For many manufacturing and construction businesses, marketing is still treated as a supporting activity: something used to produce brochures, organise exhibitions, update the website or generate enquiries when the sales pipeline begins to soften.

That view underestimates the complexity of modern B2B buying behaviour and the commercial role marketing can play.

Customers no longer move neatly from seeing an advert to contacting a salesperson and placing an order. They research independently, consult numerous sources, compare potential suppliers and involve colleagues with different priorities. Much of this activity happens before the supplier knows that an opportunity exists.

This creates a challenge, but it also presents a significant opportunity for industrial brands. By understanding how customers behave and organising marketing around the buying cycle, manufacturing and construction businesses can become visible earlier, support buyers more effectively and improve their chances of reaching the final shortlist.

The first reality businesses need to accept is that only a small proportion of their potential market is likely to be actively purchasing at any given time.

The LinkedIn B2B Institute’s widely referenced 95–5 rule suggests that approximately 95% of potential B2B buyers are “out of market” today. They may be satisfied with an existing supplier, be operating equipment that does not yet need replacing, or be waiting for a project, budget, or contract renewal. However, many will eventually enter the market.

The precise percentage will vary between sectors. A frequently purchased consumable will have a very different buying cycle from a production line, building system, specialist vehicle or major construction contract. Nevertheless, the underlying principle is commercially important: most future revenue will come from organisations that are not ready to buy at the moment your sales team wants to sell.

This is why a strategy focused entirely on immediate lead generation is too narrow. Search advertising, outbound email and sales prospecting can help capture existing demand. But they do little to build awareness among the much larger group that may require a solution next quarter, next year or several years from now.

Marketing must therefore perform two roles simultaneously. It should help capture buyers who are actively looking, while building familiarity and trust among those who are not yet in the market.

Waiting for an invitation to tender can mean arriving too late. Research published by Google, drawing on work with Bain, found that 92% of B2B buyers already had a shortlist of preferred suppliers before beginning the formal buying process.

This does not mean every shortlist is fixed or that an unfamiliar supplier cannot break into it. It does mean that awareness and reputation influence commercial opportunities long before procurement issues a request for information or a quotation.

For manufacturers and construction businesses, the implication is clear. If a buyer encounters your business for the first time when the tender lands, competitors may already have months or years of accumulated familiarity. They may have been visible in search results, industry publications and LinkedIn discussions. Their technical content may have helped the customer understand a problem. Their case studies may have reassured operational colleagues. Their sales team may already have developed relationships with influencers inside the buying organisation.

This is why marketing should not begin with the tender. It should begin with the market.

Many businesses still assume that a buyer’s first meaningful step will be a conversation with sales. Increasingly, that is not the case.

Gartner reported in 2025 that 61% of B2B buyers preferred an overall buying experience that did not depend on a sales representative. This does not make salespeople irrelevant. Buyers still seek human support when they need reassurance, interpretation, technical context or help validating information. The change is that they want greater control over when that interaction happens.

Before contacting sales, a potential customer may want to understand the problem, explore possible solutions, compare technologies, review specifications, assess compliance, investigate lifecycle costs, see evidence from similar applications and establish whether the supplier appears credible.

If this information is unavailable, difficult to find or written entirely from the supplier’s point of view, the buyer may not make contact. They may simply move to a competitor that makes the research process easier. Your website, content and supporting sales materials must therefore do part of the selling before a salesperson enters the conversation.

A modern B2B buying journey rarely takes place in one location. McKinsey’s research found that B2B customers use an average of ten interaction channels during the buying journey. These can include supplier websites, search engines, email, phone calls, video conferences, face-to-face meetings, procurement portals, web chat and industry events.

For manufacturing and construction businesses, the channel mix might also include trade media, distributors, consultants, architects, technical advisers, professional bodies and recommendations from existing customers.

The opportunity is not to be everywhere indiscriminately. Few businesses have the budget or resources to maintain every possible channel effectively. The goal is to understand which channels matter at each stage of the buying cycle and to ensure they work together.

A buyer who sees a LinkedIn post, searches for the subject, visits the website, downloads a guide and later meets the company at an exhibition should encounter a consistent proposition and connected body of evidence. Disconnected marketing creates friction. Integrated marketing builds confidence.

Complex B2B purchases are rarely decided by a single individual. Gartner reports that buying groups can range from five to 16 people across as many as four functions. Its research also found that 74% of B2B buyer teams experience unhealthy conflict during the decision-making process.

This is particularly relevant in manufacturing and construction, where a purchasing decision may need to satisfy engineering, operations, health and safety, finance, procurement, sustainability, project management, site teams and senior leadership.

Each stakeholder sees the purchase through a different lens. An engineer may focus on performance and compatibility. Operations may worry about reliability and downtime. Finance will examine total cost and payback. Procurement may prioritise commercial terms and supplier risk. End users may care about usability and support.

A single generic brochure is unlikely to answer all these concerns. The marketing opportunity is to create a shared case for change while providing relevant proof for each stakeholder. Gartner found that buying groups reaching consensus were 2.5 times more likely to describe their eventual purchase as a high-quality deal.

Good marketing therefore helps customers buy internally, not just buy from you.

Buyer behaviour can appear fragmented, but the buying cycle provides a practical structure for responding to it. The journey will not always be linear. Buyers may move backwards, repeat stages or complete activities in a different order. Nevertheless, the buying cycle helps businesses identify what customers are trying to achieve and what marketing needs to provide.

1. Awareness and future demand

At this stage, most of the audience is not actively buying. The objective is to build recognition around the problems, applications and buying situations the business wants to be associated with. Appropriate activity could include trade media, social content, video, search visibility, public relations, events and expert commentary. The immediate measure should not always be an enquiry. Reaching the right audience, branded search, engagement, website visits, and growing awareness can all indicate progress.

2. Problem recognition

The customer begins to recognise a cost, risk, inefficiency or opportunity. Marketing should help them understand the problem and its commercial implications. Useful formats include diagnostic tools, articles, research, checklists, guides, webinars and educational videos. This content should focus less on the product and more on helping the customer define what needs to change.

3. Research and solution exploration

The buyer starts investigating different approaches. Here, the business needs to explain available options, trade-offs and selection criteria. Comparison guides, technical explainers, application pages, frequently asked questions and expert-led content can make complex decisions easier. This stage is particularly important because buyers increasingly want to explore solutions independently.

4. Evaluation and supplier selection

The buyer begins comparing potential suppliers. Product specifications, service information, case studies, technical data, accreditations, warranties, implementation plans and total-cost calculations become more important. Marketing must replace broad claims with evidence. “High quality”, “market-leading” and “innovative” mean little without proof.

5. Validation and internal consensus

The preferred option still has to survive internal scrutiny. This is where stakeholder-specific materials, business cases, return-on-investment tools, reference customers, risk information and sales presentations become valuable. Content should be easy for an internal champion to share with colleagues. The goal is not merely to persuade one contact. It is to help the wider buying group reach agreement.

6. Purchase, implementation and advocacy

Marketing should not stop when the contract is signed. Onboarding content, training, project communications, service updates and customer success materials help reassure the customer that they made the right decision. Strong delivery can then be converted into testimonials, case studies, referrals and repeat business. In markets with long replacement cycles, maintaining the relationship between purchases is essential.

Thought leadership is particularly valuable during the early and middle stages of the buying cycle. The 2024 Edelman–LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 73% of decision-makers viewed thought leadership as a more trustworthy way to assess an organisation’s capabilities than conventional marketing materials and product sheets.

The same research reported that 60% of decision-makers would be willing to pay a premium to work with organisations that produce valuable thought leadership. This is an important distinction. Effective content is not simply a lead-generation tactic. It can increase confidence, reduce perceived risk and support a stronger value position.

For businesses facing margin pressure, that matters. A supplier that clearly demonstrates expertise, understands the customer’s challenges and provides credible evidence is better placed to compete on value rather than price alone.

Research from the Content Marketing Institute found that 68% of manufacturing marketers considered search engine marketing and pay-per-click to produce their best paid-channel results. It also found that 85% viewed LinkedIn as the social platform delivering the best value for their organisation.

These figures should not be interpreted as an instruction to put the entire budget into search and LinkedIn. Channel effectiveness depends on the audience, category, geography and buying stage. They do, however, reinforce the value of being discoverable when buyers research and maintaining visibility among professional audiences before demand becomes active.

The central opportunity created by changing buyer behaviour is not simply to produce more content or appear on more channels. It is to become easier to understand, easier to evaluate and easier to choose.

A buying-cycle strategy connects marketing activity to the customer’s questions at each stage. It helps the business balance long-term awareness with short-term demand generation. It provides different stakeholders with the information they need and enables sales teams to enter conversations with greater recognition and credibility.

For manufacturing and construction businesses, this offers a more commercially useful way to approach marketing budgets. The question is not: “How much promotional activity can we afford?” It is: “What must we invest to remain visible, credible and useful throughout the way our customers buy?”

Businesses that answer that question properly are more likely to enter the buyer’s mind before the project starts, reach the shortlist before the tender is issued and create preference before price becomes the deciding factor.