B2B Buyer Engagement: Ghosted to Growth with Proven Re-Engagement Strategies

Summary

In our latest webinar, Ghosted to Growth: Revenue Leaders on Buyer Re-Engagement, Patricia DuChene and Andrew Reed joined Matt Heinz to share how they cut through buyer silence. Read this recap and watch the on-demand recording to learn practical strategies to turn ghosted prospects into engaged, revenue-ready customers.

By Sarah Threet, Marketing Consultant at Heinz Marketing 

Every revenue leader has felt the sting of a “ghosted” prospect — a once-promising opportunity that suddenly goes silent. In our recent webinar, “Ghosted to Growth: Revenue Leaders on Buyer Re-Engagement”, Patricia DuChene (Head of Marketing, Sendoso) and Andrew Reed (Director of Global ABM, AVEVA) joined Heinz Marketing President Matt Heinz to tackle one of today’s most persistent B2B challenges: how to cut through the noise, earn buyer attention, and turn early engagement into long-term relationships.

Here’s what stood out — and how you can apply it to your own customer-led growth (CLG) strategy.

Why B2B Buyer Engagement is Harder Than Ever

Buyers today are operating in a state of ruthless prioritization. Patricia noted that even as a buyer herself, she rarely fills out contact forms or takes demos — instead turning to AI summaries, trusted peer recommendations, and self-service research to narrow options long before engaging a vendor.
Andrew echoed the challenge: AI and digital targeting have made it easier to put messages in front of buyers — but also easier for everyone else to do the same. The result? More competition for attention and more pressure to deliver relevance.

Trust-Building Tactics for Better Buyer Engagement

Success means making early B2B buyer engagement value deposits—consistent, non-transactional touchpoints that build trust over time.

• Go beyond procurement: In Andrew’s example, winning a $50M deal required engaging not just the buying office but the end users across regions who would ultimately drive internal demand.
• Act like a person, not just a brand: Patricia shared the importance of showing up in buyers’ existing communities — from subreddits to industry events — offering best practices and insights with no strings attached.

Takeaway: Treat the buying group as a network you need to equip, not just a set of leads you need to convert. Your future advocates are often inside the account already — they just don’t have a budget line yet.

Want to deepen your CLG strategy? Check out “Lessons from Structuring GPTs for Customer-Led Growth”, exploring how to operationalize CLG workflows using AI tools for repetition, consistency, and speed.

Scaling B2B Buyer Engagement Through Systems Thinking

Scaling personalization and relevance is no longer just about better copy or creative — it’s about building systems that can deliver the right message, at the right time, through the right channel.

• Andrew’s ABM team uses AI to scale what used to be 1:1 personalization to dozens of accounts without sacrificing quality.
• Patricia recently moved her Director of Demand Gen into a GTM engineering role to improve data flow, real-time insights, and campaign adaptability.

Takeaway: Systems thinking lets you sustain relevance across the long B2B sales cycle — and ensures your marketing stays responsive to real-time buyer behavior, not just quarterly campaign calendars.

For tactical activation, check out our post on “Operationalizing CLG Signals” — covering signal triage, whitespace mapping, and workflows to prioritize high-value engagement.

Avoiding the Pitfalls

Not every tactic delivers. Both panelists shared lessons learned:

• Over-personalization can backfire. Andrew recounted a hyper-targeted campaign that took nine months to build but didn’t deliver better results than a leaner approach.
• Attribution noise wastes energy. Patricia urged marketers to treat attribution as a decision-making tool, not a political football — and to keep revenue as the ultimate north star.

Curious where your CLG motion stacks up? Our “CLG Maturity Model” helps assess whether you’re reactive, opportunistic, programmatic, or predictable — and what’s needed to level up

Accelerating the Journey Without Forcing It

Velocity doesn’t always come from pushing harder — sometimes it’s about removing internal friction.

Equip your champions with what they need to sell on your behalf to procurement, legal, and finance. As Andrew noted, one “soft no” in a buying group can stall a deal indefinitely — finding and converting those potential blockers is just as critical as nurturing your advocates.

AI, Search, and the Next Battleground for Visibility

As buyers shift from Google searches to LLM-powered queries, Patricia suggested a simple but powerful tactic: ask the LLMs where they source their answers, then make sure you’re present there. That means:

• Increasing brand mentions across social platforms and industry forums
• Investing in review sites and thought leadership that AI models can easily surface
• Structuring your content for AI-friendly discovery (e.g., clear text on social posts)

For a foundation in CLG strategy, check out “What is CLG and Why It Matters” — it outlines CLG fundamentals, tactics, and why shifting from acquisition-only thinking is vital.

Your CLG Action Plan

Optimize your B2B buyer engagement strategy by equipping internal champions, building scalable systems, and ensuring visibility in AI-driven search. If you’re looking to turn ghosted prospects into growth, start here:

1. Audit your value deposits. Where are you offering insight with no strings attached? Where could you?
2. Equip the full buying group. Create materials for end users, champions, and potential blockers.
3. Invest in system scalability. Build workflows and tech stacks that support personalization at scale.
4. Balance efficiency with experimentation. Test bold ideas, but watch for diminishing returns.
5. Be findable in the AI age. Optimize for the sources LLMs pull from — not just for Google.

Watch the full webinar on demand to hear Patricia, Andrew, and Matt share more real-world examples, cautionary tales, and practical strategies for breaking through buyer silence and driving engagement that leads to revenue. You’ll also get access to some of our gated CLG content. Send us an email if you have any questions, and sign up for our newsletter for info on upcoming webinars and events this fall!