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How to Win with a Buying Committee in 2025

  Unreal Digital Group  ·  6 minute read

You’re on cloud nine. You’ve made an introduction to a representative of a lead and have engaged in a conversation about your solution. The ball is rolling, and you’re on the playing field. Now the real work begins. While you may be working with just one person at the company, you no longer have to convince only one person that your solution is the right one. You’re now dealing with multiple people, all with different personalities, wants and interests.

You’re now dealing with a buying committee.

Having success with a buying committee is arguably the most important part of a robust Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy. If you win the buying committee, you’ll win the deal. So how can you tailor your approach to ensure that you’re maximizing your chances with a buying committee in today's evolving B2B landscape? Here’s everything you need to know.

What is a buying committee?

B2B purchasing processes are rarely ever simple, especially for complex solutions. Since a purchasing decision likely affects multiple people in an organization, there are almost always multiple people who can influence the final decision. Market research firm Gartner reported that “the typical buying group involves six to 10 decision-makers, each armed with four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently and must deconflict with the group.”

This creates complexity in an ABM strategy because you’re no longer simply tailoring your approach to one person. It’s now being tailored to multiple different people who respond differently to sales and marketing strategies. And it’s these people who have the most influence on whether or not you win the deal. 

The importance of buyer personas and sales/marketing alignment

It’s not a one-size fits all approach. Think of the buying committee as a family. Why would you create content for a mom, when in reality it’s for the dad or kids? They’re all involved. So in that regard, it’s a one-to-many approach.

But there is a one-to-one approach that is part of this strategy as well. You need to look at the buying committee holistically, but also note that individual rapport is crucial too. For example, you could be looking to send a piece of direct mail to the entire buying committee of six people. That’s a one-to-many approach. What you actually send, however, is prescriptive and can be seen as an individual approach–like a specific piece of swag from someone’s university, a baby onesie to a new parent, or something else that highlights a personal connection.

These buying committee members can often vary widely in terms of role. Some of them may be the end-users who will use the solution every day. One of them may be a high-level VP looking at the potential ROI and impact on the overall strategy of the company. Maybe someone is spearheading a digital transformation effort and is focused on executive buy-in. This makes buyer personas for the ABM lifecycle incredibly important, since they will help to shape the overall targeting strategy.   

With ABM, it’s all about personalization. Not just for the individual you’re directly communicating with, but also with the members of the committee that you won’t be directly engaging with. Understanding someone’s role, where they come from, what they’re interested in and what’s really fueling them at the intent layer is extremely important to understand.

This leads to one of the most critical components of a successful ABM strategy: sales and marketing team alignment. Salespeople like to have a target list, but if they are targeting a persona that marketing isn’t, then you’re completely missing the point. Salespeople could be registering an opportunity in their CRM targeting one persona, like a controller, but marketing could be creating content and campaigns around a completely different persona, like a CFO, which leads to a clash.   

Therefore, it’s incredibly important that marketers sit with sales people and understand who they are targeting and why, so that the entire team is on the same page and increases the chances of approval with a full buying committee. Engaging with and actively listening to the sales team and how they are targeting members of the committee is important since people aren’t right next to them in the office and are often working remotely in this now well-established hybrid work environment. Regularity and consistency with these meetings are key so that everyone is on the same page at all times.

How to engage with a buying committee in today's B2B sales landscape

Now that you have an idea of who makes up a buying committee, the next step is to effectively engage them. It may not be feasible to talk to every single member of the committee, but it is possible to work with marketing to target them with personalized content.

That is why it’s important to align with not only your contact at the company on their needs, wants and pain points but also with the other members of the buying committee. Gaining that deep insight into what makes these people tick and what they are focused on during the sales cycle will allow you to connect with your contact and enable you and marketing to effectively target the other members of the committee with content specifically tailored to their personas. Conducting a contact gap analysis to discover who the members of a committee are that aren’t in your database and what their personas are is crucial for incorporating them into your ABM strategy.   

Some examples of the channels you can market to members include avenues such as personalized direct mail, engaging virtual and strategic in-person events and other tactics that create a strong link between you and the committee and build a solid rapport that will help the group advocate for your solution. Consider leveraging collaborative platforms and digital communication tools to facilitate engagement in a remote or hybrid setting.   

It’s also important to understand that the end-user of the solution is oftentimes not the decision-maker. Decision-makers are most concerned with ROI, strategic alignment and business growth and how the solution will integrate into their existing technology ecosystem and multichannel approach, as opposed to the day-to-day functionalities. In the current economic climate, demonstrating clear and measurable ROI is often a top priority for buying committees.   

Especially when it comes to multiple people weighing in on a decision, understand that this isn’t a straightforward, linear process. Different members of a buying committee can be at different stages of the buyer's journey. One person may be at the top-of-the-funnel researching possible solutions, while someone else could be seeking out bottom-of-the-funnel content such as in-depth eBooks or case studies. This is why having total air cover of all the possible members of a buying committee is critical. Running both top-of-the-funnel (ToFU) and bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFU) content simultaneously will not only cover members of a committee you already have data on but also potential unidentified members who may have slipped through the cracks.

The importance of data when engaging with buying committees

Data rules in the ABM world, and that is especially true with buying committees. Having concise and measurable high-quality data can significantly impact a potential deal. This data should also be seamlessly integrated between sales and marketing teams, ensuring everyone is operating from the same unified view.

Some of the key data points you should focus on acquiring and leveraging when engaging with buying committees include:

  • Firmographic data: Company name, company size, industry, job role, location.
  • Behavioral data: Website activity, content downloads, engagement with marketing emails, product usage (if applicable).
  • Intent data: Topics and keywords they are actively researching, indicating where they are in their buyer’s journey and whether they are “sales-ready.”
  • Engagement data: All communication history with sales and customer support across all channels.
  • Look-alike models: To identify and target potential new accounts that resemble your best current clients.

By diligently gathering and analyzing this data, then ensuring tight alignment between sales and marketing in its interpretation and application, you’ll be well on your way to winning over a buying committee and ultimately securing the deal. Consider leveraging AI-powered sales intelligence tools to enhance your data gathering and analysis efforts.

Takeaways for Winning with Buying Committees in 2025

Navigating the complexities of a buying committee in today's B2B environment requires a strategic, data-driven and highly personalized approach. By understanding the diverse needs of stakeholders, fostering robust sales and marketing alignment and leveraging the power of relevant insights, businesses can significantly improve their win rates. Additionally, you'll need to:

  • Develop comprehensive buyer personas that represent all key stakeholders.
  • Ensure seamless alignment and communication between your sales and marketing teams.
  • Personalize your engagement efforts based on individual roles and interests.
  • Leverage relevant data to understand intent and tailor your messaging.
  • Provide valuable content that addresses different stages of the buyer's journey.
  • Adapt your strategies to the realities of hybrid and remote work environments.Continuously analyze and refine your approach based on performance data.

By focusing on these key principles and adapting to the evolving B2B landscape, you can significantly increase your success rate with buying committees.

At Unreal Digital Group, we specialize in helping organizations like yours develop and execute winning ABM strategies that effectively engage entire buying committees, driving meaningful connections and ultimately, successful deal closures. If you're looking to optimize your approach to account-based marketing and master the art of winning over buying committees in 2025 and beyond, we invite you to connect with our team of experts to explore how we can help you achieve your revenue goals.