95-5 rule

The 95-5 rule is the heuristic that at any moment only about five percent of business buyers are actively in the market, while the remaining ninety-five percent are not buying now but will later. The implication: marketing aimed only at the small buying group fights over a fraction of the market, while brand building among the non-buying majority fills the memory from which future purchases come. The number itself is a stylisation, not a census; the ratio varies by category and buying cycle. As a correction to the lead-generation reflex in B2B the rule is nonetheless valuable: it moves the question from whom can I catch now to who must know me later.

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