Why is Most B2B Marketing So Forgettable? Research Reveals the Answer

Every marketer wants to make an impact. Today, with 80 percent of the sales cycle happening in digital or remote settings, you’ve never had a greater opportunity to directly influence buying decisions.

And the number one factor driving those buying decisions? Memory.

Your buyers interact with your marketing in one moment, but they make the decision to buy in the future. That means the messages and assets you create must stick in your buyer’s mind long enough to influence their purchase decision.

Unfortunately, most marketers don’t believe their content is memorable or actionable.

In a recent industry survey, 87 percent of B2B marketers admitted they’re unsure or don’t believe that their audience acts on their content.

Even though the vast majority of marketers (91 percent) agree that it’s important for their audience to remember their content, only 26 percent feel confident that the marketing materials they produce are, in fact, memorable.

Why? What makes most marketing content so woefully forgettable? And what can you do to make sure your buyers remember your marketing?

How Much Do People Forget?

Studies show that people remember, on average, only 10 percent of the information they consume after 48 hours. This percentage varies—sometimes, they may remember three percent, sometimes 12 percent, but on average, it’s a tiny portion.

Now, imagine your content reaches five prospects at the same company. Research suggests that the small amount of information they remember from your content will be completely random. If you don’t control which part of your message they remember, each of those five prospects will walk away with a different interpretation.

That kind of random memory is exactly the wrong outcome if your goal is to drive consensus around a specific buying decision. You don’t want your buyer just to remember something—you want them to remember the right thing.

Why Most B2B Marketing is Forgettable

Research has identified four common problems that make B2B marketing forgettable:

• ​Messages lack situational context – If your marketing message doesn’t apply to your buyer’s specific situation—for instance, whether they are a prospect or an existing customer—your audience won’t care to remember it.
• ​Content is unfocused – If the resulting content lacks a clear focus and a crisp, well-articulated idea, your audience won’t remember what you want them to remember.
• ​Visuals are uninspiring – If you don’t present your offers using appealing, well-designed visuals, your audience will forget to act on them.
• ​Stories get lost in the crowd – Without a compelling narrative that speaks to the decision-making part of the brain, your story (and your brand) get lost in the crowd.

You may be competing against people’s natural tendency to forget most of the information they view. Still, you can improve your messages, content, visuals, and stories to ensure your audience remembers you better.

How to Make Marketing More Memorable

If marketing is influencing more buying decisions, and the primary factor driving decisions is memory, it naturally follows that the way to ensure buyers act on your marketing is to make it more memorable.

So, how do you do this?

• ​Develop situationally specific messages based on buyer psychology.
• ​Create unforgettable content assets that get audiences to focus on the most important parts of those messages.
• ​Design compelling visuals that persuade buyers to act versus just looking pretty on the page.
• ​Build stories that intentionally drive memory, decision, and action.

In this article series, you’ll discover new research and marketing skills in those four areas that will guide your buyers’ decisions in your direction.

Get the report, Making Marketing Memorable, to dig deeper into the research.

Read the other articles in the series:

• ​Marketing is Moving Further Down the Sales Funnel
• ​How to Create a Consistently Effective Marketing Message

---

More than ever, your prospects and customers rely on digital content to learn, form opinions, and decide whether your solution will help them meet their business goals. But if the goal is to create content that persuades buyers to choose your solution, why doesn’t most content drive decisions the way it should?

---

Everyone recognizes the value of storytelling in business. But most marketing stories don’t move the audience to make buying decisions. Here are three science-backed ways to make your marketing stories more engaging, memorable, and persuasive.

---

Your audience is looking at your content to inform their buying decisions. But how will they remember your message if it looks the same as most other content they see?