There has never been more marketing activity in the energy sector.
Websites are more sophisticated, LinkedIn has become a standard channel for business development, and thought leadership is increasingly common. AI has made content easier to produce than at any point in the past. On the surface, that sounds positive for suppliers trying to build visibility.
But it has also created a problem that is quietly making commercial development harder, not easier.
When every supplier publishes content, claims experience and innovation, and presents a polished digital presence, buyers face a different challenge. Not a shortage of information, but an excess of it, most of which sounds identical. And when everything sounds the same, the natural response is scepticism.
Trust, already difficult to build in a sector defined by caution and risk management, is becoming harder to earn through marketing alone.
Buyers Have Become Better at Filtering
Procurement teams in the energy sector have always been cautious. Commercial leaders have always carried personal accountability for the supplier recommendations they make. Technical teams have always wanted evidence before committing to a new partner.
What has changed is the amount of information buyers can access before they speak to anyone.
Before engaging with a supplier, a procurement manager can now review the website in detail, search LinkedIn for the leadership team, read published articles, compare competitors across multiple channels and search for independent mentions across industry media. The due diligence that once happened through conversations now starts before any conversation takes place.
The volume of information available has increased dramatically. The amount buyers automatically believe has not kept pace with it. That means experienced commercial buyers are becoming increasingly sophisticated at distinguishing between marketing claims and genuine credibility, and they are doing it long before any formal evaluation begins. We explored this shift recently in our article Visibility Has Become Part of the Commercial Operating Model, looking at why supplier evaluation increasingly starts before businesses even realise they are being considered.
Within the North Sea supply chain, this matters even more. Buyers are often balancing technical risk, commercial scrutiny and existing supplier relationships at the same time. Introducing a new supplier carries internal responsibility, so confidence rarely comes from a single conversation. It develops gradually through a series of credible signals that reduce uncertainty before formal procurement begins.
The Problem With Generic Positioning
Spend ten minutes reviewing supplier websites across the North Sea supply chain and the same language appears repeatedly. Experienced. Trusted. Innovative. Customer-focused. Quality-driven.
Most of these claims are probably true. The problem is that they are effectively impossible for a buyer to verify from a website, and they are so widely used that they have lost any differentiating value. When every supplier says the same things, those statements stop helping buyers make decisions. Instead, buyers begin looking for signals that feel more difficult to manufacture, specifically evidence that somebody else has validated the claim, or proof that sits beyond what the business says about itself.
What Buyers Actually Trust
This is where the nature of trust in the sector is quietly shifting.
Buyers are increasingly influenced by what they can observe rather than what a supplier asserts. A technical director giving an interview to an industry publication carries different weight from a company profile. An engineer presenting at a conference signals that expertise has been recognised by someone independent of the business. A well-argued article that demonstrates a genuine understanding of operational challenges tells a buyer more about a company’s capability than any number of generic capability statements.
Professional recommendations, industry speaking opportunities and thoughtful commentary that shows real sector knowledge all carry more weight than generic positioning, particularly when backed by evidence of comparable work that buyers can actually understand. These are the signals that build confidence rather than erode it. They do not prove capability in isolation, but accumulated over time they create a level of commercial credibility that generic marketing rarely achieves.
That credibility often exists before procurement formally begins. By the time a buyer enters a structured evaluation process, opinions are frequently already forming.
Why Independent Recognition Carries More Weight Than Ever
One of the strongest trust signals is something a business does not fully control.
When an industry publication profiles your technical director, the implicit message is that someone else considers their expertise worth platforming. When a respected body invites your leadership to contribute, buyers see external validation rather than self-promotion. When your business is referenced independently within the industry, it creates a signal that is qualitatively different from anything you publish about yourself.
This is where public relations quietly becomes commercially significant in the energy sector. Not because media coverage generates immediate enquiries, but because independent visibility reduces perceived risk. And in a sector where buyers are managing their own credibility through the recommendations they make, reducing perceived risk is often what determines whether a supplier makes the shortlist at all.
Trust Accumulates Across Multiple Touchpoints
Rarely does a single article, a single LinkedIn post or a single press mention change a buying decision. But trust accumulates gradually across multiple interactions.
A procurement manager reads something useful. A commercial director notices a technical perspective shared by someone whose background appears credible. An engineer sees the same business referenced in an industry publication. A website reinforces the picture with relevant project experience and clear positioning. By the time a formal conversation takes place, the buyer often feels they already have a view of the business, one that took shape through a series of small, credible signals rather than a single interaction.
That accumulated familiarity matters enormously in sectors with long procurement cycles. It shapes who gets considered, who gets called and who gets onto shortlists before the formal process even opens.
Imagine a commercial manager beginning to explore suppliers for an upcoming project. They first notice a technical article shared on LinkedIn, later see one of the company’s engineers speaking at an industry event, read a feature in an energy publication, then visit the website to understand the business in more detail. None of those interactions wins the work on its own. Together, however, they create a level of familiarity and confidence that makes the supplier feel like a safer choice when formal conversations begin.
What This Means for Energy Businesses
The businesses building the strongest commercial trust are not necessarily producing the most content. They are ensuring that the expertise already inside their organisation reaches the places buyers naturally look, in a form buyers find credible.
That means supporting engineers who have genuine insight to share. It means helping leadership teams contribute to industry conversations in a way that feels natural rather than performed. It means making project experience easier to understand and ensuring technical capability is communicated in commercially relevant terms. It means seeking opportunities for independent recognition rather than relying entirely on self-published content.
Not because any of these activities replace the relationships that remain fundamental to how work is won in this sector. Because they strengthen and extend those relationships, and create the conditions for new ones to begin.
At AB Fiftyone, We Help Energy Businesses Build That Credibility
For years, trust in the energy sector travelled primarily through relationships and reputation built over time. Those things remain enormously important and that is not changing.
But today they are increasingly reinforced, extended and sometimes initiated by what buyers discover before any direct contact happens. The businesses recognising this shift are not simply investing in more marketing. They are building a broader trust infrastructure where expertise and independent credibility work together to reduce uncertainty long before procurement begins.
If your business has the capability but buyers are not yet seeing it clearly, it is worth a conversation about how to change that.
