Traditionally, marketers have approached the buyer journey as if there’s an individual making the decision to purchase, by targeting them with relevant content and monitoring their behaviour.
However, in large B2B tech organisations, this just isn’t realistic. There will never be one single person undertaking research and evaluation, meeting with vendors, reviewing costs and ultimately giving the go-ahead, and anyone assuming there is, risks missing relevant buying signals and opportunities.
Far more likely is a buyer group, made up of multiple stakeholders from throughout the business, who all have a part to play in the final purchasing decision. Similar to Account-based Marketing (ABM), Buyer Group Marketing (BGM) focuses on ensuring key stakeholders are engaged and nurtured but takes things one step further, tailoring messaging to specific roles within the buyer group rather than aligning with a company-wide goal or pain point.
What is a buyer group?
We’ve already explained that a buyer group includes people from across the business, including from roles you may not be actively targeting but who have a say in the final decision, such as legal, HR or IT.
Each of these stakeholders plays a unique role in the decision-making process. Some have a direct influence on whether or not the purchase is made, while others may provide valuable input on the practical implications of adopting a particular technology. Members typically play one of five roles, although the buyer group itself may contain up to 14 people.
- Introducers are the first to identify a potential need for new technology and are the ones to instigate the buying process by bringing potential solutions to the attention of the wider team.
- Influencers provide recommendations and insights. They are experts within the organisation and while they don’t have final decision-making power, they have the ability to significantly shape the opinions of users and decision-makers.
- Users are the people who will directly interact with the new solution on a daily basis and provide practical insights based on their needs. Getting their buy-in means the process of implementation is likely to run more smoothly, with greater levels of satisfaction.
- Gatekeepers control access to resources such as budget. Often in roles like procurement, legal or finance, they ensure the proposed solutions meet the required guidelines and give the go-ahead from a procedural perspective. They may also control the flow of information and access to decision-makers.
- Decision makers are high-level, C-suite executives who can authorise or veto purchases, so their buy-in is essential. They evaluate the ROI and look at how solutions align with the business’s goals.
Each of these members brings a unique perspective, personality and set of priorities to the table and understanding these can help you steer the decision-making process in your favour more effectively.
A recent study by LinkedIn and Bain & Co looks at this in more detail, examining the emotional needs of the buying group too. It splits members into two groups: ‘Target Buyers’, who are the experts like influencers and users, and ‘Hidden Buyers’, who are the gatekeepers and process people. According to the report, both sets have nearly equal influence, but the hidden buyers are more emotively driven. Crucially, brand awareness was key for the whole group – more on that next.
The power of a buyer group strategy
It’s clear not everyone wants or needs to hear the same thing, and this is one of the main limitations of traditional lead generation. A Chief Financial Officer for example, will likely have wildly different priorities to Users. Blanket messages or generic content simply aren’t tailored enough, and targeting just one individual fails to address the wants or desires of the other crucial stakeholders, resulting in longer sales cycles, missed opportunities and fewer conversions.
The solution is to target each buyer in the group with a unique message that resonates with them personally. When each stakeholder’s concerns are addressed – and addressed early – there is less friction, making it easier for the group to reach a positive consensus and improving your chances of moving leads through the pipeline more swiftly.
Notably, according to a report by 6sense, 70% of these interactions will take place before any member of the buying group contacts the vendor. This makes developing awareness essential. This is reinforced by the LinkedIn and Bain study, which found that in many instances, the brand being known to the whole group is a more important factor than price or product quality.
It’s therefore critical that every member of the buying group has an awareness of your offer and its value, and this can only be communicated by developing targeted messaging, tailored to the individual.
How to implement a buyer group strategy
So, now we know how important it is to communicate with buyer groups, how do you go about identifying them?
The first step is to identify the job titles who typically use your solution or are involved in purchasing decisions of that type. This can be done through stakeholder mapping—analysing previous sales data, client interactions and intent data to understand which roles are most involved in the buying process. Next, you need to align these personas with actual contacts from your target organisation. Don’t forget that as companies evolve personnel changes, so there may be people to add and remove from the buying group and messaging to refine accordingly.
Once you’ve identified the buyer group, the next step is to develop personalised messaging and content that addresses each stakeholder’s specific concerns, preferred content types and location on the buyer journey. Remember that whilst one decision-maker may still be in the awareness stage, others may have moved on and require more detailed information. Using trigger events such as those detected by our cutting-edge tool, Discover, allows you to gain more detailed insights and tailor your content accordingly.
Capturing the attention of busy business professionals and getting them to reach a consensus has never been easy and Gartner says big buying groups have led to a 30% reduction in customers’ ability to reach purchasing decisions.
Nevertheless, this way of purchasing is here to stay, making embracing it increasingly essential for success.
To read about the other disruptive trends we’ve identified for 2024, read our whitepaper here https://weareinterlink.com/12-disruptive-predictions-for-b2b-marketing-in-2024/
