Why Buyers Do 80% of Their Research Before Contacting You — and What That Means for Your Marketing
Research on B2B buyer behavior has been telling the same story for over a decade, and the numbers keep moving in the same direction for self-directed research. In 2015, CEB (now Gartner) found that buyers completed 57% of their journey before contacting a vendor. Forrester updated that figure to 70% in 2019. Today, Gartner data shows that B2B buyers spend only 17% of their total buying time in direct contact with potential vendors — meaning roughly 80% of the journey is self-directed.
If you sell any solution with a long and complex sales cycle, those numbers should change how you think about your marketing. By the time a prospect reaches out, they may already have a short list of vendors. You might not be on it.
Here’s what’s happening — and what to do about it.
What Does the Self-Directed Research Look Like?
Your prospects aren’t sitting around waiting for a sales call to start learning. They’re searching, reading reviews, comparing providers, and forming opinions long before anyone from your company knows they exist.
By the time a buyer contacts a vendor, they’ve typically already done three things:
- Identified the problem they’re trying to solve
- Narrowed down the type of solution they need
- Developed a short list of companies worth talking to
The prospect who finally emails you isn’t at the beginning of their process. They’re close to the end. Think about what that means for your pipeline.
A prospect spends weeks or months educating themselves, gets comfortable with the landscape, and decides which vendors seem credible. Buyers create a shortlist before contacting any vendors, and 95% of the time, the winning vendor was already on that initial list of vendors. If you weren’t visible during that research phase, you’re not on that list.
Why Buyers Prefer to Research On Their Own
Buyers don’t trust vendors to give them objective information. That’s not criticism, it’s just how purchasing decisions work. They’d rather find answers through their own research than rely on a sales rep who has an obvious stake in the outcome.
This is especially true for companies buying critical solutions. These aren’t impulse purchases. A buyer needs to understand what the problem is, what kinds of solutions exist, how providers differ, and whether the investment makes sense. Studies reveal that 87% of B2B buyers prefer to research product information on their own before speaking with a sales representative.
The takeaway here is important. Buyers want to be educated. They just want to do it themselves, at their own pace, without pressure. That’s a marketing opportunity for you, not an obstacle to your sales process.
What This Means for Your Marketing
If buyers are doing their research without you, your marketing needs to show up in that research. Your website and your content are your sales team during the first 80% of the buyer’s journey. A salesperson who isn’t in the room can’t build a relationship. Content can.
There are three things your marketing must do during that self-directed research phase. It must get found, which means showing up when buyers search for the problems you solve. It must build trust, which means giving buyers something genuinely useful, not just promotional material. And it must keep buyers moving toward you, so that when they’re ready to contact a vendor, you’re already on their list.
Content that doesn’t appear when buyers are searching, or that doesn’t answer the questions they’re asking, leaves you invisible to your best prospects.
The Content Gaps That Leave You Off the Shortlist
Many companies publish content about themselves. Their services. Their team. Their certifications. That kind of content has its place, but it doesn’t help a buyer who is still figuring out what they need.
A buyer in the early stages of their journey isn’t ready for a pitch. They need education. They’re asking questions like: What do we need? What are our options? If your content doesn’t address those questions in the buyer’s own language, you’re not part of their research.
Common gaps include: no content that addresses the buyer’s pain points directly, no content that explains the problem before pitching the solution, and nothing that answers the most basic question a new prospect has “Do I actually need this?”
How to Show Up in The Buyer’s Research Before They Know They Need You
The fix starts with thinking like your buyer, not like a marketer.
Map the questions your prospects are asking. They try to understand the problem. They’re searching for things like “Why is our network so slow?” or “How can I get more leads from our website?” Publish content that answers those questions directly. That’s how you get found before a buyer knows they need you.
Educational content formats are worth serious consideration for businesses with complex sales cycles. An educational email course (EEC) is a unique tool that makes you stand out from the crowd. It lets a prospect learn at their own pace while staying in your ecosystem. It’s the closest thing to a reference check they can do on their own, at any time of day, without asking anyone’s permission.
By the time they finish the course, they know what you do, they’ve seen evidence that you know your subject, and they’ve been building a relationship with your company for days. They’ve moved down the sales funnel before you even know they’re there.
The Data Is a Roadmap, Not A Warning
The research has been consistent for a decade. Buyers are doing more research on their own, consulting more sources, and contacting companies on their vendor shortlist. Companies that understand this and build their marketing around it earn a spot on that shortlist before competitors ever know the buyer exists.
Your prospects are researching on their own right now. The only question is whether you have the tools to help them find and establish a relationship with you when they do.
If you want to beef up your pipeline, find out more about how an EEC can help. Let’s talk.
#leadgeneration #leadnuturing #eductionalemailcourse #marketing
Kathleen Allardyce is the founder of Getting It Write, Inc., a B2B content and marketing consultancy specializing in Educational Email Courses for companies with complex sales cycles. If your pipeline feels harder to fill than it should be, let’s talk.
