Reach the Right B2B Decision Makers With Your Marketing

In B2B, decision-making often involves a diverse group of stakeholders, each with unique perspectives and priorities. 

According to Gartner, a typical B2B buying group involves six to ten decision makers, each with five to six pieces of information to help them make a decision.

Clearly, targeting a single decision maker is not a viable strategy. This article explores how B2B marketers can effectively engage multiple stakeholders and optimize their campaigns in real time.

Understanding the B2B Decision-Making Process

Recently, a CRM company spoke to our large stakeholder group. This group included representatives from various organizations within the company. 

For instance, I represented the sales organization, while others represented marketing, operations, and finance. I realized that each stakeholder viewed the solution differently based on their unique needs and challenges.

In B2B marketing, we often make the mistake of targeting only the finance person, thinking they hold all the decision-making power. 

However, we need to engage everyone. We need to ask ourselves: 

• Which teams and roles are a part of the buying committee for my offering?
• Who are the influencers and their titles within these organizations?
• What is important to each of the leaders across these organizations?
• How do we need to speak to each of these decision makers based on what’s important to them and the value we can provide?

Different organizational roles perceive value and challenges in unique ways based on their specific responsibilities and objectives. This diversity in perspectives makes it essential for B2B marketers to tailor their messaging to each stakeholder.

Identifying Key B2B Decision Makers

For instance, let’s consider the scenario where a company is evaluating a new CRM system.

The sales leader is focused on how the CRM can drive sales and improve the bottom line. They want to know if the system can help identify new leads, streamline the sales process, and provide robust analytics to forecast revenue more accurately. Their main challenge is ensuring the CRM contributes to revenue growth and offers a good return on investment.

The marketing leader is concerned with how the CRM can improve campaign effectiveness and lead nurturing. They look for features like better segmentation, personalized marketing efforts, and detailed performance tracking. Their challenge is to ensure the CRM integrates well with other marketing tools and provides actionable insights to boost marketing ROI.

The operations leader values how the CRM can improve efficiency and productivity. They want streamlined workflows, reduced redundancies, and improved collaboration across departments. Their challenge is implementing a system that minimizes disruption and maximizes operational efficiency.

The finance leader examines the CRM from a cost perspective. They assess the upfront and ongoing costs, potential cost savings, and overall financial impact. Their challenge is to ensure the CRM fits within the budget and delivers measurable financial benefits.

Here’s how a CRM company might tailor their pitch to each stakeholder:

To the sales leader	“Our CRM system boosts your sales team’s efficiency by 30%, leading to a potential 20% increase in revenue.  “With advanced lead scoring and automated follow-ups, your team can focus on closing deals rather than administrative tasks.”
To the marketing leader	“With our CRM’s robust segmentation and personalization tools, you can create highly-targeted campaigns that drive engagement and conversions.  “Our integrated analytics dashboard provides real-time insights into campaign performance, allowing you to adjust strategies on the fly.”
To the operations leader	“Our CRM streamlines your workflows by integrating seamlessly with your existing tools and platforms. It reduces manual data entry by 40%, freeing up your team to focus on strategic initiatives.  “Plus, our user-friendly interface ensures quick adoption across departments.”
To the finance leader	“Our CRM offers a competitive pricing model with clear ROI. You can expect a significant reduction in customer acquisition costs by improving sales and marketing efficiency.  “Additionally, our real-time reporting helps you make data-driven financial decisions.”

A Programmatic Solution for Reaching B2B Stakeholders

The challenge for B2B marketers is figuring out how to effectively communicate with various decision makers within an organization, each with their own priorities. Instead of relying solely on the finance decision maker, you need to engage everyone in meaningful ways. 

StackAdapt has developed a solution for this within the programmatic ecosystem, leveraging ABM data and firmographic information to target decision makers across different organizational departments. Whether it’s the sales leader, marketing leader, or any other key player, the platform allows you to reach them effectively. 

A programmatic platform like StackAdapt provides real-time measurement and reporting capabilities. You can target individuals with tailored creative content and measure the impact directly within the platform. This allows you to track the effectiveness of the lead conversion journey, identifying which types of content resonate most with different leaders. For instance, if you notice that sales leaders engage more with certain types of content, you can allocate more resources to those channels immediately.

Some DSPs wait for end-of-campaign reports, which can prove to be inefficient. StackAdapt provides real-time insights and adjustments, and features like dynamic creative optimization allow for more personalized experiences as you can build and scale creative content based on individual user data. 

This means you can deliver personalized messages to sales, finance, and marketing leaders, optimizing the content in real-time to maximize impact.

How Marketers Can Influence the B2B Decision Making Process

Here are three steps you can take to get started.

1. Understand the Influencers 

Start by gaining a deep understanding of the various stakeholders within an organization who influence the decision-making process. 

Identify these individuals, whether they are in marketing, sales, operations, or finance. Consider their roles and levels, from directors to SVPs. Understand what drives them and what signals are important to each group.

2. Tailor Your Messaging 

Once you’ve identified the key stakeholders, think about their specific incentives and motivations. What motivates a sales leader might be different from what motivates an operations leader or a marketing leader. 

Extract the unique value propositions for each group and craft impactful creative content tailored to their needs. Use dynamic creative optimization to test and refine your campaigns, ensuring that your messages resonate with each stakeholder.

3. Measure the Impact of Your Messaging

It’s important to measure how your messaging impacts each stakeholder group. Analyze which types of content engage different decision makers and drive conversions. 

This insight helps you understand what works best for each group so you can adjust your strategies and allocate resources more effectively.

4. Leverage Real-Time Optimization 

Use measurement and reporting capabilities to monitor and optimize your campaigns. With StackAdapt, you can do this on the fly. This allows you to see which channels and messages are driving the most impact and make adjustments in real-time. 

You don’t need to wait until the end of the campaign to see results; you can optimize as you go, ensuring that you reach the right decision makers and drive conversions effectively.

When you understand who the decision makers are, tailor your messaging to their specific needs. This way, you can create highly-effective B2B marketing campaigns that engage multiple stakeholders and drive success.

Ready to revolutionize your B2B marketing strategy? Request a demo of StackAdapt today and see how our solutions can help you reach and resonate with every key player in your target organizations. These capabilities make StackAdapt a unique and powerful tool in the programmatic ecosystem, offering solutions that few other DSPs can match.