The 95:5 Rule

Also: Food for thought.

Marketing Qualified
February 02, 2024

GM, and welcome back to another issue of Marketing Qualified. We’re happy you’re here today! Here’s what we have queued up for you:

The 95:5 Rule. What it is and why every B2B marketer needs to live by it.
Food for thought. The best stuff we’ve added to our swipe file recently.

✅ The 95:5 Rule.

If someone walked up to you right now and asked you to explain how B2B marketing works, what would you say?

Maybe something like, “It’s complicated” or “Well.. how much time do you have?”

Or maybe you’d jump into an explanation about how marketing is all about persuasion and pushing people through the funnel.

Unfortunately, most marketers struggle to come up with an answer or answer the question incorrectly.

So what’s the correct answer?

This thing called the 95:5 Rule.

How B2B marketing actually works.

Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science conducted research proving that only 5% of B2B buyers are in the market at any given time.

This means that 95% of your audience is out-of-market and might not be ready to buy anything for months or even years!

Despite what many marketers (and sales teams 😉) think, you can’t persuade these buyers to go in-market. They already have what you’re selling and aren’t looking to buy a new version anytime soon.

Marketers don’t move buyers into the market. Buyers move themselves once they have a need.

For example, if a CFO bought a new bookkeeping solution yesterday, they’ve fulfilled their need. There’s nothing a marketer can do today or anytime soon to win a sale.

How to use the 95:5 rule.

So what should marketers do?

Most people would probably think they should focus on the 5% of in-market buyers. But that’s actually wrong.

The reason is that while 5% of buyers are in-market, not all 5% are at the beginning of their buyer’s journey. Your best chance of hitting a buyer with your marketing message is when they’re in the research phase. Only a subset of the 5% will be in the research phase at any time.

If the first time someone hears about your brand is when they’ve almost finished their buyer’s journey, you’re too late.

Instead, marketers should focus their efforts on the 95% — the out-of-market buyers.

Good marketing increases future sales. The best way to do this is to increase the chance that your brand is top of mind once a buyer does enter the market.

If all your marketing hammers your audience to buy, buy, buy with urgency, it will be irrelevant to 95% of the people. Instead, start thinking about what you can talk about that will be interesting to the 95%. Then, create that type of content.

You can’t force the buyer into the market, but you can be the first solution they think of once they enter on their own.