The B2B buying decisions happening behind closed doors.

TL;DR

B2B buying decisions increasingly involve multiple stakeholders, each with their own priorities, questions and concerns.

Marketing needs to do more than win over a buyer: it needs to give that buyer what they need to build support across the organisation.

That means creating content that answers other stakeholders' questions, addresses objections and helps buyer champions make the case internally.

How can you sell when you're not even in the room?

You probably recognise this scene: Your buyer leaves the call convinced. They understand the problem, they can see how your solution could help and they’re ready to take it forward. There's only one 'small' problem — now they have to go and convince everyone else — IT, security, procurement, legal, and the 'economic buyer' i.e. someone who holds the budget. And you’re not going to be in the room for most of those conversations.

A buyer champion is the person inside an organisation who believes in your solution and helps build the internal support needed to move the purchase forward.

That matters because enterprise purchasing decisions now involve around 13 stakeholders across different functions, according to Forrester research cited in our AI-enabled Buyer Report. Gartner puts the typical buying group at 6–10 stakeholders, with that number rising for more complex purchases.

Winning over your contact is just the beginning.

More stakeholders mean more reasons to hesitate

Every person who joins a buying decision brings a slightly different question to the table. Your original buyer may be focused on solving a business problem. Finance wants to see the numbers, while IT needs to understand how everything fits together. Security is thinking about risk, but procurement has its own requirements. Senior leadership may still be wondering whether anything really needs to change at all.

None of those questions is unreasonable, but getting everyone to agree on the answers takes time. The average B2B journey highlighted in our report now lasts 272 days, with evaluation cycles often restarting along the way.

It’s easy to see how that happens. Any time a new stakeholder enters the conversation, questions everyone thought had been settled are suddenly back on the table. More information is requested, alternatives are reconsidered and, before you know it, the business case needs another round of approval.

It's no wonder buying journeys have a habit of looping back on themselves.

How can B2B content help buyer champions build consensus?

We spend a lot of time creating content to persuade the person researching a solution. But how much do we create to help that person persuade everyone else?

Could your champion forward your business case to their CFO and have it make sense without a salesperson there to explain it? Would your security content answer the questions a CISO is likely to ask? Could someone who has never attended a demo understand why the organisation should choose your approach rather than another one — or rather than doing nothing?

If the answer is no, your champion has been left to fill in the gaps.

Create content your champion can take into the room

That doesn't necessarily mean creating more content. It means making sure some of it is designed for a different job.

Our report highlights assessments, scorecards and decision-support resources as ways to help buyer champions maintain momentum and build internal alignment.

It could be a simple business-case template that helps finance see the potential value, or a one-page security summary that answers the obvious questions before they become objections. You might tailor the proposition for IT, operations or senior leadership, or provide a comparison framework that gives the whole buying group a sensible way to evaluate its options.

These assets have a different role: helping your champion keep the conversation moving when you're no longer part of it.

And that's increasingly important when so much of the journey already takes place without vendors present. 81% of research happens before vendor conversations begin. The internal decision-making that follows can be just as invisible.

Marketing has to reach beyond the buyer

Marketing also needs to make it easier for that person to build confidence in the decision across the organisation. So, when you're creating your next piece of content, don't just ask whether your buyer will find it useful.

Ask whether it will still do its job when you're not in the room.

Read our AI-enabled Buyer Report to understand how growing buying groups are changing B2B decision-making — and how marketing can help buyer champions build consensus and keep deals moving.