# The 95:5 Rule

> A finding by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (John Dawes): only about 5 percent of a B2B market is in-market at any given time. Marketing aimed only at those 5 percent competes with everyone for the same small pool, the other 95 percent need mental availability for the day they enter the market.

- Canonical URL: https://www.convios.com/en/methods/95-5-rule
- Language version: https://www.convios.com/de/methodik/95-5-regel
- Status: Externally proven
- Method library: https://www.convios.com/en/methods — Markdown: https://www.convios.com/en/methods.md

## Problem

Your budget flows almost entirely into channels that pick off in-market prospects, paid search, retargeting, comparison sites. Cost per deal climbs because every competitor bids for the same 5 percent, while the 95 percent of future buyers do not have you on their shortlist when their buying trigger arrives.

## Approach

1. Split the marketing budget by audience: addressing the in-market 5 percent (capture) versus building the brand with the 95 percent out-of-market.
2. Invest in mental availability for the 95 percent: recognizable messages, consistent presence in the audience's channels.
3. Define the buying situations in which the brand should come to mind, and tie messages to them.
4. Set expectations on the time horizon: brand effect on out-of-market buyers only shows at their next buying trigger.
5. Keep capture channels running, but stop treating them as the sole growth engine.

## Example

A typical case: a B2B SaaS in the finance space raises its paid search budget three times in a row, but the extra deals fail to appear, the in-market pool is simply exhausted. The team starts publishing systematically for the 95 percent: expert pieces and recognizable theses in the audience's channels. Over the following quarters, new prospects increasingly report having had the company "on the radar for a while" when their buying trigger arrived.

## Limits

The rule is an average across markets; the actual in-market share varies by category and buying cycle. Brand building with the 95 percent works with a long delay and is hard to attribute short-term, which demands patience in budget discussions. For companies in acute pipeline distress, reallocation alone is no solution.

## Metric

Suitable observations: the share of new customers who already knew the brand before their buying trigger (self-reported), plus the trend in cost per deal in capture channels.

## Sources

- Advertising effectiveness and the 95-5 rule: most B2B buyers are not in the market right now, John Dawes — Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia, 2021 · academic and scholarly literature · supports the underlying mechanism. Original work by John Dawes; from average B2B buying cycles (roughly five years between repurchases, roughly 90 days of sales cycle) it derives that only about 5 percent of business customers are in the market at any given time, and argues that advertising therefore works mainly by building memory links for later buying occasions. It does not measure the in-market share. (https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/advertising-effectiveness-and-the-95-5-rule-most-b2b-buyers-are-not-in-the-market-right-now)
- The 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing, Les Binet und Peter Field — Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), 2019 · investment, consulting and analyst firms, industry bodies and public agencies · evidence of effectiveness. Establishes the consequence of the rule: campaigns that raise awareness, and with it mental availability, are the most effective in B2B, and budget has to be split between brand building and activation. (https://ipa.co.uk/effworks/marketing-marketing-v2/five-principles-of-growth-in-b2b-marketing)
- Primary source: Advertising effectiveness and the 95-5 rule: most B2B buyers are not in the market right now, John Dawes (https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/advertising-effectiveness-and-the-95-5-rule-most-b2b-buyers-are-not-in-the-market-right-now)

## Related

- Method: [Demand Creation vs. Demand Capture](https://www.convios.com/en/methods/demand-creation-vs-capture)
- Method: [The 3.5:1 Give-to-Ask Ratio](https://www.convios.com/en/methods/give-to-ask-ratio)
- Method: [Brand as Repeated Pairing](https://www.convios.com/en/methods/brand-as-repeated-pairing)
- Tool: [Astro](https://www.convios.com/en/toolbox/astro)