A few weeks ago we ran a brand survey for a B2B company selling into mid-to-enterprise. They weren’t sure if it was worth doing. “Feels like no one’s buying right now.” “The market’s quiet.” “We should just focus on capturing demand.” That thinking is common — and it’s usually backed by the stat: Only 5% of your market is in buying mode at any given time. But the results told a very different story: 79% of respondents were either actively buying or planning to 56% planned to make a purchase in the next 90 days It wasn’t that nobody was in-market. It’s that they weren’t being remembered. Buyers knew their competitors. Recalled their names. Couldn’t name them. Not unaided. Not even when prompted. It reminded me of something I saw recently in a Replit dashboard: A long list of platforms. Color-coded bars for recognition. Dozens of brands. But some? No name shown at all. Just empty space. That’s what invisibility looks like. That’s what brand neglect leads to. Here’s what I took away: Just because you’re running ads doesn’t mean you’re showing up Just because you’re in the category doesn’t mean people remember you And just because you have a performance team doesn’t mean you have demand Surveys like this don’t give you attribution. They give you context. And sometimes, that context is the only way to figure out why your funnel feels dry. Not everything needs to lead to a demo. Sometimes it just needs to lead to a memory.