The Beat: No Shopping

95% of your buyers are not in market

Ian Truscott
May 14, 2023

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. Delighted you are here! I’m Ian Truscott, and I intend to share a mix of what’s caught my eye from the Rockstar CMO community, the latest discussions from the podcast and our street knowledge blog.

The tune that gives the newsletter its name is No Shopping by French Montana, featuring Drake. Chosen as inspiration for this newsletter comes from an article in Marketing Week that shared research that 95% of our potential buyers are not in the market or “no shopping”!

I shared a brief thought on this article on LinkedIn, and it got a good reaction, so I thought I’d share it here, as I think if you are a B2B marketer, this is fascinating from Marketing Week and probably what many of us suspected.

According to our research with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, something like 95% of buyers are not ‘in-market’ to buy your products right now. That means effective marketing works primarily by reaching the 95% of customers who are not yet in-market, increasing the odds your brand gets remembered when those customers do enter the market in some future period.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, delivering short-term sales isn’t the most important job for B2B marketers, because only 5% of customers are ready to buy today. The most important job is influencing the 95% of future buyers who generate future cash flows

The ‘Flippening’ will usher in a Golden Age of B2B marketing - Marketing Week

This article really resonated as we B2B marketers need to invest in our brands, yes, it’s a bugger to measure, and it puts us squarely in the crosshairs of sceptical CEOs and CFOs who know enough about marketing to have heard the Wanamaker quote:

I am convinced that about one-half the money I spend for advertising is wasted, but I have never been able to decide which half.”

You know it’s Wannamaker

But as I’ve written on our Rockstar CMO blog, a strong brand (and I also believe a good content marketing game) is a marketing multiplier:

If your audience is already aware of your brand, they are more likely to respond to your campaigns - for example, in a competitive PPC market, why would they click on your ad over the other paid choices? Why open and click through on your newsletter or seek out your content?
Strong brands have less price pressure and negotiation as the buyer already perceives the product's value.
It helps in all the darker areas of marketing that we tend not to get measured on, beyond new logos, like retaining customers, reducing churn or hiring and retaining people.

But, more than these slightly tactical reasons, for the 95% who are not in the market; brand and content marketing remind them you are there for when they are ready to research and buy.

So, we must focus some budget on our brand. The Marketing Week article describes the realisation of the value of the brand by marketers as “The Flippening”:

....that magical moment when B2B businesses realise that brand marketing creates more financial value than short term performance marketing, and B2B CMOs begin to allocate at least 51% of their budgets to brand marketing.

The moment we realise that most of our audience is “no shopping” and that, in the words of this week’s tune, “I'm not a one-hit-wonder, they know all my stuff”.

Please check out the links below, have a great week and if you have any thoughts or comments on this or the podcast, please get in touch.

Cheers,

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer | Rockstar CMO

Latest on the Podcast

The Mind the Gap Analysis, B2B tech Geekery with Riaz Kanani and Becoming Inadvertently Indifferent Episode

This week Jeff shares 7 steps for assessing your marketing capabilities, Ian goes backstage with Riaz Kanani, founder and CEO of Radiate B2B and over a cocktail, Robert wonders if B2B marketing is becoming a bit inadvertently indifferent

rockstarcmo.com/166-the-mind-the-gap-analysis-b2b-tech-geekery-with-riaz-kanani-and-becoming-inadvertently-indifferent-episode

Street Knowledge

Articles from around the community that caught my eye.

The ‘Flippening’ will usher in a Golden Age of B2B marketing

Brand marketing creates more financial value than short-term performance marketing - the sooner B2B marketers flip their perspective and start allocating budgets accordingly, the better it will be for everyone in B2B.

www.marketingweek.com/b2b-flippening-brand-marketing

Back to Brand - Rockstar CMO

Dust off your marketing LPs, vinyl records, the eight tracks and maybe the gramophone because old-school brand building will be a tune the cool kids of modern marketing will need to be jumping to.

rockstarcmo.com/back-to-brand

Opting for the Short Game in Marketing May Cost You

There is still a prevailing perception in boardrooms that marketing is not an investment but a cost or a tax.

www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/in-marketing-resist-the-temptation-to-go-short

Who Is Your Brand’s Villain? - TCA: The Content Advisory - Content Strategy

Your brand's villain -- a substantial, relatable, and daunting villain -- is a vital part of your content strategy.

contentadvisory.net/who-is-your-brands-villain

10 Proven Ways to Build an Audience

If you are looking to build an adience, here is a good place to start, a special episode of Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi’s This Old Marketing Podcast from a couple of week’s ago

www.thisoldmarketing.site/10-proven-ways-to-build-an-audience-special-episode-370

Get your Monday Morning Marketing Mojo working

Thanks for making it this far! Final thing, something to get your marketing mojo working, and the tune the christened this issue. And if you have any thoughts or comments on this newsletter or the podcast, please get in touch.

The promo image used on the web page was partially created using A.I. through NightCafe Creator