B2B Research Report Examples
Explore examples of research reports used to build authority and drive urgency throughout the sales cycle.
What is a research report?
A research report is a long-form asset created to share original insights, industry data, or market analysis with your audience. In a B2B marketing context, these reports are typically designed to educate prospects, build trust with B2B buyers, and position your company as a thought leader, not to talk about your product.
When done right, a B2B report doesn’t just show that you know the space—it helps your audience make smarter decisions. The best ones include benchmarks, clear metrics, and takeaways that map back to your buyers’ business goals, including how to optimize spend, process, or even pricing models.
What is a B2B research report?
A B2B research report focuses on the pain points and priorities of B2B companies—especially the decision-makers responsible for big-ticket purchases.
B2B research reports help marketing teams build awareness and generate demand, while also giving sales teams something credible to use during conversations with more analytical buyers (think: cmos, decision-makers, or RevOps leads).
They’re especially useful in long, complex sales cycles where informed decision-making is part of the buyer’s process, whether that’s choosing vendors or optimizing internal strategy.
Types of research reports
- Benchmark reports: These help B2B marketers and buyers see how they stack up against the industry. Think average conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, or customer lifetime value across company size, vertical, or region. Strong benchmarking content is easy to reference, link to on LinkedIn, and reuse across other campaigns, especially when buyers are comparing pricing or performance.
- Trend reports: Trend reports help B2B companies stay ahead of the curve. These often combine public data with original insights to highlight shifting customer behavior, evolving functionality, or new use cases. They’re also great for shaping internal marketing strategy and sparking broader conversations on social media.
- Survey reports: These collect and analyze opinions from your ideal audience. For example, you might ask 500 B2B buyers how they’re investing in automation or what crm tools they plan to evaluate in the next year. These reports are gold for lead generation and for showing how businesses are adapting or optimizing tools like workflows, teams, and pricing.
- Value or ROI reports: Value studies show the impact of a product category (not just your product) and give readers a clearer sense of the expected return on investment. These are best used early in the funnel to frame budget conversations or justify new initiatives—especially when pricing comparisons are part of the discussion.
- Operational reports: These go deep into how companies manage key workflows—like onboarding, billing, or customer experience. They help decision-makers and ops teams better understand their peers’ workflows, processes, and tech stacks—and how to optimize them over time.
When should you use a research report for sales?
Research reports are most useful when you want to:
- Start conversations with B2B buyers using credible, data-driven insights
- Give sales teams something valuable to share in cold outreach or live calls
- Support content marketing with original thought leadership
- Power marketing efforts with evergreen data that works across channels
- Create lead magnets for SEO, social media, or email workflows
A great research report can stay relevant for months—or even longer—if you design it around data and insights your audience can’t easily find elsewhere.
What should you include in a research report?
- Original data or third-party synthesis: Include proprietary data where possible. If that’s not an option, find a unique angle on public data or aggregate multiple sources to offer something fresh. Tie it back to practical use cases.
- Benchmarks and metrics: Share real benchmarks, common kpis, or anonymized crm data to help readers see how they compare to peers. Metrics like conversion rate, retention, or customer acquisition cost help buyers make smarter calls—and highlight opportunities to optimize their go-to-market.
- Expert commentary: Raw data isn’t enough—add analysis. Provide context, highlight trends, and explain what it all means for your readers. This helps turn a report from a dump of stats into a useful decision-making tool.
- Easy-to-scan design: Use charts, bullet points, and summaries to guide readers. Good reports are skimmable but still feel substantial. Include templates or one-pagers to help bring the insights into calls or decks.
- Real-time relevance: Frame your report around what’s happening right now. Whether it’s AI adoption, workflow changes, or budget shifts, connect the dots between your findings and the reader’s immediate context—especially if that includes evaluating pricing strategies or tech investments.
Research report best practices & tips
- Make it about them. Focus on what matters to B2B buyers, not your product roadmap.
- Distribute with intent. Use Dock to create a workspace where you can drop the report, key highlights, and related assets in one shareable place.
- Integrate into sales motions. Train your sales team on how to use the report in email follow-ups or as a conversation starter.
- Create multi-channel touchpoints. Pull out stats for LinkedIn, blog posts, or email workflows to extend the life of the content.
- Update and optimize regularly. Reports that are updated quarterly or annually tend to perform better—especially if they’re part of your SEO or content marketing strategy.
Research report mistakes to avoid
- Turning it into a product brochure: Don’t pitch. You’re not selling—you're educating. Readers will trust your insights more if they’re not tied too closely to a sales message.
- Skipping analysis: A data dump won’t cut it. Explain the “so what.” Help buyers make sense of what they’re seeing, and offer recommendations where appropriate.
- Letting it live in a folder: If your marketing team creates a strong report but it never gets shared, it’s wasted effort. Use Dock to keep it front and center for your sellers and customer-facing teams.
- Ignoring the follow-up: The report should fuel campaigns, marketing strategies, and partnerships. Plan ahead for how you’ll repurpose the data across your ecosystem.
How to share research reports internally
- Summarize key takeaways in a short Slack or enablement doc—your team won’t read the full thing
- Tag reports in your Dock library by audience, use case, or vertical
- Pair reports with suggested follow-up workflows, like “share in QBR” or “use in ABM outreach”
How to share research reports with clients
- Send the report in follow-up to discovery or demo calls—especially when they’re still early in evaluation.
- Upload it to Dock and share the link directly to track engagement.
- Share highlights and embed the report in a Dock workspace, with relevant case studies or solution pages
- Use stat callouts in LinkedIn or email to drive traffic to the full piece
How to measure research report success
- Engagement: Track pageviews, downloads, and time spent
- Sales usage: Check if your sales team is sharing the report in live deals
- Lead generation: Monitor form fills or follow-ups tied to the asset
- CRM attribution: Use campaign tags to connect reports to deal activity in your CRM
- Dock analytics: See who viewed the report and when, to guide follow-up and prioritize outreach
- Optimization opportunities: Review performance regularly to identify ways to update or improve based on content gaps or new trends
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