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b'You must be saying, \\u201cWhat?\\u201d This article title makes no sense, right? Well, let me assure you: you\\u2019ve read it right. I firmly believe B2B marketing is taking over B2B selling, and I\\u2019ll explain why this makes sense.\\nThe primary research of all the major analyst firms (including Forrester, SiriusDecisions and Gartner) definitively shows (doesn\\u2019t just assert) that more and more buyers are relying almost exclusively on online, digital engagement as they go through the buying process. In many cases, buyers proceed through the entire process without ever talking to a seller.\\n\\nAs consumers, all of us can relate to this phenomenon. For the vast majority of buyers, long gone are the days of getting a Sears or Land\\u2019s End catalog in the mail and then calling up an 800 number to place an order. In the consumer world, we go through the buying process online nearly 100% of the time. You can actually buy and sell a house that way, not to mention more routine purchases like cars and boats. The entire consumer experience is now online, and marketing runs that world. Sales departments take orders and provide support. So why should it be any different in the B2B space?\\n\\nIn recent history, the B2B marketing and selling environment has been quite divided functionally. The marketing world operated on a half-yearly and annual cycle, while sales operated on a quarterly cycle. Figuring out how to pass qualified leads generated by marketing to sales has always been a challenge. This is no longer the case in the B2C world, however. Why not? Because marketing runs pretty much everything, and B2C sales is all about fulfillment and customer support and care. Sales support and customer care include growing the relationship and educating the customer about potential recommendations and add-ons, but they are no longer primarily about closing the sale.\\n\\n\\u201cBut what about B2B sales?\\u201d you ask. \\u201cThe B2B sales process is highly complex. How can you not have sales people interact with the customer?\\u201d Well, actually, when you ask B2B buyers this question, most will now say that they prefer doing research on their own until they reach the point where they are absolutely sure who they want to engage with. Larger business organizations sometimes go through a more complicated request for information (RFI) or request for proposal (RFP) process, and in that case the buying process looks quite different, but organizations that are directly evaluating what to buy and do not need an RFI/RFP process can get the information and support they need through marketing alone.\\n\\nYes, only marketing \\u2013 because when B2B marketing is done competently, all of the questions a buyer has can be answered digitally via online assets. These assets might be of an overview of the product via data sheets, reference validation via customer success stories or actual product demos in the form of recorded videos. The irony is that when we think about the traditional buying process steps (awareness, interest, trial, purchase, repurchase), we still tend to believe that marketing generally stops at awareness generation and perhaps some level of interest creation, but in truth every one of these prospect/customer engagement steps can be digitized without the involvement of salespeople.\\n\\nSo, to be successful in today\\u2019s fully digitized B2B selling environment, you invest in digital B2B marketing to build trust and educate the buyer. This is where most of your investment will go, and because of that it makes sense that marketing runs the show. Whereas in the past, businesses selling to other businesses invested more robustly in sales and only incrementally in marketing, today and in the future the reverse is \\u2014 or will be \\u2014 true. You can bet on it.\\n\\nHopefully I\\u2019ve got your attention now, and maybe you\\u2019re at least willing to consider the notion that B2B marketing should be driving the sales process. It\\u2019s not that big a leap to imagine creating entirely digital engagement scenarios for a variety of ...'