When the Most Important Goal in B2B Marketing Is to be Remembered

Over the past several months, I've come to believe that we need a new operating model of B2B marketing, one that more accurately reflects how businesspeople actually make buying decisions. My conclusion is based on four proven truths about B2B buying.

• At any given time, only a small percentage of a company's potential customers are actively engaged in a buying process for products or services like the company provides.

• A buying trigger is almost always required to prompt potential buyers to initiate a buying process, and marketing activities alone usually won't be sufficient to trigger a buying process.

• When a buying trigger occurs, most business decision-makers will create a mental list of potential vendors they believe are worth considering. This initial consideration set is formed before any research is done, and it's based on the mental impressions a buyer has formed from past interactions and experiences.

• Most business buyers make most of their purchases from companies in their initial consideration set. (Bain & Co. and Google, 2022)

These ground truths reveal some of the major disconnects between current B2B marketing practices and the real-world behaviors of business buyers. Today, for example, many B2B marketing programs are designed to persuade potential buyers to begin a buying process, even though the evidence shows such programs are largely ineffective.

Companies are also spending substantial resources on programs designed to engage decision-makers who have already begun a buying process. In contrast, B2B marketers are investing far less in programs designed to get their company into buyers' consideration sets, even though that's often decisive for winning business.

The Real Goal of Marketing to "Potential Future Buyers"

If marketing can't usually persuade out-of-market buyers to begin a buying process, what should marketers try to accomplish with these individuals, and what kind of marketing works best for this purpose?

Numerous studies have shown that a strong brand will significantly influence the future decisions of out-of-market buyers, but marketers need more specific guidance to create effective programs for this audience.

To achieve success with out-of-market buyers, the starting point is to recognize that the people we call out-of-market buyers aren't actually "buyers" in any meaningful sense of that term. They may become buyers in the future, but they aren't buyers today. Therefore, they shouldn't be expected to behave like people who are actively engaged in a buying process.

In these circumstances, your ultimate objective when marketing to potential future buyers is to have your company included in their initial consideration set when they become active buyers.

To increase your odds of achieving that objective, you need to use marketing messages and tactics that will increase the mental availability of your company.

The concept of mental availability is closely associated with Byron Sharp and his colleagues at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. In his book, How Brands Grow, Sharp defined mental availability as ". . . the propensity for a brand to be noticed or thought of in buying situations."

Mental availability is, therefore, different from simple brand awareness. It refers to the likelihood that a business decision-maker will think of your company when he or she experiences a buying trigger and decides to begin an active buying process.

Message Attributes that Boost Mental Availability

Your marketing messages must exhibit three attributes to create mental availability.

• They must clearly link your company to the needs or challenges your potential buyers are most likely to experience.

• They must be memorable. You're communicating with out-of-market buyers at a given point in time, and you're hoping they'll remember your messages at a future point in time when they perceive a need and are ready to begin a buying process.

• They must be easy to consume, and most should be brief.* Remember that out-of-market buyers aren't actively looking for the information your messages are providing. So, they won't be inclined to spend much time or effort consuming content about a topic that (at the moment) isn't a high priority.

I discussed these attributes in more detail in this recent post.

The Takeaway

Initial consideration sets will include the companies that potential buyers mentally associate with specific needs. It's these associations that create mental availability. Therefore, your job when marketing to out-of-market buyers is to build and refresh the memory structures that link your company to the needs or challenges your potential buyers are most likely to encounter.

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*There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and that applies to the rule that marketing messages for out-of-market buyers should be brief and easy to consume. High-quality thought leadership content can also be very effective with out-of-market buyers. In the 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report by Edelman and LinkedIn, over 75% of the surveyed B2B decision-makers and C-suite executives said that a piece of thought leadership content has led them to research a product or service they weren't previously considering, and 54% said that an organization's thought leadership content has prompted them to research the organization's offers or capabilities.

Image courtesy of Mike Lawrence (www.creditdebitpro.com) via Flickr (CC).