Marketing leaders must recognize analysts as influential voices within buying networks, shaping decisions, partner strategies, and market narratives. Generic analyst relations (AR) programs often fall short, so marketing teams need targeted techniques that grow individual analyst mindshare and deliver measurable impact. Embedding ongoing collaboration into analyst interactions accelerates their ability to guide informed buying decisions and amplifies vendor brand credibility across the ecosystem. This report, the first in a two-part series, explores how vendors can build strong influence with analysts to deliver business benefits while also respecting their independence.

In complex buying networks, analysts play a pivotal role as external influencers who shape buying decisions, partner strategies, and market narratives. This report, the second in a two-part series, builds on the first report about how vendors influence analysts to show marketing leaders how to embed direct and indirect analyst influence into sales, media, and partner engagements. By extending analyst reach across the buying network, vendors achieve measurable marketing and business outcomes.

Analyst reports dominate the buying journey; in Forrester’s Buyers’ Journey Survey, 2025, they rank as the first or second most meaningful or influential content asset. Analyst impact grows with the size of the organization: Enterprise buyers are up to 10 percentage points more likely than their peers at very small businesses to say that analyst reports are meaningful in the discover, evaluate, or commit stages. Smaller businesses face tighter budgets, so vendors should invest in analyst report reprint rights to make these assets accessible when their brand is under consideration. By doing so, vendors can strengthen trust and influence purchase decisions across businesses of all sizes.

Globally, demand and ABM decision-makers say that organic social media is a very effective delivery mechanism, but this perception varies by country and sales stage — important to know when selecting tactics, budgeting, and benchmarking performance. Of Australian respondents, 42% say that organic social media is the most effective delivery channel at the presales stage, against just 19% in Germany. Among French respondents, 35% say that it’s the most effective channel at the pipeline stage, versus just 20% in Singapore. And 40% of respondents in Australia and India say that organic social media is the most effective delivery channel at the postsale stage, against just 23% in the UK and Singapore.

Marketing leaders face a critical reality: Industry analysts hold significant influence over buying decisions. Buyers trust analysts more than vendor executives or sales teams, and that trust shapes every stage of the purchase journey.

Marketing leaders must embed analyst relations (AR) into their vendor growth strategy to maximize business value. AR influences buying decisions, enhances brand credibility, and accelerates pipeline velocity. This report outlines how to structure and execute an AR program that delivers measurable impact across the buying network. It helps marketing leaders understand how AR can unlock new avenues for brand positioning and market influence. This is the first in a series of reports that explain how vendors can better use industry analysts to shape buyer behavior and drive growth.

Field marketing is undergoing a shift and not necessarily in the right direction. Strategic responsibilities are expanding, yet performance metrics remain stubbornly anchored in outdated demand generation models. Learn five key actions field marketing leaders can take now to avoid being trapped in a downward spiral of misalignment.

Field marketing faces a growing misalignment between strategic responsibilities and performance metrics. Field marketers are increasingly accountable for account-based and customer marketing but are still primarily evaluated on short-term demand metrics like pipeline influence. Centralization, generative AI (genAI) adoption, and budget constraints are reshaping operations, but often at the cost of local relevance and efficiency. This report uses data from Forrester’s 2025 State Of B2B Field Marketing Survey to highlight these disconnects and provide insight to help field marketing leaders realign KPIs, optimize resource use, and better integrate emerging tech to drive long-term value.

The traditional search-to-click path has collapsed — yet many B2B marketing teams still rely on outdated content strategies. APAC marketers: Learn a better path forward at Forrester’s B2B Summit APAC this November.

The next 12 months must be a year of grace under pressure for B2B marketers. Technology advancements, changing buyer behavior, and expectations for a personalized customer experience won’t stop, even as volatility persists. Marketing must understand trends and the impact of market forces on their customers and their businesses and build a roadmap for 2026 to both capitalize on and defend against these trends. This report shows where demand/frontline marketing should invest, divest, and experiment in the coming year.