Not too long ago, business headlines were proclaiming the death of marketing. CMO roles were being cut from major brands, and some experts warned that CMOs were becoming obsolete, or at best subordinate to Sales.

Of course, marketing is far from dead. It's alive and kicking, but its power is tragically misunderstood—even by many marketers themselves.

New research my team and I conducted quantifies just how crucial marketing is in B2B buying, revealing that marketers own the first 70% of the buying journey. Which means it's Marketing, not Sales, that wins over buyers—or fails to do so.

In this article, I'll explore the research, discuss its implications for revenue teams, and do my best to rally marketers to harness their power in the B2B buying journey.

By understanding and influencing the customer experience during that initial 70%, marketers can become key drivers of pipeline and revenue for their organizations.

The B2B Buyer Experience Research

As noted, the recent B2B Buyer Experience Report found that 70% of the buying journey happens before buyers reach out to sellers. Furthermore, 84% of the time, buyers make their decisions before talking to sellers and tend to buy from the first company they engage with.

However, that doesn't mean sellers should aggressively reach out and push for meetings,; doing so can backfire. The crucial point here is that the first engagement is typically guided by marketing efforts, not those of Sales.

From Current State to Future State

Imagine a typical scenario: a team within a company identifies an issue with the current system and starts exploring potential solutions. Team members begin their research online, visiting vendor websites, attending webinars, and sharing information internally. Despite the initial flurry of activity, many of those interactions remain anonymous.

Six months later, after numerous internal discussions and consultations, the team reaches a consensus on a preferred vendor. They then reach out to set up demos, and opportunities are created for each vendor; however, at this point, one vendor (the preferred one) has a much higher chance of closing the deal, whereas the others scramble to increase their odds.

That scenario underscores the importance of early and continuous engagement. Traditional lead generation has established our content as a trap—a trick to get people's information so we can contact them. But buyers know it's a trick, so they don't do it except under great duress, which explains why only 3% of buyers fill out forms.

Instead of treating content as a conduit to leads, marketers would do better to focus on creating useful resources and making them freely available. The goal, after all, is to help buyers identify how you solve problems for them.

By making content frictionless to access and attractive to consume, marketers can win buyers to their brand and solutions, then create offers and experiences that will inspire them to engage.

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B2B Marketers Own 70% of the Buying Journey. Why Aren't They Acting Like It?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Kerry Cunningham

Kerry Cunningham is head of research and thought leadership at 6sense, an AI-powered ABM platform.

LinkedIn: Kerry Cunningham