Buying group marketing: The Next Step in ABM

B2B marketers have used account-based marketing tactics for years to better integrate sales and marketing operations and, as a result, produce more relevant, tailored content and message. This technique has naturally evolved into buying group marketing in the B2B ABM industry, which focuses these tactics on numerous decision-makers within accounts.

“What it means is looking at identifying and engaging those buying groups and key decision-makers inside your target accounts,”, explained in a recent webinar. “It’s about looking at the people who actually want to talk to you.”

“The way to do that is by monitoring their engagement signals and their sentiments, making sure those insights are coming back to sales and marketing,” she said.

Customers don’t care if the communication is from marketing or sales, according to Methananda; they simply want a “holistic experience.” In the B2B arena, addressing business prospects as buying groups might assist brands in achieving that goal.

Engagement of B2B buying groups throughout the sales funnel

Methananda underlined the importance of buying group participation in connecting with and driving leads through sales funnels. Recognizing that the B2B accounts you’re marketing to are made up of numerous persons might assist sales and marketing teams in coordinating their efforts.

“starts to make your marketing more tangible when you’re able to pipe those insights between sales and marketing,” she went on to say.

With social media ads and suitable landing pages, Influ2’s buying group marketing strategy focuses on increasing awareness and demand with top-of-funnel audiences. Each of these is intended to highlight the company’s digital capabilities for purchasing groups.

B2B as a purchasing group

Many marketers still consider B2B marketing to be one-on-one interactions, but Methananda cited Forrester’s Buying Groups Manifesto, which asserts that B2B is also a buying group. And the data supports this.

“According to Gartner, the average buying team size is between 14 and 23 people, and that depends on the size of the spend,” she went on to say. “From Forrester’s perspective, 66% of B2B are more than six people.”

She went on to say, “That’s why it’s important to focus on buying groups.”

B2B purchases are almost never made by a single individual; marketers must be able to develop plans with multiple stakeholders in mind. And, because these buyers frequently come from different departments, the need for a comprehensive purchase experience becomes even more critical.

Methananda’s team implemented a B2B strategy with these buying segments in mind in response to the 2020 pandemic, increasing brand awareness through a “digital everywhere” strategy.

“When COVID-19 hit, it was a shock to everyone,” she went on to say. “From a marketing standpoint, we had to go entirely digital in order to reach our target audience.” So Influ2 began a campaign to demonstrate its skills to its target demographic… Our software enabled us to measure interaction for each target, allowing our SDRs [sales development representatives] to follow up with those contacts who had expressed interest.”

“This approach allowed us to extend our marketing efforts and connect the top-of-funnel to the bottom-of-funnel and drive measurable results,” he said.