If you work in B2B technology or SaaS marketing, you already know that today’s buyers do most of their research BEFORE they ever engage with your brand.
They compare products, read reviews, summarise content with AI tools and build internal business cases long before your salespeople reach them. They don't want or need to be sold to. They want to be supported as they build the case with stakeholders and decision makers.
This changes what effective B2B marketing looks like and the importance of buyer enablement. And this trend is only set to accelerate as we move in to 2026 and beyond.
"Buyer enablement eases the growing pressure on buyers to make good purchase decisions by equipping them with the tools they need to evaluate you fairly and advocate for you internally."
- Marketing Fusion
Putting the buyer at the centre
The new B2B buyer: Independent, empowered and overwhelmed
The hidden pressures behind every B2B purchase
What does good buyer enablement look like?
Buyer enablement brings empathy to the buying journey
Begin with the buyer — and let us help you get there
Buyer enablement is the practice of providing buyers with the information, tools and support they need to make a confident purchase decision, on their own terms. It's not a new concept but it's at the forefront of many marketers' minds today.
This is because today's buyers aren’t just informed, they’re self-directed, AI-assisted and navigating a landscape full of rapid innovation, overlapping products and competing claims.
The biggest lesson emerging from all of this is that nothing you do as a marketer will work unless you begin with the buyer. You need to replace telling people why your product is great with helping them understand how to choose the right solution. Most importantly, you need to support them in explaining that choice internally.
That last part is even harder than it used to be, due to more stakeholders, more complexity, more scrutiny and much more pressure to get it right. Buyer enablement eases the growing pressure on buyers to make good purchase decisions by equipping them with the tools they need to evaluate you fairly and advocate for you internally.
The modern buying journey is almost unrecognisable compared to a decade ago. Recent research from Forrester shows that close to 89% of B2B buyers use GenAI tools before they ever speak to a salesperson. They compare vendors, summarise complex documentation, build internal business cases and test narratives — all long before you ever see them, and all completely anonymously.
This largely invisible stage — often called the “dark funnel” — means that by the time a buyer actually reaches out, they’ve already formed strong opinions about your product and your competitors. The traditional discovery phase barely exists anymore. Instead of helping buyers explore, sales teams are now being asked to validate decisions buyers have already made.
'“Buyer Enablement is the practice of empowering your internal champion to close the deal when you’re not in the room.”
- Garin Hess
Now let's consider the internal complexity buyers face. One of the most prominent figures in the buyer enablement movement is Garin Hess, who is widely credited with coining the term ‘buyer enablement.’ As Hess puts it, in the title of his famous book, 'Selling is hard, buying is harder'.
Choosing a new SaaS tool is rarely an individual decision. Stakeholders must consider budgets, risk, compliance requirements, procurement, logistics and the ever-present pressure to justify every investment. There's a particular pressure on the internal champion to fly the flag for your solution or the wider project, and bring the other stakelholders along with them.
According to Hess, "…yes, you need to sell (educate, consult, persuade etc.) the champion, but after that, you need to empower and equip the champion to sell for you."
It’s no wonder many people find buying a stressful and challenging process.
We've been talking for many years about how to ease the stress and empower the B2B buyer as this 2019 blog How can we help B2B buyers to buy? outlines.
Until now those shifts have been largely slow and sporadic. Many organisations weren’t ready to change but now, thanks to AI, they don't really have a choice. Buyer enablement is suddenly a must.
While buyers have adapted new AI tools and new behaviours almost overnight, vendors are playing catch up. You could say that there is a widening gap between how buyers buy and how many brands still market.
Traditional marketing focuses on storytelling, positioning, and persuasion. As an agency, we still place huge importance on these things, but on their own, they are no longer enough. What buyers now need is more support. They want to feel confident in the decision they’ve almost or already made and are about to champion internally.
Brands like Wistia, Oyster and Notion have embraced this approach with great success, as have many of our own clients. When you stop thinking about what you want to say and start thinking about what your buyers need to move forward, performance improves.
So, what kind of material can buyers use to navigate their internal conversations? It can include things like:
In other words, the more you equip buyers to make a confident case internally, the smoother the entire journey becomes for them and for you.
Buyer enablement recognises the emotional aspect of B2B buying, everything from the uncertainty and the internal debates to the growing pressure to make choices that won’t backfire in six months.
For many buyers, the fear of choosing the wrong solution is real and your job as a marketer is to allay those fears. You can do this by providing tools that simplify these decisions, by making complex ideas easier to explain and by being transparent about what buyers can expect. This turns you from just being a vendor to also being a partner in their buying decisions. You become consultative, supportive and, if all goes well, a trusted, favoured brand.
At Marketing Fusion, we work with technology brands and SaaS companies to build content, tools and campaigns that genuinely support the buying process. Our goal is to help you build a more buyer-centric approach that reflects how decisions are made today, not how they worked five years ago.
If you’re starting to explore buyer enablement — or simply sensing that your buyers have moved faster than your marketing — we’d be happy to help you shape a strategy that meets them where they are.
Because when you begin with the buyer, everything becomes easier — for them and for you.
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