08 May 2025
Only 5% of B2B buyers are ready to buy now. The rest? Future customers. Here’s how smart marketing prepares for both.
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At any given time, only around 5% of your B2B market is actively looking to buy. The remaining 95% are out-of-market. Not because they are uninterested, but simply because they do not need your product or service yet. This is the essence of the 95/5 rule of marketing, a powerful insight from Professor John Dawes at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, and it should fundamentally reshape how CEOs and HR leaders think about brand investment, lead generation and long-term growth.
In this article, we will explore what the 95/5 rule means, where it came from, how to apply it, and most importantly, what your organisation can do to future-proof its marketing strategy. We will also show why hiring a digital marketing expert is key to executing a successful long-term approach.
The 95/5 rule, popularised by Professor John Dawes and further explored in work by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and companies like Dreamdata, is based on a simple premise: at any given moment, only a small percentage of potential buyers are ready to purchase. The rest are future buyers who are not currently in-market but will be down the track.
Here’s how Dawes puts it in his Marketing Science article:
“If only 5% of customers are in-market today, then 95% are out-of-market. But they are still a valuable audience – they are your future customers.”
This principle is particularly true for B2B, where purchase cycles are long. Consider how often a business switches CRM systems, accounting software, or IT service providers: typically every 3 to 7 years. That means your audience may not be looking to buy now, but they will eventually.
The mistake many businesses make is focusing only on short-term buyers a.k.a the 5%. This leads to a heavy investment in performance marketing and sales activation tactics like paid search, lead forms, and promotions. These tactics may yield results, but they are only reaching the tip of the iceberg.
The remaining 95% of your audience, those not ready to buy, are still forming perceptions, learning about the market, and deciding which brands they trust. If you are not showing up for them consistently, your brand will not be in their consideration set when they finally do enter the market.
In other words, marketing is not just about selling now. It is about building memory structures so that when the moment comes, your brand is the one they remember.
Building brand awareness among the 95% leads to increased mental availability which is the likelihood that your brand comes to mind when a buyer enters the market. According to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, this is a key driver of growth.
The benefits of long-term brand marketing include:
The B2B Institute at LinkedIn explains this concept thoroughly in their The 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing. Their research, in collaboration with Les Binet and Peter Field, shows that long-term brand building drives more growth than short-term sales activation - especially in categories with long buying cycles.
For CEOs and HR leaders looking to apply this principle in their own organisation, here are five actionable strategies:
Do not fall into the trap of allocating your entire budget to quick wins. Instead, balance your spend between:
The traditional advice is a 60/40 split in favour of brand, although this may vary by industry.
Use email campaigns, webinars, LinkedIn content, podcasts, and long-form blog posts to stay in front of your audience without pushing them to convert immediately.
Here are some nurturing ideas:
Check out Cemoh’s Marketing Resources for ideas on content that builds credibility and nurtures trust.
Short-term lead volume is easy to measure but misleading. Instead, include longer-term brand health metrics such as:
When brands invest in these areas, they often see lagging improvements in sales metrics over time.
Calculate the average buying cycle for your customers and tailor your strategy accordingly. If most clients make a purchase every 3 to 5 years, focus more on share of voice and ongoing visibility than on time-sensitive promotions.
Ask yourself:
When businesses only target in-market buyers, three things tend to happen:
As a result, brands without a strong awareness strategy become reliant on aggressive discounting, cold outreach or “chasing leads” which are an expensive and unsustainable approach.
From a talent and team structure perspective, the 95/5 rule has big implications.
If your marketing team is built only for short-term campaigns, you will struggle to gain traction among the 95%. Instead, HR leaders should focus on:
To help with hiring, Cemoh offers on-demand marketing talent and vetted consultants. Whether you need a fractional CMO, a social media specialist, or a full-time digital marketer, we can help match the right expert to your growth stage.
Learn more about our marketing consultants or contact us to get started.
Imagine a company that sells ERP software to mid-sized businesses. Their typical buyer upgrades systems once every 6 to 8 years.
If their entire marketing strategy is focused on lead generation ads (“Book a Demo Now!”), they’re speaking only to those already shopping: maybe 5% of the market.
Instead, by investing in:
… they stay visible to the 95% who will eventually become buyers. And when those buyers do go to market, guess which brand is top of mind?
A digital marketer with strategic experience is critical to executing this vision. They can help you:
This is not something to leave to chance. If you are unsure how to get started, a fractional digital marketer from Cemoh can build the plan and even help you hire internal staff or train your team.
The 95/5 rule offers a wake-up call for any CEO or HR leader stuck in a short-term marketing mindset. Most of your future customers are not ready to buy today but they are watching, researching, and learning.
Start showing up before they need you. By investing in a brand, balancing your marketing efforts, and hiring the right digital marketing talent, you will position your company to grow steadily, not just this quarter but for years to come.
Cemoh can help you build a marketing engine that reaches both in-market and out-of-market buyers. Whether you need a marketing consultant, a content strategist, or a fractional CMO, we have the talent and experience to support your goals.
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