Why B2B companies need to build stronger brands

Here’s the kicker: only about 5% of B2B buyers are actively in-market at any given time. That means the remaining 95% aren’t looking to make a purchase, but they’re still forming impressions, learning about your brand, and deciding who to trust when the time comes.

This is the old but still relevant 95:5 rule, and it's why the most successful B2B companies are doubling down on long-term brand building. In fact, B2B marketing and brand investments have tripled over the last decade, reflecting a major shift in how companies approach growth (LinkedIn B2B Institute, 2024).

Why? Because the active 5%, those who are ready to buy, don’t make decisions in a vacuum. Nine out of ten buyers choose a company they already know and trust. According to Google (2023), most B2B decision-makers create a shortlist of potential vendors before they even begin searching seriously, and 90% of purchases come from that initial list.

If you’re not building brand awareness and relevance with the 95%, you’re invisible when the buying journey begins.

This shift is playing out at the highest levels of marketing. In 2024, we saw more pure-play B2B Super Bowl ads than ever before – a clear sign that B2B leaders are waking up to the value of mass reach, emotional storytelling, and long-term brand equity.

Big names like CrowdStrike, Workday, and ServiceNow didn’t run those multimillion-dollar ads for short-term pipeline. They did it to be top-of-mind in a crowded, competitive market.

And it’s working. Companies that invest consistently in brand outperform those that don’t: on awareness, market share, and ultimately, revenue.

Most B2B marketing strategies are still overly focused on capturing short-term demand from the 5% of active buyers. But this approach is becoming less effective in a digital-first world where buyers are better informed and harder to reach through traditional tactics.

Winning in the future means thinking bigger. It means marketing to the full market, not just the hand-raisers. It means investing in distinctive brand assets, building emotional connection, and showing up consistently across channels – even when buyers aren’t ready to act.

The brands that start doing this now will be the ones that show up on the shortlist tomorrow.

At Manyone, we take an outside-in approach to building brand experiences, placing real people, their needs, and motivations at the heart of every decision.

This enables us to build strategies that guide branded experiences that don’t just look good – but resonate, engage, and move people. We help brands:

1. Map the customer experience: Understand what the shortest journey to drive customer engagement by mapping the most critical experience drivers.

2. Know your channels: Define your most valuable touchpoints – where you've historically been most attractive for customers – and how to amplify them in less than five steps (MVP Journey)

3. Customize your content: Run Content Sprints to explore the most exciting ways to engage your audience using AI and workflow automation to optimize content and channel mix.