57% - It Was All a Lie
If you're like most people with even a passing association with Marketing, at some point you've probably heard the claim that 57% of the decision process is complete before the buyer ever talks to a salesperson.
Well, here's the truth: It was all a lie - made up by an Inbound Marketing agency back in 2011 to justify their services.
But because it was such a convenient way to avoid accountability, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, and wasted, on Marketing programs that never pay off.
So, here's the rest of the story.
When I first heard the claim, it sounded nonsensical.
I mean, first, how do you even come up with such a precise number around an entirely subjective process?
And then what about the cases where the prospect doesn't know they have a need? Like with a new product. How does that even work?
So I called the company and asked to purchase a copy of the study. And, to my surprise, they couldn't - or wouldn't - provide it.
Why not?
At first, they said it was because I wasn't a customer. But eventually I talked to someone there named Melanie, who told me they couldn;t send it to me because didn't actually do a study. They just made the whole thing up based on a casual conversation with one customer over lunch.
So, I thought, okay, no study, no problem. No one will believe it; and life will go on.
But you DID believe it.
And so now while thousands of Marketing Agencies, and a whole slew of platforms have made billions of dollars based on a lie - hundreds of thousands of business, if not more, who wasted all that money on SEO, Search Marketing, Inbound, email, Intent Marketing, and a whole bunch of other scams, have gone out of business.
And what's worse is that there's now a whole generation of so-called Marketing professionals who've been trained on this nonsense - with no clue that it is, actually, nonsense.
I talk about the failure rates in other posts, but lest you think that it's okay to believe in fairy tales, let me show you something that you may not have noticed.
You see, here, on their little diagram that they published with the abstract from their so-called study. Notice where the timeline begins.
With "due diligence".
Now, wait a minute. At what point in the Sell Cycle does "Due Diligence" come in?
When you're creating awareness? Nope.
When you're stimulating interest? Nope.
When you're converting a lead? Nurturing? Engaging with a decision maker? Uncovering Needs? Nope. Nope. Nope. And nope.
Due Diligence comes in after the prospect has already decided they have a need, and they're vetting options.
So not only does their timeline ignore the 80% or more of the Sell Cycle that occurs before Due Diligence, but if your first engagement with the prospect is here, you're probably not even Column Fodder.
And even worse, if your Marketing program is focused on targeting this blue area - after Due Diligence begins, your messaging is going to be wrong, your targeting is going to be wrong, your media selection is going to be wrong, and your positioning is going to be wrong.
And you wonder why turnover among Marketing and Sales professionals is 65% at the two year mark, according to LinkedIn.
You've been scammed.
