6sense Research’s latest report, released today, offers startling insights about the way B2B buyers make decisions, including:
- Who they choose to buy from
- The length of the sales cycle
- How you can effectively sell to them earlier in their buying process*
(*spoiler: you can’t)
The report, Out of Sight, (Almost) Out of Time, reveals that buyers make critical decisions during their anonymous research phase — what 6sense calls The Dark Funnel™. This phase encompasses at least 70% of the buyers’ journey.
Revenue teams have long known that buyers do a lot of research before reaching out for sales conversations. What was less clear was how much that research phase influences final decisions.
Three staggering insights
- 84% of deals are won by the first vendor that a buyer contacts. This indicates that buyers have usually picked a winner and are merely conducting due diligence when speaking with other vendors.
- 78% of the time, buyers have already established their requirements, including budget and capabilities, by the time they engage sellers. That means sellers have already lost most of their chance to shape the ultimate deal, or to convince the buyer to consider alternate means to hit their goals.
- The 70% of the buying journey spent conducting research within The Dark Funnel is consistent, regardless of the length of the journey. If buyers take 10 months to buy, they’ll spend seven months in the Dark Funnel. If they take 20 months to buy, they’ll research anonymously for 14 months.
The upshot: You need to exert influence in the buyers’ journey before they reach out to you and make it easy for them to put you at the top of their short list as they’re building it.
The Biggest Mistake a Lot of People Will Make
What we just said above — about influencing the buying journey before buyers contact you — does not mean to start hammering the phones or sending spam, hoping to talk to buyers earlier in their journey. It’s annoying, and it doesn’t work.
“Even when buyers do respond to sales development representatives, they do not have first contact earlier than those who initiated the contact,” analysts Kerry Cunningham and Sara Boostani write in the report. In other words, buyers are not responding to sales rep outreach until they’re ready. You can’t goose them into a conversation until they have done their independent research.
The 70% threshold “is effectively a constant in B2B buying … consistent across industries and departments, as well as solution and purchase types, and solution price points,” they write.
How You CAN Beat the Odds
To win more deals and influence buying decisions, you must influence accounts before they are willing to have direct conversations.
This means injecting yourself into The Dark Funnel, using:
Intent data…
- To understand which accounts are engaged in research
- To spot the topics and keywords they are researching
AI-driven predictive intelligence…
- To see when accounts move from one buying stage to the next
- To gain insight into buyer personas
Dynamic segmentation and omnichannel integrations…
- To quickly shift accounts into different audience segments as their research and buying stage changes
- To deliver consistent messaging tailored to keywords, company details, and buying stage
The goal isn’t to short-circuit the research process, but to enable it. Buyers may not be ready for a conversation, but if you can deliver great content that points them toward a solution, they’re likely to read it (or watch it, or listen). And that’s how you earn their trust and win the opportunity to make the case for your solution.
By the time they are ready for a conversation, you’ll have given yourself the best shot at being atop their short list.
Bonus Highlight: What Influences Buying Cycle Length?
As mentioned at the top, the report also discusses the factors that influence buying cycle length — which has grown significantly in recent years. One huge factor: The number of vendors considered. As each new vendor enters the equation, the number of conversations between buying team members and vendors grows exponentially.
Kerry, a former Forrester analyst who leads 6sense Research, has suggestions for how to speed up sales cycles by helping buyers reduce the number of vendors they are considering. Check it out for more insights.
