You Can’t Convince Someone to Buy from You
If the above is true, why market at all? Perhaps I should explain…
By the above assertion, I mean the goal of content marketing in the business-to-business world is not to convince someone who is not in the market for your product or service to buy from you when they’re not in need. B2B decision-making doesn’t happen that way.
Yet too many B2B marketers put too much pressure on themselves to identify success metrics in a way that consumer marketers and advertisers might. If I put out a piece of content, I should expect a lead. Nope. Doesn’t work that way. At least not for B2B professional services providers.
The mistake they’re making is applying consumer marketing methodology to an ecosystem with a much longer buying cycle, a much more sophisticated buyer, and likely, a much higher price point than a typical consumer product.
Do the Opposite of What You Think You Should Do
In fact, you aren’t really marketing to shoppers at all, in the B2B space. You’re marketing to latent or dormant shoppers. Some of the marketing you do won’t even be directed at potential customers or clients at all, but rather referral sources and centers of influence, because that’s where buyers of B2B professional services to go to shop for service providers. They ask friends, colleagues or other trusted confidants.
I was fascinated by this recent article entitled, “The 95:5 rule is the new 60:40 rule.” An excerpt:
Many B2B marketers seem to think that marketing works through persuasion, ‘pushing’ buyers down a funnel by explaining the product benefits. According to our surveys, 95% of B2B marketers expect to see significant sales within the first two weeks of a campaign. And that’s a reasonable expectation, if you believe that ads convince buyers to purchase products.
How marketing actually works: The 95:5 rule
So how does marketing actually work, you ask?
The exact opposite way.
Such is the conclusion of our new research with Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. According to Dawes, only 5% of B2B buyers are in-market to buy right now. That means 95% of the buyers that you reach are out-of-market and won’t buy for months or even years. And, contrary to popular belief, you cannot persuade the buyer to go in-market because they already have what you’re selling and won’t need a newer version any time soon.
Marketers don’t move buyers in-market – buyers move themselves in-market based on their needs. For example, if an IT manager just purchased a brand new cloud computing solution yesterday, then that need is gone, and there’s nothing a B2B marketer can do to generate an immediate sale.
So what can we do?
Give up? Focus on the 5% who are in-market? Ignore the 95% who aren’t?
No. Marketers should focus on the 95% – the out-of-market buyers.
Effective marketing increases future sales in future buying situations. How? By increasing the probability that the brand comes to mind when the buyer goes in-market. Simply put, the brand that gets remembered is the brand that gets bought. You can’t push buyers down a funnel, but you can, to quote Professor Jenni Romaniuk, “catch buyers as they fall”.
If you stay focused on generating thought leadership content that purchases trust, gains influence, establishes authority, and consistently reinforces the problems you solve and the value you provide, you will be making an impact where it matters most. But because your someday-shoppers are lurking, latent and listless, you won’t have the immediate, tangible results to demonstrate that you’re making progress.
But you will be.
B2B marketing does not work like a gum ball machine. No coin in, candy out dynamic at work here. But when that 95% becomes the 5% who are in the market for your product or service, you will have already won the customer over, either directly or through the referral source who has been paying attention, and can recall your name and justify your bona fides with confidence.