If you’ve read my previous article on the 95/5 rule, you’ll know that at any given moment, only around 5% of your potential buyers are actively in-market. If you’ve read some of my other content on my site or LinkedIn, you’d know a perspective I keep coming back to is that short termism destines B2B marketing to fail.
People often forget about or completely undervalue the importance of speaking to, and building the backbone of their marketing campaigns around the 95% who aren’t yet ready to buy.
This is the vast majority who are not comparing vendors, they’re not filling out forms, and they’re not going to buy from you this week, month or year – no matter how good your ad is, how often you’re showing up in their faces, how much you call/email etc etc etc. You get my point.
Understanding the rule is step one. Knowing what to actually do about it is step two.
Here’s how to build a B2B marketing campaign that keeps the 95/5 rule top of mind.
1. Stop Over-Investing in Channels That Only Reach the 5%
Performance marketing channels (Google Search, lead form campaigns, buy now messaging) are examples of a performance led approach. These channels and campaign types are great for finding and addressing the small percentage of your audience who are actively in-market and looking for a solution to their problem. But if that’s only 5% of your market at any given time, you’re competing hard for a very small pool and completely ignoring your vast majority.
This doesn’t mean abandoning performance marketing. It means being intentional about balance.
Always keep a meaningful portion of your budget for brand-building activity; content, thought leadership, brand-led paid social that reaches people before they’re ready to buy. It could also mean considering things that might seem too unmeasurable to be worth the investment – an out of home / offline media buy, attending a trade conference, or investing the time in a speaking opportunity. The goal of these campaigns and initiatives aren’t measuring ROI. It’s making sure that when someone eventually enters a buying cycle, your brand is already on their radar.
LinkedIn research tells us that 86% of B2B buyers have a ‘day one’ shortlist — and 90% end up choosing from that list. If you’re not building familiarity with the 95% who are out of market today, you won’t make it onto that list tomorrow.
One of the most often cited budget splits for brand/demand is 60/40 towards brand building vs demand gen (as outlined by Les Binet & Field), but I’ve seen lots of variations on this. Each businesses circumstance, appetite and budget for this will be different – so outside of a 60/40 split my recommendation would be lean into a heavier weighting than you might think or feel comfortable with.
It’s also worth noting here that you can have a brand campaign that does both (encourages people to reach out in the short term, even if not positioned as such), but rarely does a performance led approach have the same effect on brand.
2. Build a Marketing Journey With Multiple Ways to Engage
If the only call to action on your website is “Contact us”, “book a demo” or “talk to sales”, you’ve built an ecosystem with a one way-door – which very few people are ready to take.
Think about what it’s like from the buyer’s perspective. Someone finds you through a LinkedIn post or a piece of content. They’re curious, not ready. They land on your website. If there’s nothing for them to do except book a call, they leave; and you’ve lost them until they’re ready to have that conversation.
Your funnel needs multiple on-ramps:
- A newsletter or database they can subscribe to
- Downloadable, varied and low-friction content that’s easy to engage with; guides, framework, checklist.
- A webinar or event with low commitment to attend
- Case studies and social proof to read in their own time
- A softer “get in touch” option that feels like a conversation, not a sales pitch
Some buyers will get in touch after one touchpoint. Others will need time. Design your journey to respect both. Meet people where they’re at, not where you want them to be.
3. Get a Handle on Your Pipeline
And align your sales and marketing efforts.
You can’t see the needle moving if you don’t have numbers to look at.
At a minimum, track your pipeline on a rolling monthly view across these stages:
- MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) – all leads entering your ecosystem, regardless of quality. This still gives you a handle on whether your efforts are moving the needle in the right direction
- SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) – the most important metric that marketing can influence and should always be working towards as your north star. These are leads that have been assessed and qualified as real opportunities with a real need, budget and opportunity.
- SQL – MQL – We want to see whether quality is trending upwards over time, or whether activity is driving noise and activity, but not in the right way with the right audience.
- Closed Won – customers
- Closed Won Value – Average deal size over time
- Time to Close – how long from first touch to signed deal
Why rolling monthly? Because B2B sales cycles are long. Quarterly is too slow to catch problems. Weekly creates noise and creates a chain effect of short-termism; making changes without giving efforts and activity any chance to succeed. Monthly gives you enough signal to see what’s actually trending; is top of funnel growing? Where are leads dropping off? How are our efforts affecting other metrics; like quality of leads, deal value size and time to close?
This data also does something critical for your business: it aligns your sales and marketing teams around the same story. When both teams are looking at the same numbers, the conversation shifts from “marketing isn’t sending us good leads” to “where are things dropping off and how do we fix it together?”
Make it a standing monthly agenda item. Thirty minutes, both teams, honest conversation about what’s moving and what isn’t. It’s one of the highest-leverage habits you can build.
4. Be Patient.
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again; I’ll never stop saying it. Patience!
I say this as a reminder as much to myself as anyone else. As business owners and business leaders, you’ve been able to build your business because you move fast. You spot opportunities before everyone else – and risks as well. If something isn’t working, you want to know fast, so you can make a change.
The problem with this is – B2B marketing doesn’t work on a two-week timeline. Not even close. Brand recognition is built over years, not months. You can’t switch something on and off in 2 weeks and claim ‘it’s not working.’
If you’ve done the strategic work; you understand your audience, your channels are right, your message is sharp – then you and your team’s job now is to execute consistently and give the strategy time to compound.
Focus on the process, not the outcome. Track your leading indicators: content engagement, email subscriber growth, MQLs, brand awareness if you have the tools to measure it. Trust that the lagging indicators – (pipeline & ultimately, revenue) will follow, as long as your inputs are right.
If you’re not confident on the strategic direction – different story. Here I would recommend you take a step back, look at your channels, your team, your approach and
The businesses that get the 95/5 rule right don’t just win more deals. They build the kind of brand that makes every future deal easier to close.
What else should you be thinking about?
No.one.cares.about.your.team.lunch – stop talking about yourself
We all hate the guy you meet at a party who does nothing but talk at you about himself for 45 minutes. I see the same thing in B2B marketing all the time and it honestly kills me. Businesses create content, post things and focus their content on what they want their customers to know about them. I hate to break it to you – your customers do not care about you. People care about themselves – they want to do their job better, faster, more efficiently, smarter, more creatively – HELP THEM!
Don’t tell your customers about your latest product offerings and show them photos of your team lunch. Sure that’s good to have in the mix but for God’s sake. Answer questions about things they care about. Help people do their job better. Provide value. Make their lives easier!!!
Off my pulpit now. Moving on.
Have a perspective and repeat it often
Brand-building only works if you’re actually memorable. Most businesses sound the same. If you want to stay top of mind with the 95% who aren’t ready yet, you need a distinct perspective on the problem you solve. Have a perspective, and keep this top of mind when making your content. Generic messaging gets scrolled past. Confident, specific, slightly polarising thinking gets remembered. People also need time (lots) to build memory associations. So think about the space that you want to own, and own it through all your touchpoints.
Match your channel mix to your buyers
For most B2B businesses, LinkedIn is a no brainer – it’s where decision-makers spend time, and it allows for targeted, consistent content at scale. But don’t underestimate industry newsletters, podcasts, events, and organic search through strong long-form content. The key is consistency over time on the channels your buyers trust – not spreading yourself thin across everything at once.
Set up tracking and measurement before you start
Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are a solid starting point for understanding your digital presence, and helping track indicators over time. Before you can see lagging indicators like closed-won deals, you might see leading indicators like an increase in website traffic, engagement (time on site, pages per visit) and followers across your social pages. These are all good signs that something is working.
The Bottom Line
The 95/5 rule isn’t a reason to slow down. It’s not an excuse to hide behind and wait and see. It’s a challenge to build a more complete strategy — one that captures the 5% who are ready now, while systematically warming up the 95% who will be ready later.
Balance your brand and performance spend. Give buyers multiple ways to engage with you before they’re ready to commit. Track your pipeline with consistency. Align your teams. And give your strategy enough time to actually work.
I’ve seen it work, time and again – but only with businesses who have patience to stay the course, and understand the dynamics of how in/out of market buyers think and act.
