Why Winning Non-Buyers Is The Key Path To Brand Growth

By Kate Newstead, Marketing Science Lead at the B2B Institute

Let’s start with two key points about non-buyers of your brand:?

1) There are lots of them. The large cohort of non-buyers is already well documented across many B2B and B2C categories.?

A recent example from the B2B world: in a 2022 research project with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute we took a detailed look at the buying habits of 345 CRM decision makers. In this category, the biggest brands like Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe had ~50% penetration (meaning 50% of CRM buyers don’t currently buy from the market leader, Salesforce). Smaller brands have an even bigger opportunity: eg, Monday.com, Zoho and Freshworks, each have a penetration of 5% or 6% (94% of CRM buyers don’t currently buy a CRM product from these brands. No matter the brand size, the path to growth requires converting more non-buyers into brand buyers.?

2) They don’t think about you much. These are the buyers that know you the least, since they’re not actually your customers (yet).?

Even if they know of you, their memories easily erode. The human brain can more easily access things that are relevant, familiar, and recent. This is a particularly salient point for B2B categories where purchase cycles are often very long, with years between brand buying occasions. Plus the non-buyers are all humans: with more important things than CRM software brands to think about (like what’s for dinner tonight and what to watch next on Netflix).??

But it’s not all bad news. To leverage this knowledge of non-buyers B2B marketers can…?

• Target a wide audience. Don’t obsess about who is in-market to buy now and who won’t be in market for another 3 years. This is expensive, time-consuming, and often inaccurate. As a rule of thumb: cast the net wide to include as many potential target buyers and decision committee members as you can afford with your budget. For example, reach as many of the 29 million LinkedIn members who are IT Decision Makers as possible (global audience available in Campaign Manager).
• Maintain regular brand presence. Build and refresh memories of your brand to increase the chance that a buyer will think of your brand the next time they are in the market. Regular, consistent, and relevant messages are key here.?
• Think beyond advertising. These communication principles can apply to all marketing touchpoints. While the ‘how’ will differ for all brands, thinking creatively about the places, moments, and tools available to your brand can increase your chances with non-buyers.??

The non-buyers of your brand are an obvious growth opportunity.

The simple principle of smart targeting and consistent brand presence can help you to increase the chance of converting a non-buyer into a ‘not yet’ buyer.