I analyzed our last 200 closed deals and found something that challenged everything I thought I knew about B2B buying: 68% of buyers never requested contact with sales. They researched our product independently, evaluated alternatives silently, made purchase decisions without human conversations, and converted to paid customers without ever talking to anyone at our company.
These weren't small deals from unsophisticated buyers. The average contract value was $31K annually. Many were from enterprise companies with complex evaluation processes. They just chose to conduct those evaluations without involving our sales team.
When I shared this finding with our head of sales, she wasn't surprised. "Buyers don't want to talk to us anymore. They want to research on their own terms, try the product themselves, and make decisions without sales pressure. We're becoming optional in the buying process."
That realization forced me to confront an uncomfortable truth: the traditional B2B buying journey—awareness, consideration, sales engagement, evaluation, purchase—is being replaced by a silent research process where buyers make decisions without vendor interaction. And most PMMs are still creating content for the old journey while missing the new one.
The Dark Funnel Where Buying Actually Happens
I started mapping where buyers were actually conducting research and discovered the visible funnel was just the tip of the iceberg.
Visible funnel: prospects visiting our website, downloading content, requesting demos, engaging with sales. This is what we track in our analytics and CRM.
Dark funnel: prospects researching us in communities, reading peer reviews on G2 and Reddit, asking ChatGPT and Perplexity for product comparisons, trying competitors' products, consulting industry analysts, and comparing options in private Slack channels and internal documents.
The dark funnel was where 80% of actual research happened. But we had zero visibility into it and minimal influence over what information buyers found.
I interviewed 20 recent customers who'd bought without sales contact and asked how they actually made decisions. The patterns were revealing:
They started with peer recommendations in industry Slack communities, not vendor websites. They used AI tools to generate product comparisons instead of reading vendor marketing. They relied on customer review sites more than vendor case studies. They evaluated products through free trials instead of demos. They made decisions based on transparent pricing pages instead of negotiating with sales.
The entire buying process happened in channels we didn't control with information sources we didn't directly influence. Traditional PMM content—sales decks, case studies, white papers—played minimal roles in their research.
What Buyers Actually Trust in Silent Research
I analyzed what information sources buyers mentioned most when explaining how they made purchase decisions:
Peer reviews on third-party sites like G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius carried more weight than anything we published. Buyers trusted other customers more than vendor claims. One buyer said: "I read 50 G2 reviews before I ever visited your website. The reviews told me what you actually deliver versus what you promise."
AI-generated product comparisons from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude were becoming primary research tools. Buyers would ask AI to compare our product to alternatives and get synthesized answers drawing from multiple sources. The quality and completeness of information AI could find about us determined whether we made those comparison lists.
Community discussions in industry Slack groups, Reddit threads, and LinkedIn conversations influenced decisions more than vendor content. Buyers trusted peer recommendations from people solving similar problems over marketing messages from vendors selling solutions.
Transparent, self-serve information like pricing pages, documentation, and product specs mattered more than gated content. Buyers wanted to research without committing to sales conversations. Companies that published information openly won those buyers. Companies that gated everything behind forms lost them.
This shift changed what "good PMM content" means. It's not compelling sales narratives anymore—it's accurate, discoverable information that AI tools can find and peer reviewers can validate.
The Self-Serve Research Journey PMMs Miss
I started mapping the actual research journeys buyers followed and comparing them to the buyer journeys documented in our marketing strategy.
Our documented buyer journey: awareness through content marketing, consideration through nurture campaigns, engagement through sales outreach, evaluation through demos, purchase through negotiation.
Actual buyer journeys for silent researchers: awareness through peer recommendations, consideration through AI-powered comparison research, evaluation through free trial testing, purchase through self-serve checkout.
The gap was massive. We were creating content for a buyer journey that applied to maybe 30% of our customers while ignoring the journey 70% actually followed.
I interviewed buyers at each stage of the silent research journey to understand what they needed:
During awareness, they needed to discover we existed through channels they already trusted—peer communities, AI search, review sites. Vendor content played minimal roles. What mattered was being mentioned by trusted sources.
During consideration, they needed structured information AI tools could parse and synthesize—clear feature lists, pricing transparency, technical specs, integration capabilities. Marketing fluff hurt more than it helped because it made information harder to extract.
During evaluation, they needed comprehensive self-serve resources—documentation, tutorials, free trials that delivered value quickly, troubleshooting guides. They wanted to answer their own questions without sales conversations.
During purchase, they needed transparent pricing and frictionless buying—clear tier comparisons, self-serve checkout, no forced sales conversations. Companies that required sales contact to buy lost these buyers.
How PMMs Need to Optimize for Silent Buyers
Adapting to silent buyer research requires completely different PMM strategies:
Optimize for AI discoverability instead of just SEO. Make sure AI tools can find accurate information about your product, capabilities, pricing, and competitive positioning. Structure content so AI can parse and synthesize it correctly. Monitor what AI tools say about you and correct inaccuracies.
Enable community advocacy instead of just creating vendor content. Help customers share experiences in peer communities. Make it easy for advocates to recommend you in Slack groups and Reddit threads. Participate authentically in communities where buyers research.
Prioritize review site presence over gated content. Invest in G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius presence. Help satisfied customers leave reviews. Respond to negative reviews constructively. Buyers trust peer reviews more than anything you publish.
Create comprehensive self-serve resources instead of sales-gated content. Publish pricing transparently. Create detailed documentation. Offer meaningful free trials. Let buyers research and evaluate without talking to sales.
This shift requires letting go of control. You can't gate information behind forms. You can't force buyers into sales conversations. You can't control the narrative when buyers research in communities and use AI tools.
But trying to control information access just pushes buyers toward competitors who embrace transparency. The companies winning silent buyers are those making information freely accessible instead of requiring engagement.
The Platforms That Support Silent Research
Making this shift required different tools and platforms focused on buyer enablement instead of sales enablement.
I needed systems that monitored what AI tools said about our product and flagged inaccuracies. I needed platforms that helped customers share experiences in review sites and communities. I needed analytics that tracked dark funnel signals even when buyers didn't directly engage with us.
I tested platforms like Segment8 that help structure competitive intelligence and product information for both human and AI consumption. The insight wasn't just creating content—it was ensuring that information was discoverable and accurate when buyers researched independently through AI tools and peer sources.
Traditional marketing platforms optimized for lead capture and nurture sequences. The new platforms optimize for information accessibility and buyer enablement in channels vendors don't control.
What This Means for PMM Work
If your PMM strategy still assumes buyers will engage with sales, download gated content, and follow vendor-controlled journeys, you're optimizing for the minority of buyers while missing the silent majority.
The shift to silent research requires different capabilities: understanding how AI tools discover and synthesize information, enabling community advocacy and peer recommendations, optimizing review site presence and customer testimonials, and creating comprehensive self-serve resources.
These capabilities differ from traditional demand generation and sales enablement. You're not driving leads to sales—you're enabling buyers to research and purchase without sales involvement.
The PMMs who adapt to silent buyer research will win deals from the growing majority who prefer self-serve evaluation. The PMMs who keep optimizing for traditional sales-led journeys will lose market share to competitors who embrace buyer independence.
Buyers don't want to talk to sales anymore. They want to research silently, evaluate independently, and buy on their own terms. The question is whether your PMM strategy supports that reality or fights against it.
Based on my analysis, fighting it means losing 60-70% of potential buyers who choose competitors with better self-serve research experiences. Embracing it means adapting your entire PMM approach to serve buyers who never want to talk to you.
That's uncomfortable for PMMs trained to drive engagement and enable sales conversations. But it's the reality of how modern B2B buying actually happens. The sooner we adapt, the better.