said no.” And so too will the independent influencers and creators.

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The average B2B technology buyer required 62.4 touches, across an average of 3.5 different channels, to close a deal.

That’s according to benchmarking data analyzed by Dreamdata. The company provides marketing attribution software that analyzes marketing and sales data to provide view into the time and effort it takes to persuade a B2B buyer to purchase a given technology.

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It’s important to note this is not survey data, but behavioral data based on an analysis of 414 B2B companies using the Dreamdata platform.

I’ve previously summarized findings from five different reports on the same topic and these benchmarks seem to be comparable. You can find that piece here: How many touches or interactions does it take to attract and close B2B prospects?

1. First touch to conversion

It takes B2B organizations, on average, 34 days from the first touch to convert a potential buyer into a potential prospect.

2. First touch to sales opportunity

It takes B2B organizations, on average, 84 days from first touch to turn a prospect into a real sales opportunity.

3. First touch to deal-closed

It takes B2B organizations, on average, 192 days from first touch to close a deal.

4. Large organizations move more slowly

Large companies, defined as those with 250 or more employees, require an average of 242 days from first touch to deal-closed. Smaller companies, defined as those with 50 or fewer employees, require an average of 147 days. In other words, the marketing-to-sales progression moves about 61% more slowly in large organizations.

5. European companies move more slowly than U.S.

A similar effect can be seen when looking at the data by geography. European companies take an average of 199 days from first touch to deal-closed – compared to an average of 177 days for U.S.-based companies.

6. Marketing-to-sales progression by channel

The report also offers a look at this cycle based on the channel that first touched a potential buyer.

• First touch: review sites. Buyers who first engaged with information about a solution provider on a review site went from converting to a prospect, to deal-closed, on average in 70 days.

• First touch: paid media. Buyers who first engaged with information about a solution provider from paid media, when from converting to a prospect, to deal-closed, on average in 87 days.

• First touch: social media. Buyers who first engaged with information about a solution provider from social media, when from converting to a prospect, to deal-closed, on average in 222 days.

This is a correlation, and correlation may not be causation. For example, buyers looking for solutions on a review site are likely well into their research phase, so while the average cycle time seems lower, chances are the solution provider was unaware of until the inquiry came in from a review site.

7. Size of the buying committee

B2B organizations have committees that review potential technologies for procurement, and the average buying committee has 6.3 people on it.

About the Dreamdata report

At just eight pages long, full report is a quick read and contains several other useful benchmarks. It’s available for download here: 10 B2B benchmarks you must know.

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Marketing faces a lot of pressure to demonstrate results. Accordingly, the benefit of gating content is the production of a signal to measure.

As a result, marketing philosophies about gated content often split into two camps: gate everything or gate nothing.

I’m of the mind that it’s about balance. Gated content has a place under the umbrella of a larger content strategy. That’s where the annual Netline study of gated content is most useful.

Netline makes a marketing platform that, in part, enables marketers to measure content downloads. Once a year, they aggregate and anonymize the data to produce a trend report.

The 2026 report I’m covering here is based on a data analysis of content downloads made in 2025. It’s worth pointing out that this is behavioral data, as it’s based on actions content consumers took rather than their opinion in response to a survey.

Below are a few findings that stood out to me.

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1. Registrations for gated content slides lower

Fewer people registered for gated content in 2025. The volume of downloads was down 8.6% from 7.9 million in 2024, to 7.2 million in 2025.

Commentary: While marketing benefits from obtaining contact information from gated content, it also adds friction that reduces reach. There’s a sense that gating content ensures only those who are truly interested will register for it, but it’s worth challenging that assumption.

Distrust is a default mode, and businesses have a history of taking unwanted liberties with contact information. As a result, people are loath to provide it.

Two rules of thumb can help drive the decision to gate content. First, the content should be unique. If the information is available elsewhere, there’s little incentive to register for it.

Second, the purpose of the piece should drive whether or not to gate it. Content aimed at building awareness can’t do its job behind a registration gate. Content aimed at conversion might suggest the content consumer has a genuine interest.

2. Download now; consume a week later

People who download content don’t read it for about a week later. The time between download and consumption grew from 38.5 hours in 2024 to 47.7 hours in 2025. That works out to 5.96 days, or about a week later.

The type of content matters. As the chart nearby depicts, playbooks are read an average of 20.6 hours later; trend reports are read 22 hours later, and case studies are read 28.7 hours later.

Commentary: This should inform your BDR/SDR follow-up strategy. The classic play is to have them call anyone who downloads gated content 24 hours later to see if they are interested in buying their product.

Most people just wanted to see the content; buying a software product is probably 10 steps away. It’s like going from ‘hello to a marriage proposal’ in a download.

Give those who download content a chance to read it first. When you follow up, consider the next logical step. That’s the whole point of researching and visualizing a buyer’s journey – to map content needs with the prospect’s stage.

(click image for higher resolution)

3. One-fifth of downloads are for content about AI

Content about AI accounted for 21.1% of all downloads in the report. This is similar to the same findings last year, when this category of content spiked.

Commentary: Marketing should keep an ear out for AI fatigue. The internet has been on an AI content streak since November 2022. Much of it has been overhyped.

There’s also a notable twist in the public narrative. Some of the biggest names in AI have been preaching that AI is going to take everyone’s job. Of course, nobody wants to lose their job, and that’s having an impact on sales and adoption. Gen Z is allegedly resisting AI.

Smart marketers will ensure messaging around AI tools focuses on how AI will augment their abilities, not replace them. The track record so far suggests this is what’s actually happening as well, so such a claim is more factual, from my view of the landscape.

4. Ebooks once again the most downloaded format

Ebooks accounted for about half of all content downloads on the Netline platform in 2025. This was true in 2024 and in 2023 as well.

Here’s the breakdown of the most downloaded content formats:

• ebook 48.8%
• cheat sheet 9.3%
• guide 7.5%
• white paper 4.8%
• report 3.7%
• article 3.5%
• tips and tricks guide 2.4%
• on-demand webinar 1.7%
• webinar 1.4%
• playbook 1.4%

Commentary: I’ve got to wonder if ebooks are the most downloaded asset because that’s the asset marketers are most comfortable making. As the old saying goes, when everyone zigs, that’s your chance to zag. Be sure to experiment with alternate formats.

One other crucial point here is content repurposing. A good webinar can be parlayed into ebooks, articles, guides and infographics. In other words, it’s not about which format is better, but how to use them together.

I also encourage marketing teams to treat this as an ongoing program, rather than a campaign that starts and ends. One approach relies on iteration and keeps going, while the other is a full start and stop.

5. On-demand webinars top live

Overall webinar downloads grew 5.3% according to the report. However, registrations for live webinars dropped notably (-22.9%) while on-demand webinars grew substantially (54.3%).

Commentary: This finding is consistent with the overall conclusion – people download now and consume later. That’s an important factor that should drive content strategy.

It’s unlikely your customers and prospects are sitting at a desk reading your ebook. Instead, they’ve saved it for later and are reading it at home, on the subway, or while waiting to pick the kids up from practice.

The promise of gated content

The promise of gated content is useful information in exchange for contact information. B2B marketing has to ensure its content meets those expectations, or risk turning “read you later” into read you never.

For those interested in reading more on this study later, Netline summarized the findings and has a link to download the report here.

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One challenge for PR in pitching stories to the media is the lack of response. At times, it can feel like pitching into the void.

Sometimes, you send what you think is a well-researched, relevant and timely pitch – and nothing happens. Other times, you can whip up a short order pitch on a whim and it winds up driving solid coverage.

To be sure, even for seasoned pros, the former happens more often than the latter, data shows. While the volume of pitches can vary by their beat or industry, most reporters are short on time and under pressure of a deadline.

There are more PR pros pitching, or SEOs and digital marketers moonlighting as PR pros, than reporters in a news seat. They simply can’t respond to every pitch, even if they think it’s a good one. That’s just the nature of media relations.

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PR isn’t completely blind either

We aren’t completely blind to what’s going on here. There are a number of surveys that poll reporters and ask them about their pitching preferences.

Many of these, but not all, are conducted by PR software providers that maintain a database of reporters as part of their product. Regular readers know I like to pour over the surveys of journalists and highlight interesting findings.

In this post, I’ve gone back through the reports I’ve covered – and checked out a few more – to aggregate PR pitching statistics.

About half of reporters never respond to PR pitches

Here’s what the data shows about reporter response rates:

2026 Muck Rack survey of ~900 reporters:

• • 54% of journalists say they seldom or never respond to PR pitches;
  • 25% respond about half the time;
  • 15% usually respond; and
  • Just 6% always respond.

The 2026 survey findings were more or less consistent with the same survey conducted two years prior.

2024 Muck Rack survey of ~1,100 reporters:

• • 49% seldom or never respond;
  • 24% respond about “half the time”; and
  • 26% respond to PR pitches always or usually.

A 2024 study by Propel substantiates these surveys somewhat. Importantly, the Propel data is not survey data, but behavioral data. In the first quarter of 2024, the company analyzed 400,000 pitches sent to 4,000 reporters through the Propel platform.

2024 Propel study of 400,000 pitches:

• • Reporters open about half (46%) of the story pitches they receive; and
  • Reporters respond to 3.43% of the story pitches they receive.

The risks of following up on PR pitches

To put the Propel data in context, a 3% response rate means you’ll hear back from a reporter on three out of every 100 pitches. That leaves PR wondering about questions such as:

• Did the pitch land in the inbox?
• Did they see the pitch?
• Did they understand the pitch?
• Did they think the pitch was relevant?
• Why or why not?

Such questions lead to the next logical progression: should PR follow up on pitches?

Yes, generally you should consider following up, but carefully. It’s a delicate balance between making sure they saw the news you are pitching – and annoying a reporter.

Annoyance carries risks that can lead to permanent damage:

• A 2024 survey of 3,000 journalists by Cision found 48% of journalists will block a PR person for repeated aggressive follow-ups.

• A 2019 survey of 500 writers, editors, and publishers, by the marketing agency Fractl, found “53% have blacklisted at least one person this month due to bad pitches. 30% have blacklisted three or more.”

Should media relations follow up on PR pitches?

As I “grew up” in PR, I was very loath to follow up with reporters. The legends of getting blocked was always on my mind.

Further, I tend to be a machine when it comes to managing email (pro tip: turn off email previews; this feature destroys your productivity), and I suspect reporters are, too. They are dependent on email to do their job.

My original approach was to, sparingly, write a new pitch with a fresh angle. Yet over time, I changed my mind about this based on survey data:

• 2026 Muck Rack survey findings. The 2026 survey cited above found that 50% of reporters say one follow-up is ideal; 51% say follow-ups should happen between a few days after the initial pitch and up to a week later.

• 2025 Cison survey (N = 3,000). A 2025 survey had slightly different findings. Overall, the global survey found 62% of reporters say just one follow-up is appropriate. When just looking at U.S.-based reporters, the number goes up slightly: 69% said one follow-up is okay, 6% are good with several follow-ups and 24% said never follow up.

• 2024 Cision survey. The 2024 version of Cision’s survey was in the same ballpark: 64% of reporters said it’s fine to follow-up once; 8% said it’s okay to follow-up multiple times and 27% said PR should never follow up.

What’s interesting is that if we go back through these reports, we can see a real shift right about the time the pandemic hit.

For example, Muck Rack’s survey findings every year have been similar – until we hit 2019. That version polled ~700 reporters and we can see a real shift of about 25%.

• In 2019, “73% of journalists are OK with receiving a follow-up to a pitch they didn’t initially respond to. Only 12% would prefer not to receive any type of follow-up.”

In other words, reporters were more open to follow-ups prior to the pandemic than they are today. I would venture that we will likely see a continued downward trend in this respect as AI-generated content enables lazy PR people to fling sloppy pitches around the web.

How do I handle follow-ups?

Generally, I’ll do one short follow-up 2-3 days later for reporters who haven’t responded. I always strive to connect what I’m pitching with what they’ve covered historically.

Anything beyond that, and I usually write an entirely new pitch, or wait until the next time I have something I think will be of interest to them.

I have also long since borrowed a play from email marketing and use analytics to track opens and clicks. That data informs me if, when and how best to follow up.

There is a caveat: email open and click-through rates are not always accurate. Privacy settings by device, preference and even on an enterprise scale can impact the readings. So, consider the analytics a guideline and not a fact.

Well, that doesn’t sound too promising, so what should PR do? As I wrote for the lead story in a September 2016 edition of Communication World by IABC, PR and content marketing need each other.  It’s worth your while to “report” on your industry through your own unique view of the world. If you do that for readers, they will reward you with an audience.

In other words, content marketing makes media relations better and media relations make content marketing better. It’s been headed in this direction for a long time.

Those who know, know what it can do. Those that don’t will continue to see blogs and content as secondary, if not quaint, tools.

While I don’t think media relations will go away in the foreseeable future, it’s often not enough to simply pitch stories anymore: you have to prove a story has legs, and that’s what content marketing does for PR.

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Not too long ago, there was one reporter whose attention I was trying to get.

The company I was pitching hadn’t done much PR, but it was a buzzy and well-defined space with a  lot of innovation.

I had sent a few well-timed and customized pitches that fit squarely into his historical coverage. No response.

Next I had a new product announcement that was genuinely novel. Again, crickets.

I followed up a few days later with a new angle. Nothing.

After a follow-up or two, I began to wonder if the company had done something prior to my involvement to get blacklisted. I finally wrote to ask him directly, albeit diplomatically.

A day later, he wrote me back:

“Not at all. I simply don’t have time to reply to every email or pitch, much less cover everything. You’ve put [company name] on my radar — keep the news flowing.” Thanks!”

This is just the reality of the current media landscape. Reporters are busy. We live in an information rich environment.  It takes time, patience, resolve and consistency to break through.

That’s a good set up for this survey of journalists. If you’ve been sending quality pitches and getting no response, this survey gives you a window into their world.

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A window into the journalist’s world

PR software vendor Muck Rack recently polled 897 reporters in their database for its State of Journalism Report. A little more than 80% of the respondents are based in the U.S.; 58% are employed full-time by a publication; nearly half (46%) hold the title of “reporter,” while another 25% hold the title of “editor.”

The report provides some insight into the challenges of journalism:

• Never have enough time for reporting. Just 18% say they “always” have time to complete their work to their own standard. Another 15% say they “rarely” or “never” do.

• Journalists’ roles have expanded. About one-third of respondents (29%) say their roles have expanded “significantly,” and another 33% said “somewhat.”

• Meaningful work for unmeaningful pay. 65% describe their work as a journalist as “meaningful,” more than half (56%) say their employment is stable, and 75% report their compensation as landing between $40k-$100k annually.

Those three findings provide a high-level perspective of what it’s like to walk a mile in the shoes of a reporter: They love their work but have more to do in less time, and are compensated relatively poorly.

That gives you a sense for their motivation, which you’ve got to bear in mind when pitching a story.

Journalists perspective on media relations

The report also contains about a dozen pages dedicated to media relations. The survey asked various questions about the pitches they received. These also provide insight into what goes on in their minds when reviewing those pitches.

Here are a few of the findings that stood out to me:

• Many reporters choose their stories. 40% of reporters say they choose their own story ideas and pitch those in editorial meetings. By contrast, just 3% say they only cover stories assigned to them by an editor. The rest fall in the middle, with 55% saying “it’s a mix of both.”

• Social media matters. Businesses that do media outreach ought to be active on social media. 65% of journalists surveyed said social media is at least moderately important for their work. The report does note that this has declined in the last few years.

• Most reporters do value PR relationships. About half of reporters (53%) say relationships with PR are “very important” (30%) or “important” (23%). Another 20% say they are “moderately important.”

• Most stories start with a PR pitch. Some 86% of reporters surveyed said some of their stories start with a PR pitch. Of those, 51% attribute between 1-10% of stories to PR. Another 17% put it at between 11-25%; 12% say it’s between 16-50% and, finally, 5% say more than 50% of their stories start with a PR pitch.

The report also provided figures on the volume of pitches received. I was surprised to see that just 14% of reporters say they receive more than 21 pitches a day.

I would imagine the volume of pitches is highly dependent on the beat. In B2B tech, I routinely hear from reporters that they easily get upwards of 100 pitches a day. It’s been that way for years. The trade reporter mentioned above certainly does.

One former Wall Street Journal reporter said she used to get emails at a rate of one per minute. Assuming a standard eight-hour day, the math works out to 480 emails per day. That would overwhelm anyone.

Another reporter I spoke with a couple of weeks ago has completely given up on email. His email address bounced, so I reached out to him on LinkedIn. He responded right away and explained he was getting too many irrelevant pitches, which rendered his email unusable.

(click image for higher resolution)

Why reporters delete PR pitches

Reporters rarely responded to pitches.

More than half (54%) said they rarely responded to pitches. Another 25% say they respond about half of the time. Lastly, about one in five “usually” (15%) or “always respond” (6%).

Why? Most pitches are not relevant.

Nearly nine in 10 reporters (88%) delete pitches because it’s irrelevant to their coverage. That’s not the only reason why they might disregard a pitch.

The survey asked: What causes you to immediately disregard or delete a PR pitch?

Here’s how the responses broke out:

• 88% said it’s irrelevant to my coverage;
• 71% said it’s overly promotional or advertorial;
• 50% said it looks like a mass email;
• 46% said it’s sent repeatedly without response;
• 40% said it’s too long or unclear;
• 35% said it’s addressed to the wrong name or outlet;
• 26% said it lacks any source access; and
• 3% cited other unspecified reasons.

(click image for higher resolution)

What makes a good PR pitch?

Relevance is the operative word in effective PR pitches. The survey asked respondents: What makes a pitch genuinely relevant to your audience, not just your beat?

• 78% said it directly affects the community my audience belongs to;
• 45% said it has a clear local or cultural context;
• 28% said it includes voices from the community impacted;
• 28% said it avoids generic or stereotypical framing;
• 20% said it reflects my audience’s lived experiences; and
• 3% cited other unspecified reasons.

How well do PR pitches adhere to these guidelines?

Not well. According to the report:

“Just 3% of journalists say PR outreach always reflects the community their outlet serves, and 13% say usually.”

Rules of thumb for PR pitching

Muck Rack has been running this same survey for eight years. Over time, reporters have been consistent about the tactical aspects of pitching.

• Use email. “62% of journalists prefer to be pitched via 1:1 email.”

• Most don’t care what day you pitch. “50% don’t care which day they are pitched, but of those that do, 18% prefer to be pitched on a Monday.”

• Pitch before noon. “78% want to receive pitches before noon.”

• Be succinct. “69% prefer pitches that are under 200 words.”

• Follow up, sparingly. “50% say one follow-up is ideal, and 51% say it should come within 3-7 days later.”

These are all just table-stakes – the constraints within which PR has room to be creative.

No response isn’t a “not interested”

That trade reporter in the opening of this post goes to show that no response isn’t the same thing as “not interested,” it’s more like a “not right now.”

If you take his words at face value, he didn’t cover the story I was pitching because he wasn’t interested. He didn’t cover it because the brand is unfamiliar and he’s busy. However, he’s aware of the company now, which improves their chances.  It’s a step in the right direction.

This is an important point: It’s unrealistic to expect to go from no coverage to lots of coverage without a few steps in between. This speaks to factors we don’t see often in surveys of journalists, nor in surveys of PR professionals: Patience, resolve and consistency matter a lot when trying to break through the noise.

It takes time to build familiarity and prove your relevance. You have to do all of the things mentioned above – and do it reliably over time.

Media relations is a game of momentum. Even for the best PR practitioners, there’s no magic button, but there are clear signs of progression.

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The top PR priorities, challenges and opportunities in 2026 [survey]

Image credits: Gemini and respective study

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