Marketing when your B2B sales cycle takes months
A B2B sale can take half a year. What marketing should do so a lead does not go cold before the board decides.
With a long sales cycle, marketing has one job: keep your company in the buyer’s head through all the months they spend collecting offers, comparing and convincing the board.
Closing the deal is still the sales rep’s work. Marketing makes sure your company is still on the list on decision day.
Why it takes so long
Because more and more people decide. In complex B2B purchases a buying group typically has 6 to 10 people, according to Gartner. Each has different questions and joins at a different moment. Your sales rep talks to one, maybe two. The rest of the group has to be convinced by something that reaches them without the rep.
On top of that, buyers prefer to research alone. 67 percent of B2B buyers want to go through at least part of a purchase without a sales rep. They read, watch and compare. Only then do they call.
What not to do
At Ulisses, a B2B software maker, I tested Google Ads on cold traffic. It didn’t work. A complex product with a long decision sells poorly to someone who has never heard of it. The same budget works better in remarketing and educational content aimed at people already in the process.
The second trap: one big campaign, then silence. A buyer who doesn’t reply today comes back next quarter. Provided they saw you a few more times in between.
What to do so the lead doesn’t go cold
- Content for every stage. At the start the engineer asks about specs. Before signing, the board asks about risk and return. Those are two different articles and two different videos.
- Steady presence. Regular LinkedIn content, a newsletter, remarketing. No fireworks, just every week.
- Material to pass along. Your contact inside the client company has to convince people you will never meet. A good case study or a short video does it for them.
- Measuring what leads to a conversation. Website traffic says nothing. What matters is which content comes up in sales calls.
With a long B2B sales cycle, marketing keeps visibility and trust alive between first contact and decision. At dabrowskimedia I plan it as a continuous process: content for every stage of the decision and regular contact with the buyer that never feels like a hard sell.
How I do it
At BWS Event Support sales take months and don’t fit into a simple spreadsheet. So instead of one campaign there is a client newsletter in three languages with an open rate of about 60 percent. A client planning an event six months out gets BWS in their inbox every month. Clients tell the sales team themselves that BWS marketing impresses them.
I always start with a map of the purchase: who takes part, what they ask at the start and what they ask just before signing. Only then do I pick channels. The scope of work is on the fractional CMO page.
How long is a B2B sales cycle?
It depends on deal size. Small contracts close in a few weeks. Large ones, especially in industry, usually take 3 to 12 months.
Does marketing make sense if the board decides anyway?
Yes. Boards rarely decide alone. Engineers, procurement and department heads give their opinion, and marketing reaches them earlier than a sales rep does.
Who should own marketing with a long sales cycle?
One person who sees the whole process from first contact to signature and knows which content helps sales. That is the fractional CMO role.
How do you measure marketing when sales take months?
Check whether leads move through the process, not only how many there are. Ask sales which materials clients forward internally. More in how to measure marketing results.
Does your company sell on a long cycle? Book a free online presence audit and I will show you where buyers drop off.