Marketing

How Millennials Impact the Buying Cycle: What You Need to Know and How to Adapt

September 19, 2017

The buying environment is becoming increasingly complex. A few reasons are likely top of mind including the emergence of new competitors, frequency of touchpoints, ever-shortening buyer attention span, and so on. But have you considered how a generational shift in your prospects’ demographics might impact the buying environment as well?

Today’s B2B buying committees are growing more diverse as Millennials take their seats alongside Generation X and Baby Boomers. To better understand the specific ramifications of this shift, SnapApp recently conducted research with over 500 professionals.

I sat down with Aaron Dun, SnapApp’s SVP of Marketing, to learn more about the research. Read on to learn what they uncovered and the implications a generational shift has on the B2B buying process.


Ashley Minogue: Can you give us insight into the impetus behind this research?

Aaron Dun: This is an incredibly complex selling process, getting harder by the day. Furthermore, the rise of the millennial generation is undeniable. I think traditional B2B marketers on a whole have disregarded the “millennial problem” because they think it’s a B2C thing. They’re all on Instagram or Snapchat – that’s not our problem if we are selling to the B2B enterprise. However, our research shows very clearly that the millennial generation is rapidly aging onto the B2B buying committee.

AM: Your research indicates over 40% of millennials are either making the buying decisions or influencing them today. What does this mean for marketing and sales tactics?

AD: That’s right, marketers and sales reps need to get ahead of the game and start to adapt to this new environment. For example, we have found overwhelmingly in the millennial generation that the whitepaper is actually the least used tool for early stage research. It’s not that the content isn’t good and valuable – it’s just not the right way to gauge buying intent from the onset.

Marketing teams need to recognize that 60% of millennials don’t want to engage with sales until they are in the middle of their buying process. They operate like “sale avoiders” – reps need to be aware of the research that happens before they even interact with a prospect, and react accordingly. This puts even more onus on marketing to educate prospects in the formats in which they want to engage.

Our hope is that organizations will begin to consider how tactics should vary based on the generation of their buyer. On a macro-level, marketing to millennials needs to walk the line between being available and relevantwithout being intrusive. You must look for signals of intent to engage when they are ready and have captivated their attention.

Want more information on how Millenials are impacting the buying cycle? Access a library of resources here including the full research report and a quiz to assess how well you know B2B buyers or listen to a webinar here.

Ashley Minogue

Senior Director of Growth

Ashley is Senior Director of Growth on OpenView's Expansion team. She helps OpenView’s portfolio companies achieve repeatable scale via marketing, sales and pricing strategy optimization. Most frequently, she partners with the portfolio on projects related to improving lead funnel conversion, customer segmentation, sales process, pricing and demand gen. Prior to joining OpenView, Ashley was the Senior Manager of B2B Strategy & Analytics at Wayfair.com. Her efforts spanned marketing, BDR optimization & funnel analytics to help the B2B business grow by 9x in just a few years. Before Wayfair.com, Ashley worked as a consultant for Simon-Kucher & Partners, the global marketing and strategy consulting firm known as the world leader in pricing.