B2B Marketing Trends: How Brands Can Incorporate Humanization into their Content
B2B marketing is evolving fast, and while AI is often at the center of the conversation, there’s also a growing opportunity to move beyond traditional, “one size fits all” strategies and lean into content that feels personal and authentic.
Let’s dive into four B2B trends — videos, hyper-personalization, niche content environments, and thought leadership — and how marketers can continue to stay ahead in the evolving AI environment.
1. Videos
Brands have widely embraced video as a powerful tool for driving engagement and capturing the attention of online audiences, with EMARKETER reporting 70% of B2B companies planned to increase their video marketing budgets in 2025. In addition to driving engagement, video content is an effective way for brands to humanize themselves. They allow audiences to see the people behind the company, hear real customer stories and testimonials, and have products brought to life.
Action steps:
- Use a video length that fits best practices for each platform
- Showcase employees, customers, or leadership in videos to bring personality and credibility to your content
2. Hyper-personalization
Hyper-personalization has been in the conversation for years, but as data and technology have become more advanced, it has become a marketing necessity. Rather than relying on excessive lead touchpoints, brands should focus on creating content that meets users where they are — delivering messaging that feels relevant to their stage in the sales cycle. Building detailed personas and tailored messaging can help brands speak to the unique goals and pain points of their audiences, making users feel better understood and connected to the brand.
As the tools available to help personalize messaging become more advanced, it is critical to make sure users feel understood without crossing the line into being invasive. In-depth hyper-personalization is often more effective when used for existing customers through email, SMS, or other direct channels than when used in broader mass-marketing strategies.
Action steps:
- Build detailed audience personas that include goals, challenges, and communication preferences
- Map content to the respective audience and objective so messaging aligns with the user’s journey
3. Niche content environments
Niche, community-driven content spaces continue to gain momentum for B2B marketers, with podcast listening alone having doubled since 2014 (Edison Research). Industry forums, Slack communities, and subreddits are engaging ways for brands and their audiences to communicate. These channels offer brands a chance to show personality and build trust in more intimate, less saturated spaces. Featuring industry leaders and SMEs allows brands to position themselves as experts while building a space for connection and community.
Action steps:
- Conduct audience research that identifies what communities or platforms your audience is a part of
- Consider if it makes more sense to target an audience across a network of podcasts, a genre, a cherry-picked podcast list, or a combination of targeting types
- Evaluate how your brand should show up on each platform: direct participation in discussions, native advertising, or in some cases, simply listening and learning
4. Thought leadership
Executives and experts that incorporate personality and authenticity into their content — whether it’s a LinkedIn post, podcast interview, or webinar — help differentiate their brands from the templated, generic material that B2B companies often leverage. Content shared by real people can build more trust than content coming from a brand page, especially with emerging strategies like employee advocacy and B2B influencer partnerships that can make content feel more relatable.
Additionally, as AI continues to pull and summarize information from across the web, the overall quality and originality of content is likely to decline. Humans will need to consistently publish original ideas and perspectives to maintain expert-driven, high-quality content that stands out — fueling credibility and attracting more qualified leads.
Action steps:
- Encourage leadership and SMEs to regularly post or speak about industry trends with their own point of view
- Repurpose thought leadership across formats — blogs, posts, quotes — to increase reach and impact
What this means for marketers
Even as AI continues to become a key part of our marketing strategies, it is not a 1:1 replacement for human touch. Leaning into trends that prioritize authenticity and connection helps brands build trust, add perspective, and create content that actually resonates.
