TL;DR
B2B marketing is often treated as a purely rational exercise of specs, whitepapers and lead forms, built for one buyer who is ready to purchase today. The research says otherwise. Only around 5% of B2B buyers are in the market at any given time, decisions are shaped by people the sales team never meets, and most buyers now prefer to do their research without speaking to a salesperson at all.
This piece looks at what that means for Singapore brands selling to other businesses, why emotion and personal risk matter as much in B2B as in consumer marketing, and how local brands like UOB and DBS have made themselves useful to business audiences. Our view is that the buyer on the other side of a B2B deal is still a person, and the work that wins is the work that understands them.
B2B Marketing in Singapore: The Buyer Is Still a Person
Ask most B2B marketers in Singapore what their marketing is for and the answer usually comes back to leads. Fill the funnel, hand the names to sales, and measure how many turn into meetings. It's a fair goal, but it tends to produce marketing that talks to one imaginary buyer who has a budget, a deadline and nothing else on their mind, and is ready to sign this quarter.
The reality is messier. The person approving a new supplier is weighing their own reputation as much as the product. Several colleagues who never appear in the CRM have a say. And most of the market isn't looking to buy anything right now. Each of these changes what good B2B marketing looks like.
Most of Your Market Isn't Buying Right Now
Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute estimates that only around one in twenty B2B buyers is in the market at any given moment, an idea LinkedIn's B2B Institute calls the 95:5 rule. The other 95% already have a supplier they're reasonably happy with, and won't look again for months or years. Business banking is the example they use. If most companies switch banks roughly once every five years, only about 2% are in the market in any given month.
This matters because most B2B budgets chase the 5%. Retargeting, gated downloads and sales-led campaigns all work on people who are already looking. The 95% don't need a discount or a demo yet. They need to know who you are, so that when their contract ends or something breaks, your name is the one that comes to mind. As the B2B Institute puts it, the brand that gets remembered is the brand that gets bought.
More People Decide Than You Think
The person who fills in your form is rarely the only one making the call. The 2025 Edelman and LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report surveyed nearly 2,000 management-level professionals and found that more than 40% of B2B deals stall because of misalignment within the buying group. It also found that these "hidden buyers", the finance heads, operations leads and IT managers who sit behind the main contact, consume almost as much thought leadership as the people sales is talking to, with 63% spending over an hour a week on it.
For a Singapore B2B brand, that means marketing has to make sense to the CFO who cares about cost and risk as much as the manager who cares about features. Content that only speaks to your main contact leaves them to sell you internally on their own.
Buyers Are Doing Their Homework Without You
B2B buyers are also making up their minds earlier and more privately. A Gartner survey of 646 B2B buyers, run in August and September 2025, found that 67% prefer a buying experience without a sales rep, and 45% had used AI tools during a recent purchase. By the time a prospect agrees to a call, they have often already formed a shortlist from what they read, watched and asked an AI assistant about. If your brand isn't part of that picture, the sales conversation starts on the back foot, or doesn't happen at all.
B2B Buyers Feel Things Too
There's a long-held belief that consumer marketing is about emotion and B2B marketing is about logic. In practice, B2B purchases often carry more personal weight, not less. Choosing the wrong software, logistics partner or agency can cost someone their credibility at work, and nobody wants to be the person who championed the vendor that let the company down.
Research from CEB and Google, reported by MediaPost, found that B2B campaigns offering personal value, such as making the buyer look good, feel confident or progress in their career, tend to get twice the lift of those that only talk about business value. That doesn't mean B2B work should be sentimental. It means the work should understand what is at stake for the person reading it, whether that's peace of mind, time saved or being seen as the one who made the right call.
What This Looks Like in Singapore
Some of the strongest B2B marketing in Singapore doesn't look like selling at all. UOB's annual Business Outlook Study surveyed around 4,200 businesses across seven markets in 2025, including 900 in Singapore, and found that the share of Singapore businesses feeling positive about the year fell from 82% to 53% after the US tariff announcements. Research like this gives business owners something they actually need, and puts the bank in the room long before anyone is shopping for a loan. It was recognised in the B2B category at the Marketing Excellence Awards Singapore 2026.
DBS took a similar route with Scam Defence for Corporates, which also won in the same category. Rather than leading with its banking products, DBS built its corporate messaging around a real worry for finance teams, which is falling for a scam that sends company money to the wrong account. Practical warnings on its business banking platform, regular updates on new scam types and a simple checklist for staff all speak to the person responsible for approving payments, and that person is far more likely to remember the bank that helped protect them.
Our Take: Market to the Person, Not the Pipeline
At LOKi, a good share of our work is for brands that sell to other businesses, from healthcare and life sciences to corporate mobility and workplace design. The briefs often start with a lead target, and that's fair. But the work that performs best usually starts somewhere else, with a clear sense of who is on the other side of the deal, what keeps them up at night and what would make them look good to their own boss.
"B2B audiences don't switch off being people when they get to the office. They still respond to a good idea, they still remember the brand that made their job easier, and they still avoid the one that made them look bad. Lead generation has its place, but if that's all your marketing does, you're only ever talking to the few who are ready to buy today." Michelle Teh, General Manager, LOKi Singapore
What B2B marketing often does | What tends to work better |
|---|---|
Talks only to buyers who are ready now | Builds memory with the 95% who will buy later |
Speaks to one contact | Gives every member of the buying group a reason to say yes |
Leads with features and specs | Shows what's at stake for the person, not just the business |
Gates everything behind a form | Shares useful thinking openly, so buyers find you while they research |
Measures leads alone | Tracks awareness and consideration alongside pipeline |
None of this means abandoning performance. It means giving the long game the same attention as the short one, so the pipeline has something to draw on next year as well as next month.
If you're rethinking how your brand speaks to business audiences, have a look at the work we've made for B2B brands or get in touch with the LOKi team to talk it through.
What is the 95:5 rule in B2B marketing?
It's the observation, from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and LinkedIn's B2B Institute, that only around 5% of B2B buyers are ready to purchase at any time. The other 95% will buy later, so brands need to stay remembered until they do.
Does emotion really matter in B2B marketing?
Yes. B2B decisions carry personal risk for the people making them, and research from CEB and Google found campaigns offering personal value get around twice the lift of those focused only on business value.
Who should B2B content be written for?
The whole buying group, not just your main contact. Finance, operations and IT often have a say, and more than 40% of B2B deals stall because the group can't agree.
Is lead generation still important for B2B brands?
It is, but it only reaches the small share of buyers who are ready now. Pairing it with brand building keeps the pipeline full over the longer term.swer
How long does B2B brand building take to show results?
Longer than a lead campaign, because most buyers only come into the market every few years. Tracking awareness and consideration among your target accounts helps show progress before the deals arrive.