Shift in B2B Researcher Demographic % 22% 29 % 27 6 35-44 35-44 4 % 18-34 18-34 26% 18% 19% 13% 45-54 55+ 45-54 55+ 2012 2014 Source: Google/Millward Brown Digital, B2B Path to Purchase Study, 2014. This generation, known as the millennial generation, is unlike any other that came before it. The oldest members of the group were born around 1980, and that means they've never known a world without the modern-day internet. By the time millennials joined the workforce, half of all Americans were using email regularly, BlackBerrys had been on the market for several years and search engines were already a part of daily life. In other words, millennials are digital natives. If you're not marketing to this group, you need to reevaluate your strategy, taking into account millennials' familiarity with digital and how this influences the kind of content and media channels they are using. MYTH #2: B2B marketing should target the highest-level executives REALITY #2: B2B researchers who are not in the c-suite influence purchase decisions B2B marketing strategies typically focus exclusively on the C-suite or other senior-level executives. Those strategies won't be nearly as effective today as they were just two years ago. Why? The ecosystem of influencers around the B2B research process has changed—dramatically. thinkwithgoogle.com 3