TrustRadius and Pavilion Reveal 2024 B2B Buying Trends–B2B Brands Are in Crisis Mode

B2B technology buyers have doubled down on know-and-try-before-you-buy, making brand awareness more imperative than ever for companies wanting to succeed.

Today, in collaboration with Pavilion, the world’s largest private community for go-to-market leaders, TrustRadius published its eighth-annual B2B Buying Disconnect report. Each year, the report identifies the disconnect between B2B technology buying behavior and preference and how sales and marketing teams go to market.

This year’s report titled, 2024 B2B Buying Disconnect: The Year of the Brand Crisis, explores how the dynamics of the self-serve buying journey and the economy have dramatically shifted buyers’ focus to brands they have already heard of and have experience with. Companies that built brand preference and trust are at the top of short lists. From there, buyers’ research is to prove their technology choice to the rest of the buying group and stakeholders.

Marketing Technology News: IZEA Introduces Astra Generative Image Model in FormAI

Top 5 Takeaways in 2024:

• Short lists are shrinking. On average, they contain only two or three products. With 71% of buyers ultimately purchasing their top choice, it is imperative to be a frontrunner.
• Products are shortlisted before research begins. 86% of enterprise buyers short-listed a product they’d already heard of before starting the research process. This makes brands that are top-of-mind more likely to win.
• Buying group sizes are stabilizing. Similarly to 2023, 96% of buying groups have five or fewer members, and 53% have at least one member of the C-suite.
• Deal cycles are moving quickly. 87% of buyers (65% enterprise) indicated their purchase was completed within six months.
• Vendors are spending less on brand awareness. Discretionary marketing spending favors demand generation (53%) over brand awareness (38%).

The findings in this report were gathered and analyzed from the survey results TrustRadius received and verified from 2,164 technology buyers and 243 go to market (GTM) professionals from technology vendors.

“Companies focus heavily on demand generation in 2023,” says Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius. “Demand generation is necessary, but we now see how hyper focusing on that and not intermixing brand awareness throughout the buying journey hurts vendors, especially those in niche markets or who are up-and-coming. Vendors who want to succeed and grow in 2024 and beyond will want to address the findings and insights we lay out in this report.”

To help highlight the importance of brand awareness, TrustRadius collaborated with Pavilion, a global community for B2B leaders dedicated to community-powered learning, to bring this report to life.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Andrew Bennett, Chief Marketing Officer @ Conga

Pavilion’s Founder and CEO, Sam Jacobs, says, “B2B technology buyers are having more conversations with their peers about brands with familiar names before making a final purchase decision. Like the driving force for Pavilion, the power of conversations has now hit the marketplace. This is an incredible opportunity for brands to grow closer to their customers, start and join conversations, and truly shine through the competition.”

TrustRadius and Pavilion will discuss this year’s report findings in a LinkedIn Live on Thursday, June 13, 2023, at 12 p.m. ET. Allyson Havener, TrustRadius’ SVP of Marketing and Community, will lead the conversation alongside Pavilion’s Founder and CEO, Sam Jacobs, and Pavilion’s SVP of Marketing, Kathleen Booth.