Business-to-Human marketing builds trust, not friction in the B2B sales cycle!
As backlinks, social media targeting, and AEO bring a digital-first approach to marketing, followed-up by direct sales outreach to prospective buyers, are we getting further away from the core tenets of what make the optimal B2B buying experience?
It would seem that these impersonal and often invasive tactics are actually driving buyers away from sales reps. According to Gartner, the number of B2B buyers who prefer a rep-free experience has increased – up to 67% now.
Buyers are people too
We’ve been here before, more B2B tech buyers believe corporate brand messaging is too vague to actively represent a brand and attract buying interest. Then there’s the expansion of the personas involved in the buying cycle, now an estimated 6-10 people are involved in purchasing B2B technology – including the ones you can’t predict!
It’s understandable that B2B marketers can’t be all things to all people in the buying process, but there were some interesting takes in a recent article by Andrew Kyrejko of Momentum Worldwide on The Drum.
The piece advocates for a people-led approach in today’s digital age and rethinking how we approach the word “buyer”.
B2B marketing and PR needs to be B2H
A business-to-human (B2H) approach recognizes that a “buyer” spends 95% of their time being someone else entirely: they are leaders navigating a continuous human decision cycle – dealing with a multitude of opinions and criteria for every purchase.
Consider two buyers Kyrejko highlights:
The modern decision maker (MDM): “Usually, an over-scheduled senior leader. They aren’t looking for a pitch or even a solution in the abstract. They are looking for a shortcut to certainty. They avoid sales reps because they are protective of the mental bandwidth required to lead. Instead of being sold to, they want to be empowered to lead their organization through change.”
The modern decision influencer (MDI): “These are the internal subject matter experts who roll up to decision makers. They’re focused on discovery and risk mitigation. They spend more of their time than ever in digital peer groups and ungated resources because they need genuine insight to build internal consensus. Instead of being coerced into supporting a deal, they want to co-create an environment of confidence in partners.”
We’re not talking buying their favourite can of soda here, these are multi-million-pound software purchases with long implementation periods and huge potential repercussions for business operations. That’s why trust counts.
Because these decisions carry such immense weight, trust and credibility are paramount. Automated emails and invasive digital tracking don’t build trust, they build friction. To truly connect, brands must pivot from highly transactional, algorithmic marketing to authentic (and human!) relationship-building.
So if they’re avoiding sales reps – what are they doing?
If 67% of these buyers are actively avoiding sales reps, what are they doing? They are conducting their own research. They are reading industry publications, seeking peer reviews, and looking for objective third-party validation.
This is where people-to-people PR becomes the ultimate bridge between a B2B brand and its audience.
Replacing hard sell with valuable insight
When a brand relies on earned media, thought leadership, and expert commentary, it replaces the hard sell with valuable insight. By focusing PR efforts on educational, human-centric storytelling, marketers can intercept these buyers – be they visible or hidden – during their independent research phase with content that genuinely helps them.
Eradicating vague messaging through real-world stories
As we’ve noted in our previous blogs, generic corporate messaging is failing B2B tech brands. The antidote to vague messaging is specificity – and nothing is more specific than a human story.
Instead of relying solely on feature-heavy specification sheets or jargon-laden whitepapers, marketers need to elevate their customer champions. Case studies should read less like a list of ROI statistics and more like a narrative about a business leader overcoming a critical operational hurdle. When a CFO or an IT Director (two common figures in that 6-10 person buying committee) reads a story about a peer who solved a similar problem, the technology provider suddenly becomes tangible, relatable, and human.
Stripping back the ‘Buyer’ label
B2B tech marketing doesn’t have to be cold and clinical. Behind every complex software investment is a group of human beings trying to make the best decision for their careers, their teams, and their organizations.
By implementing a B2H approach and leveraging authentic, people-to-people PR, marketers can build the trust necessary to navigate today’s increasingly rep-free buying cycles. When stripping away the “buyer” label, we stop treating people like transactions and start earning the trust that drives sales deals.
Jamie Kightley is Head of Client Services at IBA International.
