Want to master B2B sales in a multi-stakeholder world?
In 2025, purchase decisions involve larger buying groups, new stakeholder roles, and heightened scrutiny. This report breaks down how sales and marketing teams can collaborate to influence entire buying committees with tailored, data-driven strategies.
What you’ll discover inside:
- The full B2B buying group journey across six stages — from awareness to renewal — and how to impact it at every touchpoint.
- Updated buyer personas and stakeholder roles, including ESG officers and AI risk specialists.
- Real-world examples of personalized content, AI-enhanced engagement, and account-based marketing (ABM) strategies.
- How to align RevOps, marketing, and sales to convert cautious, data-driven buyers.
- The future of buying group engagement through predictive analytics, dynamic content hubs, and stakeholder-specific messaging.
- A 2025-ready B2B buyer journey map with modern touchpoints and AI integrations.
Whether you’re refining your ABM playbook or leading revenue teams, this report gives you the actionable insights to close bigger deals — faster.
When companies purchase from other businesses (B2B), multiple people are involved in the procurement process. Usually, these stakeholders form what is called "a buying group." However, different organizations consist of professionals with separate roles and priorities, which makes it challenging for marketers to engage with them effectively.
Astute marketers will tailor their approach to each individual’s needs and challenges throughout the buyer’s journey, genuinely connecting with various prospects. Read on for updated insights on the complexities of multi-stakeholder engagement that will help you increase your conversion rates and move your 2025 sales process forward.
What is a Buying Group?
A purchasing collective comprises several enterprises or business individuals who combine their financial assets. The most common goal is to negotiate better prices and terms with suppliers, with the primary purpose of saving money. In addition, buying groups in 2025 increasingly leverage shared data and procurement intelligence platforms to access market insights, manage supplier performance, and reduce operational risks. Furthermore, procurement teams effectively gather data to provide additional services like market information, shopping technology, networking opportunities, and educational resources.
Which Roles Are Involved in a B2B Purchasing Committee?
B2B buying roles involve executives/employees from different business areas. They often comprise management, finance, IT, legal, sales, and marketing staff. Every team member brings their perspectives, aiding in a comprehensive review of potential solutions. In 2025, many buying groups will also involve ESG officers and AI risk specialists, reflecting the growing importance of sustainability and responsible technology adoption in enterprise decisions.
A Guide Through Four Milestones of the B2B Buying Group Journey
Each of the following stages has an indispensable place in the collective’s decision-making process:
Four Buyer Journey Stages
Strategy
Awareness Stage
Value Offered
In the initial phase, procurement associates become aware of a problem or a need, and research it to educate themselves about available solutions or affordable vendors. In 2025, AI-driven research assistants and procurement automation tools will increasingly assist buying groups at this stage.
Strategy
Consideration Stage
Value Offered
At this juncture, the group will examine the options found during the first stage in depth. It is time to evaluate options, consider vendors, and analyze product/service features and reputation. Modern B2B buying groups now rely heavily on peer reviews, third-party benchmarks, and AI-powered comparison platforms to assess ROI and vendor credibility.
Strategy
Decision Stage
Value Offered
Next, the buying group selects the best product and/or vendor based on pricing, terms, negotiations, timelines, support services, and risk mitigation strategies. During this stage, the purchasing committee can involve stakeholders to observe product demonstrations. Virtual demos, digital twins, and AI-generated ROI simulations are widely used in 2025 to strengthen confidence in purchasing decisions. They can also request proposals and negotiate terms before agreeing to the final transaction.
Strategy
Post-Purchase Stage
Value Offered
After acquiring the asset, the group moves on to the post-acquisition stage. Here, they will focus on implementing and analyzing the chosen solution while managing a relationship with the vendor. They may also provide feedback, request support or training, and evaluate the seller’s performance. Continuous vendor performance tracking, AI-based contract optimization, and predictive analytics will play a larger role in post-purchase decision-making in 2025.
The entire process functions smoothly when all parties involved communicate openly, collaborate, and ensure they are all on the same page. Marketers in charge of steering the 2025 buyer’s journey must fully understand each stage and its unique dynamics to effectively influence multi-stakeholder groups. Tailor strategies and messages based on these dynamics to ensure compelling influence and increase ROI.
Preparation Is Key: Unlocking Success in Targeting Buying Groups
When targeting a buying group, it is crucial to establish a strong foundation of knowledge on its members and their organization. This approach, such as account-based experience (ABX), is essential for account-based marketing efforts. You can ensure the best outcomes with your 2025 initiatives by following these guidelines:
Research the Buying Committee
To understand how to approach each target account belonging to a specific high-value buying group, you should first identify all its representatives. Then, perform detailed research on them. Gather as much information on each member’s preferences as possible regarding the type of content they consume and the channels they typically frequent (2025 trend: professional podcasts and niche community platforms have gained popularity). Psychographics can be particularly useful for gleaning this data.
Your research should also include their background within the organization and the authority they hold on buying decisions. This insight can help determine the role of each buyer within the group to guide your messaging and targeting strategy.
Create Buyer Personas
When targeting a buying group, it is crucial to identify if your target accounts correspond with your Ideal Client Profile (ICP). Having multiple buyer personas for different roles and offerings can help determine the best product fit and inform your outreach strategy to ensure relevance. In 2025, advanced AI-driven persona development tools and CRM integrations will help marketers dynamically update these profiles based on real-time behavioral data. Here is an example of a buyer profile:
Align with the Sales Team
The sales team works directly with leads interested in your product. This allows them to give important feedback on how effective your branding and messaging are. They can also confirm whether the challenges these leads face match what you expected in your buyer personas.
Clear communication between marketing, sales, and other demand professionals is important to effectively target a B2B buying group. In 2025, integrated RevOps platforms and real-time intent data sharing between sales and marketing teams will further enhance cross-functional collaboration.
Benefits for ABM Practitioners
Knowing how B2B procurement teams work can help ABM practitioners improve their strategies. This includes making advertising campaigns more relevant and optimizing resource allocation for individual customer accounts. In 2025’s data-rich environment, successful ABM requires real-time insights into buying group behavior, predictive analytics, and AI-enhanced audience segmentation. The next section explores how ABM practitioners can enhance their approaches to achieve better results in today’s competitive B2B marketing arena.
Crafting Tailored Messages for Stakeholders
Understanding the makeup and behavior of stakeholders helps marketers create focused advertising campaigns and messages. Tailoring website content to the concerns of different stakeholders increases engagement and conversions.
In 2025, AI-powered content personalization and dynamic website experiences will be key tools to effectively meet the needs of each buying group. By working with buying committees, marketing professionals can better meet the needs of each buying group.
ABM and B2B Buying Group Synergy
The connection between account-based marketing and B2B buying groups is their shared goal of optimizing resource allocation to achieve greater success. ABM initiatives focus on using resources most favorably by segmenting accounts into tiers and then targeting the most important ones.
In 2025, ABM platforms will integrate with buying group intent signals, firmographic data, and AI-driven scoring models to prioritize high-value opportunities. By aligning ABM and B2B procurement teams, you can strategically manage budgets, customize their messaging to resonate with key stakeholders, and improve their chances of achieving successful outcomes in the competitive B2B arena.
Develop Your B2B Purchasing Group Strategy in 6 Simple Steps
The following steps dissect the buyer’s journey in greater detail and the individual tasks required of teams to create an effective and accurate targeting strategy:
Becoming Aware of a Need
When potential buyers realize they have a problem, they analyze if it's worth taking action and what solutions are available.
The marketing team should start by creating content that raises awareness of your products, services, and brand. Emphasize the benefits for potential customers and explain how your products work. Highlighting these benefits in relation to the problems potential customers are focused on is especially effective at this stage. In 2025, marketers will increasingly rely on AI-generated insights and intent data to anticipate buyer pain points before outreach.
For the sales team, try to customize marketing materials to match potential customers' common problems and support this with relevant industry trends. At the beginning of the sales process, use subtle communication and position yourselves as experts available to discuss business challenges rather than using hard-sell tactics.
Investigating Options
At this stage, the buying group begins researching potential solutions for their business challenges. They will be exploring various options to find the best fit.
For the marketing team: Focus on creating educational content to help the purchasing cooperative with their research. This could include whitepapers, case studies, and how-to guides. In 2025, interactive content formats like webinars, AI-powered product tours, and immersive demos will also become key tools at this stage. Tailor the content to match the preferences of your buyer personas and highlight your company's expertise and proven results. Over time, this content can be used for lead nurturing.
For the sales team: Use this time to understand the procurement committee's needs, taking into account each member individually. This understanding will inform personalized sales strategies, considering existing solutions or creating new ones in-house as needed, especially effective for Account-Based Experiences (ABX).
Making a Commitment to Change
At this point, buyers clearly define their needs and have a specific challenge to address. As they decide to make a change, they will likely review their research and choose the company best suited to meet their needs from a list.
This stage is crucial because it's when stakeholders or decision makers actively join the B2B procurement process to evaluate available solutions and how they align with the business goals. This can lead to a shortlist based on the choices of the buying committee.
The marketing team should utilize lead scoring and buyer intent data to track the buying group's interactions with the brand. In 2025, AI-enhanced intent scoring tools and real-time engagement analytics will allow teams to identify hot opportunities faster. This will allow for the qualification of leads and the creation of strategies to maintain and cultivate the interest generated so far. Use these findings to tailor the content shared with leads in the purchasing group individually to ensure it's relevant and encourages engagement.
The sales team should use client reviews, feedback, and accolades to build trust and communicate the product’s value. Avoid using generic statistics or jargon. Instead, focus on messaging that shows attention to detail with specific information. In 2025, video testimonials, peer-to-peer recommendations, and performance-based guarantees are increasingly persuasive trust signals.
Selecting a Solution
At this stage of the B2B buying process, buying groups seek internal sign-off from procurement, finance, legal, and executive sponsors. In 2025, purchase approvals are increasingly collaborative, involving more stakeholders and formal justification processes.
For the marketing team, the content should directly address the buying group’s strategic goals and financial outcomes. Avoid vague benefit statements — instead, deliver ROI calculators, solution one-pagers, competitive comparison sheets, and value realization frameworks. Use dynamic, AI-personalized content hubs to serve tailored resources based on each stakeholder’s role and priorities.
As for the sales team, their role at this stage should be data-driven and consultative. Their primary responsibility is to answer questions, handle objections, and demonstrate the value of your solution compared to your competitors. Sales staff should be equipped with competitor benchmarking reports, peer adoption insights, and market trend analyses. Use buyer intent data and conversation intelligence tools to anticipate objections and provide decision-driving proof points.
Validating Choice
In 2025, purchase validation focuses heavily on risk reduction, business alignment, and tangible ROI proof. Decision-makers expect customized, defensible business cases before proceeding.
Marketing teams must focus on building trust with real-world evidence. As buyers get closer to making a deal, use content like case studies featuring companies of similar size, region, and industry that demonstrate measurable business outcomes. Include customer video testimonials, analyst endorsements, and third-party rankings where possible. Focus messaging on de-risking the investment and accelerating value realization.
Sales team should recognize the personal agendas and KPIs of decision-makers within the buying group. Provide a detailed, customized value realization roadmap and multi-scenario pricing breakdowns. Leverage AI-driven deal analytics to flag potential negotiation risks and optimize your position before final sign-off.
Making a Purchase
Before finalizing a deal, the buying groups will likely negotiate to lower costs and maximize benefits. Simultaneously, the end users will typically start preparing for rollout and researching best practices.
For the marketing team: Maintain engagement with late-stage buyers through personalized pre-onboarding content, implementation playbooks, and first-90-day success guides. Use predictive analytics to recommend relevant content and proactive support tips based on customer profiles and buying signals. This helps increase adoption, reduce early churn risk, and improve overall customer lifetime value (CLV).
For the sales team: Representatives should address final-stage concerns by aligning the proposed solution with organizational KPIs, regulatory needs, and future scalability goals. Provide precise implementation timelines, support structures, and a clear roadmap for achieving business outcomes. In 2025, delivering value-based, consultative sales experiences at this stage is critical to closing deals in increasingly crowded, competitive markets.
Use a Comprehensive Touchpoint Map
In a consumer or organizational journey toward making a financial transaction in your favor, various touchpoints play pivotal roles across different stages. In 2025, these journeys are longer, involve more stakeholders, and rely on AI-powered decision support tools. Understanding and optimizing these touchpoints can significantly influence the outcome of the decision-making process. This table delineates the key touchpoints within each buyer’s journey, ranging from initial awareness to post-purchase support. By comprehensively mapping out these touchpoints, businesses can strategically engage with their audience and enhance the overall customer experience, ultimately driving their sales and marketing success.
Here is a table of a 2025-updated B2B buyer journey map outlining the key stages and modern touchpoints:
1. Awareness
- Online Research: Search engines, industry-specific AI content feeds, LinkedIn forums.
- Content Consumption: Thought leadership content (blogs, webinars, videos).
- Networking: Industry events, conferences, referrals.
2. Consideration
- Comparison Shopping: Product demos, interactive solution configurators.
- Vendor Interactions: ABM-tailored sales consultations, trials, and intent-driven outreach.
- Peer Recommendations: Case studies, testimonials, reviews.
3. Evaluation
- Proposal Review: ROI calculators, value realization frameworks.
- Vendor Validation: References, customer interviews, site visits.
- Risk Assessment: Risk/compliance assessments, scalability projections.
4. Decision
- Budget Approval: AI-assisted financial and ROI analysis.
- Stakeholder Alignment: Stakeholder alignment workshops, consensus-building meetings.
- Contract Signing: Legal negotiations, terms finalization.
5. Purchase
- Procurement Process: Digital procurement portals, invoicing automation.
- Implementation Planning: Project kick-off meetings and resource allocation.
- Training and Onboarding: Interactive onboarding tools, video training libraries.
6. Post-Purchase
- Implementation Support: Dedicated account management, AI-driven success insights.
- Performance Monitoring: Project kick-off meetings and resource allocation.
- Renewal and Expansion: Renewal planning, upsell/cross-sell recommendations based on AI usage patterns.
How AI Can Assist B2B Marketers in Targeting Buying Groups in 2025
In 2025, AI will help B2B marketers by analyzing large customer data more efficiently. It allows marketers to personalize their interactions with customers quickly and on a large scale. Let’s look at how AI is changing B2B marketing strategies.
AI Makes Big Data Smaller
B2B marketers used to have less data than B2C marketers, but AI has changed that. Now, it quickly analyzes signals of intent, company information, and customer behavior across digital channels. B2B buyers rely heavily on online resources, and their digital activities reveal valuable patterns. Connecting this information to customer records helps marketers understand intent, preferences, and readiness to buy, and AI turns these insights into predictive, actionable recommendations.
Marketers can use AI to fine-tune Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) models, combining firmographics, technographics, and engagement patterns. AI helps analyze closed/won customer data to identify buying roles, procurement timelines, and decision influences, then builds predictive models to surface prospects that mirror your best customers.
AI also supports buying group identification by sorting through complex data streams to provide a clearer view of stakeholder activity. Marketers can analyze customer engagement, job titles, and organizational structures to identify procurement teams and customize targeting for each role using AI-driven content recommendations.
AI Makes Personalization More Personal
When someone buys a gaming console, they usually don’t spend months researching which offers the best graphics or online multiplayer features. But in a B2B scenario — where purchasing decisions are high-stakes, multi-stakeholder, and risk-averse — content like articles, market research, and case studies drives the multi-month decision process. Marketers create tailored content for a range of stakeholders: decision-makers, end users, finance managers, IT leaders, data analysts, and others.
Generative AI has advanced dramatically in 2025, allowing marketers to personalize at scale from a single asset. It can quickly revise a case study to emphasize information that matters to each stakeholder. Additionally, AI can adapt content for various channels, such as social media or email. This allows a marketer to repurpose content for different formats or target specific pain points of buying roles for other campaigns.
AI Improves Customer Experience
Many businesses use AI chatbots and virtual assistants for website interactions. They identify high-intent leads, suggest next actions, and prioritize inquiries. AI will help marketers pass qualified leads to sales while flagging accounts showing signs of churn or purchasing hesitations.
Generative AI prompts allow marketers to segment data and identify high-value customers based on profitability, tenure, engagement, and referrals. This technology uncovers key attributes linked to long-term value, facilitating smarter audience segmentation and personalized outreach. Marketers can analyze purchasing behaviors and preferences, integrating these insights into chatbot scripts and nurture campaigns for a more tailored buying experience.
Key Takeaways
Engaging B2B buying groups in 2025 requires a strategic, hyper-personalized, and data-driven approach. By mastering the dynamics of buying groups, tailoring outreach to individual stakeholder needs, leveraging advanced AI-driven personalization, and integrating marketing and sales workflows, businesses can confidently navigate today’s more complex B2B sales cycles. Prioritizing relationship building and optimizing touchpoints will enhance engagement, drive better decision-making, and ultimately lead to increased conversion rates and long-term success.