Most marketing strategies are built around what companies can easily track, i.e., lead forms, demo requests, and CRM data. However, this only captures a small portion of the actual buyer journey.
Recent B2B research indicates that the average buying cycle lasts around 211 days, while most organisations only have visibility into the final 30–60 days. Additionally, buyers are nearly 70% through their decision-making process before engaging with sales, and in most cases, they initiate the first contact themselves.
This raises an important question: what happens during the earlier stages of the journey?
A significant part of that activity takes place online, including a mix of digital channels, including Meta, LinkedIn, Google, and brand websites. Online is primarily where buyers research, evaluate, and form initial preferences long before entering a formal sales conversation.
What Buyers Do During the “Invisible” Phase
During the early and middle stages of the buying journey, buyers primarily engage in self-directed research.
Problem validation is often the starting point. Buyers explore whether their challenge is widely recognised and worth solving. They look for validation across digital channels, such as social networking sites, professional networks, industry blogs, forums, and social platforms. Here they engage with content from peers, experts, and organisations that articulate similar issues. Content that clearly defines pain points tends to capture attention, validate concerns, and build early familiarity.
As the journey progresses, buyers move into vendor discovery and shortlisting. Studies suggest that over half of B2B buyers use social media for vendor research, with LinkedIn being a key platform. At this stage, buyers review company pages, employee profiles, and past content to assess credibility and expertise.
Another important activity is internal justification. Buyers increasingly prefer self-service research, collecting insights, case studies, and data points to share internally. By the time they reach out to a vendor, they often have defined requirements and a shortlist, sometimes even a preferred choice.
Why LinkedIn Plays a Central Role
The prominence of LinkedIn in this process can be explained through a few key behavioural principles.
First, risk aversion plays a major role in B2B decision-making. Purchases often involve multiple stakeholders, making safe, defensible choices more attractive than unfamiliar ones. Consistent and informative LinkedIn content helps reduce perceived risk by demonstrating expertise and reliability.
Second, the concept of mental availability is critical. Buyers are more likely to choose brands they recognise and recall easily when a need arises. Regular visibility on LinkedIn helps build this familiarity over time, especially in long buying cycles.
Finally, social proof significantly influences decisions. Buyers pay attention to peer opinions, engagement in comment sections, and mutual connections. Content shared by individuals (rather than company pages) often carries more credibility.
Implications for LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
Understanding this extended and largely self-directed journey requires a shift in how companies approach LinkedIn.
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Focus on buyer problems rather than product promotion
Early-stage buyers are not yet searching for solutions; they are trying to understand their challenges. Content that explores industry problems, common mistakes, or emerging trends is more effective in building early engagement.
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Create content that supports internal sharing
Since buyers often need to justify decisions internally, content should be easy to share. Clear messaging, concise insights, and simple visuals increase the likelihood that posts will be forwarded or reused in discussions.
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Leverage employees as brand representatives
Buyers frequently evaluate the people behind a company. Encouraging leadership and subject matter experts to share insights, experiences, and perspectives can strengthen credibility and trust.
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Measure early-stage engagement, not just conversions
Traditional metrics such as leads and form submissions only reflect the final stage of the journey. Organisations should also track indicators like content saves, shares, profile visits, and inbound conversations to understand early influence better.
Conclusion
The B2B buyer journey is longer, more independent, and more digitally driven than many organisations assume. With a significant portion of the process occurring before any direct interaction with sales, platforms like LinkedIn play a critical role in shaping buyer perceptions.
Rather than treating LinkedIn as a secondary marketing channel, companies should recognise it as a primary environment where buyers learn, evaluate, and build trust over time.
Aligning content and strategy with this reality allows organisations to engage buyers earlier in their journey and remain relevant when purchase decisions are ultimately made.
