The rules of B2B marketing are constantly changing. What worked yesterday won't necessarily work today. . .or tomorrow. This blog presents information, opinion, and speculation about where B2B marketing is headed.
(This is the second of three posts dealing with the use of environmental claims in marketing communications. In my first post, I described the current political backlash against some ESG-related policies, but I also noted that public support for protecting the environment remains widespread, according to recent research. This post discusses why environmental claims in marketing haven't worked as well as some research findings suggest they should.)
The current political backlash against ESG-inspired policies and programs is prompting many marketing leaders to question the wisdom of including environmental claims in their marketing campaigns.
Beyond the political risk, marketers must also determine whether the use of environmental messaging will improve marketing performance and drive revenue growth. On this issue, the available evidence paints a mixed picture.
Sustainability Marketing Is Working . . .
The Sustainable Market Share Index(TM)[1] (the "CSB Index") produced by the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business provides compelling evidence that marketing products as sustainable results in substantial market share growth.
The CSB Index is based on sales data from Circana for 36 categories of consumer packaged goods (CPG) products (excluding alcohol and tobacco). Collectively, these 36 product categories accounted for approximately 40% of the total US CPG market in sales from 2013 - 2024.
The 2024 edition of the CSB Index found that:
Products marketed as sustainable held a 23.8% market share of the total US CPG market, up 2.6 percentage points from 2023, and the market share of sustainable products has increased 9.2 percentage points since 2013.
Products marketed as sustainable achieved a 5-year compound annual growth rate of 12.4% vs. a CAGR of 6.8% for the overall US CPG market.
Products marketed as sustainable were responsible for 41% of the growth of the total US CPG market for the period of 2013 - 2024.
While the CSB Index only tracks data for selected CPG categories, it nevertheless suggests that using environmental/sustainability claims in marketing can drive significant market share growth.
But a Substantial "Say-Do" Gap Exists
David Ogilvy, the legendary advertising executive and founder of Ogilvy & Mather, once said: "The trouble with market research is that people don't think how they feel, they don't say what they think, and they don't do what they say."
Many of the surveys addressing public support for environmental sustainability demonstrate that Ogilvy's famous quip is at least partly true because they reveal a substantial say-do gap. A say-do gap refers to the disconnect that often exists between the views and intentions that people express in surveys and polls and their actual behaviors.
As I noted earlier, recent surveys have consistently shown that public support for actions aimed at protecting the environment and improving sustainability is widespread, and similar findings have been appearing in surveys for most of the past two decades.
However, numerous surveys have also revealed a substantial say-do gap between people's stated views and attitudes about sustainability and their actual buying behaviors. For example:
In a 2024 survey of more than 3,000 US and Canadian adults conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Public Inc., 76% of the respondents described themselves as "conscious consumers," but only 38% of the respondents' actual purchases were made with consideration for social, ethical, or environmental factors.
In a 2025 survey of more than 5,000 consumers in Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, the UK, and the US by Blue Yonder, 78% of the respondents said sustainability considerations are somewhat or very important when shopping, but only 29% had switched their brand loyalty to companies they perceived as exhibiting more sustainable practices.
The say-do gap is not a recent development. It's been appearing in survey findings for at least the past 15 years. For example, in a 2010 survey by Cone Communications (described in this Forbes article), 80% of the respondents said they were likely to switch brands to one that supports a cause, although only 41% said they and purchased a product in the previous year because it was associated with a social or environmental cause.
Causes of the Say-Do Gap
The sustainability say-do gap can be attributed to several factors.
Social Desirability Bias
First, some surveys may have overstated public support for sustainability, at least to some extent, because of the social desirability bias.
This bias refers to the tendency of survey respondents to answer survey questions in the manner they believe will be viewed favorably by others rather than the way they actually think or feel.
So, when a survey asks participants whether sustainability is important to them when making purchase decisions, some respondents are likely to perceive that "yes" is the "right" answer.
Failing to Capture Relative Importance
Many surveys also fail to capture the importance of sustainability in relation to other factors that influence purchase decisions. For example, a survey respondent may truthfully say sustainability considerations are important when making a purchase decision, when the reality is that sustainability is less important to the respondent than factors such as product quality, cost, and convenience.
This phenomenon is evident in the findings of a survey of 1,000 US consumers conducted by McKinsey & Company in March of this year.
The McKinsey survey asked participants to rate the importance they ascribe to seven factors when making purchase decisions. As the following table shows, 72% of the respondents said perception of quality is extremely or very important, and 70% said the same for price. However, only 33% of the respondents rated environmental impact as extremely or veryimportant.
Effectiveness of Environmental Messaging
The size of the sustainability say-do gap is also affected by how effectively marketers communicate the environmental benefits of their product or service. The persistence of a large sustainability say-do gap indicates that marketers need to make their environmental claims and messaging more persuasive.
In my next post, I'll describe the four attributes that make sustainability claims more compelling for potential buyers.
[1] - Sustainable Market Share Index is a trademark of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business
(The political backlash against ESG and other aspects of so-called "woke capitalism" is creating a conundrum for some marketers. On one hand, the backlash is real, and marketers would rather not attract the attention of anti-ESG partisans. On the other hand, recent research continues to show that a majority of people are concerned about the environment and generally support actions aimed at improving sustainability. In this post, I'll discuss the current state of support and opposition to ESG, and in my next post, I'll describe how marketers can make sustainability messaging more effective.)
The ESG Backlash is Real . . .
The political backlash against ESG, the practice of using environmental, social and governance factors to assess a company's performance and impact on society, is undeniable.
Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and end DEI performance requirements for federal contractors and grant recipients.
At least 21 US states have enacted anti-ESG laws in some form.
Several high-profile US companies - including Meta, Walmart, Target, McDonald's, Ford, Citi, Harley Davidson, and Tractor Supply - have scaled back or otherwise modified their ESG policies.
While various versions of "corporate social responsibility" have existed for decades, the modern ESG construct entered the business mainstream following the publication of an influential 2004 UN report titled "Who Cares Wins."
In the following decade, numerous research studies were published showing that sizable majorities of consumers and business buyers were placing great importance on the environmental and social track record of companies when making purchase decisions.
As a result, some marketing leaders became enamored with "purpose marketing" and began incorporating environmental and social claims and themes into their marketing campaigns.
It's not surprising that the current political environment is causing many marketing leaders to question the wisdom of using ESG-related messaging in their campaigns.
While a healthy dose of caution is warranted, most companies should not abandon ESG-related messaging altogether. That's because not all ESG-related marketing messages are equally polarizing.
But It's Not Universal
ESG is an umbrella concept that covers a wide range of issues and initiatives, and public attitudes toward those issues and initiatives vary greatly. So far, the most intense public opposition to ESG has tended to focus on social initiatives such as DEI.
In contrast, several recent research surveys have shown that most people are concerned about environmental issues and want to buy products and services that are environmentally sustainable. One of the more recent and most robust surveys I've reviewed is the "2025 Conscious Consumer Report" by Public Inc. (the "Public Inc. Survey").
The Public Inc. Survey
The Public Inc. Survey was an online survey of more than 3,000 adults (ages 18+) in the United States and Canada conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Public Inc. The survey was conducted July 11-24, 2004 among a nationally representative sample of 1.510 US adults and 1,508 Canadian adults. Survey data was weighted by age, gender and region using the latest available census data for each country.
The report states that the precision of the survey was measured using a credibility interval and that the survey is accurate (overall) to within +/- 2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The results of the Public Inc. Survey reveal broad interest in environmental issues and widespread support for sustainability.
76% of US respondents agreed that climate change poses a serious threat
70% of US respondents said that companies should be doing more in terms of sustainability and ethical best practices
79% of US respondents believe that being purposeful in how they spend their money is one of the best ways to motivate companies to change
68% of all respondents agreed that sustainable products improve the health and well-being of their children and family
65% of all respondents agreed that sustainable products improve their own lives
58% of all respondents said they would pay more for products and services that are ethical and sustainable
Perhaps most important, fully three-quarters of the respondents identified themselves as environmentally conscious consumers.
At first glance, these survey findings suggest that using sustainability claims in marketing should be an easy decision. Unfortunately, however, these findings don't tell the whole story.
First, it's important to recognize that these findings may overstate the breadth (or at least the intensity) of public support for sustainability. And second, other findings in the Public Inc. Survey suggest that the sustainability claims marketers have been using have not been all that effective at driving increased sales of sustainable products and services.
I'll address these issues in my next post, and I'll describe four attributes that will make sustainability claims more effective at driving revenue growth.
(This month's Research Round-Up discusses the 2025 B2B content consumption report from NetLine Corporation. NetLine publishes this report annually, and it consistently provides a wealth of real-world insights about how business professionals actually consume marketing content.)
Source: NetLine Corporation
Virtually all B2B companies now use content marketing in several forms, so understanding how business professionals consume content has become critical to marketing success. The 2025 State of B2B Content Consumption & Demand Reportby NetLine Corporation provides valuable insights on this vital issue.
NetLine operates a content syndication platform, and this report is based on data from 7.9 million content registrations on the platform in 2024. The NetLine research is particularly valuable for two reasons.
First, it captures the real-world consumption behaviors of business professionals. The data used for the report was not derived from surveys or interviews, but from actual engagements with B2B content.
And second, the report is based on first-party data. The business professionals who use the NetLine platform voluntarily share information about themselves and the organizations they work for in exchange for access to the content resources available on the platform.
For these reasons, the report contains a wealth of detailed information about content consumption behaviors, and I encourage you to review the full 36-page report.
Content Consumption Continues Rising
As measured by registrations on the NetLine platform, overall B2B content consumption in 2024 increased 27% compared to 2023 levels. NetLine's data shows that total demand for B2B content has grown 84% since the 2019 edition of the research.
Content consumption by C-level executives is also still on the rise, growing 27% year-over-year. In 2024, C-level executives accounted for 13% of the total demand on the NetLine platform.
Demand for content about artificial intelligence grew dramatically in 2024. The explosive growth began in 2023 when demand for AI-related content increased 6.6x compared to 2022. In 2024, demand for such content increased 2.9x compared to 2023.
Most Popular Content Formats
The ten most requested content formats in 2024 were:
eBooks
Guides
Cheat Sheets
White Papers
Articles
Research Reports
Tips and Tricks Guides
Book Summaries
Webinars
Newsletters
In 2024, content registrations for eBooks increased 71% year-over-year, and the report observes that eBooks represented more than half of all content formats requested on the NetLine platform.
The report also notes that eBooks are a very efficient content format. Every eBook asset uploaded to the NetLine platform in 2024 generated 983 registrations. In contrast, white papers generated only 60 registrations per asset.
The Consumption Gap Widens
One of the more useful insights provided by the report relates to the consumption gap, which NetLine defines as the time between the moment a content resource is requested and the moment it's opened for consumption. This data point is important because it provides a guide for timing follow-up contacts with potential buyers. After all, it makes little sense to contact a potential buyer about a content resource before he or she has reviewed the content.
In 2024, the average consumption gap was 39 hours, up from 31 hours in 2023. The consumption gap has varied over the years. Before 2024, the largest gap recorded by NetLine was 33.3 hours in 2021, and the smallest was 27.1 hours in 2018. The lesson here is that you should wait at least two days before you try to follow up with people who have requested your content via NetLine.
Content Consumption and Buyer Purchase Intent
For the past few years, NetLine's research has suggested that the content format a potential buyer chooses to consume is a good indicator of purchase timing. In the latest analysis, NetLine identified five content formats that are more likely to be associated with a buying decision within the next 12 months - playbooks, infographics, case studies, trend reports, and buyer's guides.
One format that is notably absent from this list is eBooks. Despite being the most frequently requested type of content last year, eBooks were not strongly associated with shorter-term purchase intention. This shouldn't be surprising because most eBooks are designed to appeal primarily to potential buyers who are in the earlier stages of their buying journey.
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Again, the NetLine report contains several other valuable findings, and I recommend you take the time to review the full report.
Many marketing pundits are advising B2B marketers to connect with potential buyers on an emotional level. And at first glance, this advice appears to be sound.
In their often-cited paper, "The Long and Short of It," advertising effectiveness gurus Les Binet and Peter Field wrote: "Emotional campaigns . . . produce considerably more powerful long-term business effects than rational persuasion campaigns."
But emotional messaging alone is not a guarantee of marketing success. While most successful marketing messages will evoke an emotional or psychological response in potential buyers, not all messages that induce an emotional response will produce desired business outcomes. Here's why.
Emotional Marketing that Missed the Mark
Budweiser's 2015 Lost Dog Super Bowl Ad
Budweiser's Clydesdales have become one of the most iconic images in U.S. advertising. The Clydesdales debuted in a TV ad during the 1986 Super Bowl, and they've appeared in numerous Super Bowl ads since. Dogs (and puppies) have also been prominently featured in many of these classic ads.
Such was the case with the "Lost Dog" ad that aired during the 2015 Super Bowl. This ad featured the Clydesdales and an adorable yellow Labrador puppy. Here's the ad.
Source: TrueColors via YouTube
The Lost Dog ad took top honors in USA Today's Ad Meter poll for the 2015 Super Bowl and made Budweiser a back-to-back winner. The 2015 ad was a "sequel" to Budweiser's 2014 Clydesdale/puppy Super Bowl ad, which won the USA Today poll for that year.
Given the popularity of the Lost Dog ad, you would think Budweiser considered it an overwhelming success. Well, not quite.
In a 2015 article in Advertising Age(subscription required), Jorn Socquet, then the USA Chief Marketing Officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev, offered this assessment of Budweiser's 2015 Super Bowl ads: "Budweiser aired two very different spots in last February's Super Bowl, and we learned that content focused on the quality of our beer was most effective in generating sales."
Socquet went on to say that while everyone loved the puppies, "they have zero impact on beer sales. Those ads I wouldn't air again because they don't sell beer."
Coca-Cola's 1979 "Hey Kid, Catch" Ad
Coca-Cola's "Hey Kid, Catch" TV ad debuted in the fall of 1979 and was re-aired during the 1980 Super Bowl. It depicted an encounter between the Pittsburgh Steelers' Hall of Fame defensive end, "Mean" Joe Greene, and a young fan. Here's the ad.
Source: stiggerpao via YouTube
This ad ranks high on the emotional content scale, and it was highly regarded in professional advertising/marketing circles. The ad won a Clio Award for being one of the best television commercials of 1979, and it has been listed as one of the top ads of all time by multiple sources. The ad gained international notoriety when it was re-filmed in several other countries using local sports figures.
As with the Budweiser ad, you would think Coca-Cola viewed this ad as successful, but again, this assumption wouldn't be accurate.
Sergio Zyman was the Chief Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company when the Hey Kid, Catch ad was aired. In his 1999 book, The End of Marketing As We Know It, Zyman explained his decision to pull the ad off the air.
"America loves it! People talk about it for weeks. The critics rave about it. . . The ad is so hot that Coca-Cola marketers all over the world want to translate it . . . The company should run it forever, right? Wrong. Coke doesn't run this ad forever. In fact, Coke pulls the ad altogether and launches a new campaign . . . Why would Coke do that? . . . The answer is simple. I know because I am the person who did it. My job as a marketer for The Coca-Cola Company was to get people out of their houses and into restaurants and stores to buy more Coca-Cola products - and the ad just wasn't doing that."
Why Didn't They Work?
What went wrong with these highly popular and critically acclaimed ads? Both were designed to touch viewers' emotions, and they clearly succeeded. So, why didn't they drive increased sales for Budweiser and Coke?
Why Motivation Is Critical
The short answer is that they were high on emotion but low on motivation.
The Budweiser and Coke ads illustrate a principle that is often underappreciated by marketers: Emotion can be a powerful tool in marketing, but emotional messaging without a motivational message won't produce the desired business results.
Basic concepts from the decision sciences explain why motivation is so critical to marketing success.
The Science of Motivation
Recent advances in the decision sciences have established that motivation is the primary driver of all human behavior.
The American Psychological Association defines motivation as "a person's willingness to exert physical or mental effort in pursuit of a goal or outcome." In a business context, a goal can be to solve a problem, satisfy a need, or get a particular "job" done.
As humans, we are motivated to pursue a goal because we expect to receive a reward if the goal is achieved. Neuroscience research has shown that the human brain has a "reward system" that's activated when our brain processes sensory inputs that signal a reward we value.
Research has also shown that our brain automatically scans our environment for information that aligns with our goals. So, in essence, our brain causes us to pay attention to information that's closely related to our goals.
Goals can be categorized in several ways, but two categories are particularly important for marketers. First, goals can be functional or psychological.
Functional goals relate directly to the core task or job a potential buyer wants or needs to get done. If my computer printer dies, my functional goal will be to determine what kind of printer I need and acquire a replacement. Functional goals can usually be described in terms of the features or attributes of an existing product or service category.
Psychological goals are more general and arise out of basic psychological needs that humans are always motivated to satisfy. Such basic needs include security (safety, trust, etc.), autonomy (success, superiority, power, etc.), and excitement (adventure, fun, etc.)
Goals are also either explicit or implicit.
Explicit goals are those we set and pursue at a conscious level.
Implicit goals operate at a subconscious level. We are motivated to pursue implicit goals even when we aren't consciously thinking about them.
Implications for Marketing
These principles of human motivation and decision-making have major implications for B2B marketers. The most important lesson is that the ability of any marketing message to resonate with a potential buyer is determined not by how emotional the message is, but rather by how closely the message aligns with the buyer's goals.
Therefore, your most critical job as a marketer is to craft marketing messages that will build mental associations between your company/brand/product/service and the goals of your potential buyers.
Using emotion in marketing messages is powerful because it makes your messages more memorable. That's particularly important in brand marketing because at any given point in time, most of your potential buyers, usually more than 90%, aren't actively engaged in a buying process.
You're communicating with these "out-of-market" buyers in the present, and you're hoping they will remember your message at some point in the future when they're ready to begin a serious buying process.
The bottom line is that effective marketing will convey the right motivational message in an emotionally engaging way.
An Example of Motivation Well Used
W.W. Grainger, Inc., the Fortune 500 provider of industrial MRO supplies, is currently running TV ads that illustrate how marketing messages can effectively tap into the goals that drive human motivation in an emotionally engaging way.
Several Grainger ads use the same overall theme, and some of the ads are available on YouTube. I've included links to a few of the ads at the end of this post, and I suggest you take a few minutes to view these videos. Here's one of the ads.
Source: Grainger via YouTube
To be clear, I have no relationship with Grainger, nor do I have any "inside information" about the strategy that led to the development of the ads. My comments are based on an analysis of the ads themselves.
The most important feature of all the ads is that front-line maintenance personnel are made the "heroes" of the narrative. The visuals show men and women in blue-collar working clothes, usually wearing hard hats, not executives or managers in business suits.
In the above video, the hero is portrayed as someone who always sees the big picture, not just a maintenance job, and who is capable of handling "whatever comes his way and has Grainger on his side."
This narrative appeals directly to the human psychological goals of being viewed as competent and having one's value to his or her organization fully appreciated. The ad also directly links Grainger to the achievement of those goals.
The tagline used in all of the ads - "For the ones who get it done" - captures the central theme of the ads in a memorable, concise, and effective way.
The key point illustrated by the Budweiser, Coke, and Grainger ads is: Emotion will make marketing messages memorable, but motivation is what makes them commercially effective.
Writing has been an integral part of my work throughout my professional career. I can't begin to calculate how many words or pages I've written over the past four-plus decades.
But even now, I regularly have questions about grammar, or style, or some other aspect of writing that I'm not sure how to answer. Over the years, I've assembled a small library of reference books to help me answer these questions.
I still have the Harbrace College Handbook I used in my undergraduate English course, and I frequently turn to Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. And, a couple of years ago, I added Ann Handley's great book Everybody Writes to my collection of go-to reference books.
I now plan to add Alan Barker's new book, The Complete Copywriter: The Definitive Guide to Marketing with Words (Kogan Page, 2025), to my library of writing resources. The Complete Copywriter is an in-depth guide to writing marketing content, and it should be required reading for anyone new to the craft.
Alan Barker is Managing Director of Kairos Training Limited, a UK-based consulting firm focused on developing creativity and communication skills. He also runs the copywriting masterclass offered by The Chartered Institute of Marketing, one of the UK's premier marketing professional associations.
What's In the Book
The Complete Copywriter covers a wide range of subjects relating to writing marketing content. The book is structured in six parts.
In Part 1 (Chapters 1-2), Barker discusses the attributes, skills, and habits needed to be a good writer, and he explains how copy (written content) works.
Part 2 (Chapters 3-6) describes the three steps essential to planning any form of copy - understanding and profiling the reader, articulating the argument or proposition the copy will express, and determining what voice the copy will use.
In Part 3 (Chapters 7-9), Barker explains how to structure copy for browsing readers and searching readers, and he devotes a chapter to the use of narratives (stories) in written content.
Part 4 (Chapters 10-1) introduces the reader to the fundamental principles and rules of syntax and grammar.
In Part 5 (Chapters 12-17), Barker describes how to develop a content strategy, and he explains how to create effective copy for several content formats, including websites, email, newsletters, press releases, and longer-form content such as white papers, blog posts, and thought leadership pieces.
In Part 6 (Chapters 18-19), Barker identifies the skills you need to be a successful copywriter, and he concludes the book with a detailed list of additional resources about copywriting and writing in general.
My Take
The Complete Copywriter will be a valuable resource for both beginning and experienced marketing writers.
For beginners, the book provides a thorough introduction to the craft of "marketing with words." Alan Barker writes clearly, and he makes the material in the book accessible to readers who don't have prior copywriting training or experience. He also includes numerous exercises throughout the book that should be particularly valuable for beginning copywriters.
The Complete Copywriter is also well-suited for beginning copywriters because it takes a broad approach to the subject. In the book's Introduction, Barker observed that most books about copywriting focus almost exclusively on advertising or sales copy, while marketing writers are now expected to produce several other types of content. This book focuses first on how to be a good writer and then discusses several specific content formats.
For experienced marketing writers, The Complete Copywriter will be an excellent reference book. Barker's treatment of content strategy and specific content formats is fairly basic, but I've found the chapters on syntax, grammar, and content structure to be useful.
So, whether you're a beginning or experienced marketing writer, The Complete Copywriter will be a useful resource.
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).
(This month's Research Round-Up discusses the 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Study by 6sense. The 6sense study provides detailed insights regarding how business buyers make purchase decisions in real-world scenarios. This makes the study report a must-read for anyone involved in B2B revenue generation.)
Based on a survey of 2,509 B2B buyers located in North America (37.46%). EMEA (29.77%), and APAC (32.76%).
To qualify for the survey, participants must have bought at least $10,000 USD in annualized value within the 24 months preceding the survey. The average value of actual purchases made by the survey respondents exceeded $200,000 USD.
More than 95% of the respondents were manager-level or above.
Survey respondents were drawn from five industry verticals, with the largest cohort working at tech and software companies.
6sense released the study report on October 9, 2024; the report doesn't state when the survey was in the field.
The 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Study by 6sense is one of the most detailed examinations of B2B buying behavior that I've seen recently.
The study is based on a survey that produced more than 2,500 qualified respondents, and the researchers used various statistical techniques to analyze the survey data.
The study findings, combined with the insights from the statistical analysis, paint a picture of B2B buying that differs markedly from the conventional view. Therefore, this research should prompt B2B marketing and sales leaders to reexamine their strategies from the ground up.
The Basics
The 6sense researchers asked participants about several issues that earlier studies have also addressed. For example, the study found that for these survey respondents:
The length of the average buying cycle was 11.5 months.
The average number of individuals in the buying group was 10.9 people.
The average number of prospective vendors considered by the buying group was 4.6.
On average, the survey respondents were about 70% through their buying process before they engaged directly with representatives of prospective vendors.
These findings are similar to the results of numerous earlier research studies.
Extra Insights
What makes the 6sense study particularly valuable is that it also provides insights about issues that haven't been frequently addressed in previous studies. For example:
92.6% of the surveyed buyers had prior experience with at least one of the prospective vendors they considered. 84% had experience with the vendor that was ultimately selected, while 8.6% had prior experience with only a "losing" vendor.
Buyers initiated contact with prospective vendors 81% of the time.
In 85% of the buying scenarios represented in the survey, the buying group had their purchase requirements nearly or completely set before initiating contact with prospective vendors.
When Buyers Pick a Favorite
One of the most interesting topics discussed in the 6sense study report relates to when B2B buyers identify a preferred vendor.
At several places, the report's authors assert that most B2B buyers have identified a preferred vendor before they contact any prospective vendors. For example, on page 23 of the report, the authors write:
"Buyers devote nearly 70% of their buying journey to identifying a short-list of potential providers. They review content, have internal meetings and consult with outside resources to establish their requirements and agree on a shortlist and a favored vendor. Only then do they reach out to vendors to confirm that choice, starting with the preferred vendor. They end up buying from the initially preferred vendor 81% of the time."
While I suspect this statement is probably accurate, it's not clear from the study report that the survey data directly supports this conclusion.
The 6sense researchers asked survey participants ". . . whether their first interaction with a provider organization was with the ultimate winner or instead with one of the other providers." Eighty-one percent (81%) of the respondents reported that their first vendor contact was with the ultimate winner.
The focus of this question is who buyers contact first. However, it's not clear from the study report that the survey specifically asked participants (a) whether their buying group identified a preferred vendor before initiating content with prospective vendors, or (b) what percentage of the time the preferred vendor turns out to be the winning vendor.
I'm not sure why the researchers didn't ask these questions, and I hope they will be included in future editions of this research.
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The 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Report provides great insights into B2B buying behavior. I encourage you to take the time to review the full 65-page report.
I've been advising and supporting B2B companies for over twenty-five years. I work with clients to evaluate major strategic issues and initiatives, develop effective business and marketing strategies, and implement operational improvement programs.
In the B2B marketing space, my primary focus areas are strategy development, content development, marketing process improvement, and marketing performance measurement.
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