LinkedIn Marketing Solutions vice president of marketing Jim Habig and LinkedIn global vp of sales solutions Alyssa Merwin shared their takes on three trends that they believe will strongly impact business-to-business marketing in 2023.

Both executives at the professional network see evolving buyer preferences causing significant disruptions to the b-to-b buying process, noting that with economic uncertainty causing decision-makers to seek ways to do more with less, some traditional elements of the buying journey are becoming outdated.

Shifting buyer preferences will disrupt the b-to-b purchase path: “There is little resemblance between business-to-consumer purchase paths today and those of a decade ago. But in b-to-b, the opposite is true,” Habig said. “With very little change in the b-to-b buying process over the past few years, the industry is poised to undergo a significant transformation in the coming years, driven by evolving buyer preferences for more transparency and control over how they engage with brands.”

He pointed out that although buyers are continuously exploring new products and services, only 5% of them are actually in the market to purchase at any given time, but brands must still strive to reach the other 95% with the right message at the right time.

Habig believes buyers exploring potential solutions will seek ways to limit risks in their decisions, “which will reshape the purchase path and lead to new innovations in how brands go to market.”

Relationship-building will be framed as a key performance indicator: Merwin said deals have stalled for 81% of sellers in the past year due to a key stakeholder in the deal changing jobs or leaving the company altogether, making it vital for sales organizations to invest more time into nurturing existing relationships and mapping out new strategic relationships they need to build.

She added “In 2023, sellers will likely hear ‘no’ and ‘not right now’ more than in years past as many organizations will be slow to agree to new investments, further extending b-to-b sales cycles.”

With this in mind, some leaders of sales organizations have begun tracking relationship building as a KPI or adding the health of relationship-building within targeted accounts as a dimension to pipeline reviews.

“Wallet share will be challenging to gain this year, but sellers can prioritize gaining mindshare in order to ensure that they’re in a strong position once budgets open up,” Merwin said. “The increased focus on relationships will be a pivotal development, given that it is a fundamental shift from the smile and dial approach of transactional sales performance from the past few years.”

Unwelcome outreach will damage brand and seller reputation: Merwin sees a move away from “canned, impersonal sales outreach” and toward a focus on the potential buyers with the highest likelihood to convert, investing more time in “meaningful and personalized outreach” with those buyers.

She pointed out that the top sellers in LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2022 report spend 10% less time broadly selling, using that time for more in-depth preparation for engagement with high-probability buyers.

Merwin said, “2023 will be the year that canned, impersonal sales outreach poses a significant risk to company brand and seller reputation. In a period of economic slowdown, decision-makers will have to ruthlessly prioritize resources while managing headwinds such as layoffs, hiring freezes and reduced budgets. In this environment, irrelevant and shallow outreach from a seller will shift from benign annoyance to a demonstration of poor judgment, leaving buyers with a negative impression of the seller and likely damaging that company’s chance of landing a future deal.”