Marketing
Let's use men with haircuts to explain this, because it's almost offensively obvious once you see it.
If you set up a free haircut chair on a busy street today, most men will walk straight past you. Not because they hate haircuts. Not because your offer is bad. Not because your branding is wrong. They'll walk past because they don't need one. Not today.
However, a tiny minority might, or will, stop. Those are the 5%. The ones who are "in-market" right now. They have intent. They're comparing. They're searching. They're open. They need:
The rest, the 95%, are not ignoring you. They're simply not in that chapter of life at the moment. They're not shopping. But they are forming impressions, building familiarity, collecting mental notes, and storing brand associations. And marketing, for some reason, keeps acting like everyone is always in chapter "Buy Now". It's like the consumer wakes up, stretches, checks the weather, then thinks: "Before I brush my teeth, I wonder what new insurance provider is available in my area."
Nobody lives like that. Most people are thinking about:
This is why the rule matters for objective setting. If your objectives assume a permanently "active" buyer, you will build strategies that are permanently disappointed. And then you'll blame the creative, or the agency, or the channel, or "attention spans". No. You are blaming gravity for existing.
The 95/5 rule is less about media strategy and more about psychological humility. The ratio changes by category and time window. So yes, sometimes it's 95/5. Sometimes it's 85/15. Sometimes it's 60/40. The point is the same: your market is mostly future tense.
Now, let's see how funnels play in this game. We can always use a good funnel now and then. However, they can become toxic when we mistake them for reality. The classic funnel story goes like this: people enter at the top, then we "nurture" them down, then they convert.
Lovely. Neat. Comforting.
But the 95/5 rule points out the awkward truth: most buyers are not in your funnel at all. They're not "top of funnel", BOFU, MOFU, or whatever the acronym is these days. They're just… outside. Living their lives.
People aren't thinking about Coke all day. They buy it when they're hot, social, bored, craving sugar, pairing it with fast food, or staring at a fridge full of options. Your "moment of truth" is not a philosophical debate. It's a 3-second decision in front of a cold glass, an aisle, or what the barman has.
Most people are not "in-market" for a car because they bought one, and they're financially and emotionally committed to that decision for years.
Your B2B software buyer is not "considering a CRM" every Tuesday. They consider it when leadership changes, when growth breaks the old system, when a contract ends, when compliance demands change, when something fails publicly and everyone panics.
So the funnel is not a pipe. It's a timetable. And the job of marketing is to make sure that whenever the timetable hits "buying situation", your brand is already familiar, already credible, already mentally available.
The 95/5 rule is not a "new framework" to add to your deck like a sticker. It's a reality check with teeth. It tells you that most of your future growth is sitting in people who will not click your ad this week, will not fill your form this month, and will not book a demo this quarter.
They are out there, living, postponing decisions, renewing contracts, getting distracted, getting promoted, moving cities, having kids, changing priorities. And one day, something changes. A trigger hits. And they become the 5%.
Your only real question is: when that day comes, are you already in their head, or are you about to introduce yourself like a stranger at the worst possible time?
Stay strategic, my friends.
Respect!