How do you define B2B buying groups and the role they play in your company’s growth and success? Nowadays, buyers almost always prefer to purchase  in groups rather than  as individuals. Hence, the term “B2B buying groups” was born. The idea behind buying groups is to identify a set of personas involved in making a purchase decision, and this approach has revolutionized the B2B demand generation landscape. If you’re ready to learn how to best identify B2B buying groups with intent data, stick around so you can apply some methods in your business. To this day, innumerable B2B organizations receive help from research firms like The Forrester B2B Revenue Waterfall™ to ramp up lead generation and chalk out revenue strategies.

What Are Buying Groups?

Buying groups are important in a variety of ways, but the first step is to understand what they are and their purpose. Nowadays, more than one buyer is involved in making a B2B purchase decision. Identifying and engaging the groups who participate in the buying process and impact the purchase decision are known as buying groups. Their role is critical when trying to boost conversions through the funnel.

In addition, the key personas within buying groups have different roles, and they’re influential at various stages of the funnel. For example, if you’re buying a technology solution for your firm, you should consult and discuss this with various departments and team members before investing in it. You can’t make this type of decision on your own. Instead, it’s essential to gain confirmation from all team members (personas) who might be affected by this decision.

Now, let’s dig into the ways in which intent data helps marketers identify B2B buying groups.

Major Ways to Identify B2B Buying Groups With Intent Data

Did you know that according to Gartner, your target buyers spend 50% of their time doing independent research from third-party resources? What may come as a surprise is that buyers spend more time doing research than communicating with sales reps. To effectively reach and engage modern and empowered B2B buyers, marketers need to gather deep insights about  their target audience segments. In the past, marketers had to wait for the buyer to complete a set of actions in order to understand the prospect’s interest. However, currently, with the help of buyer intent data signals, marketers can track prospect movement and prioritize outreach.

Now,  how can you successfully identify buying groups with intent data?

1. Designing audience framework: To identify buying groups, you should begin by designing an audience framework, which should provide a detailed overview of your target market segments and sub-levels including regions, industries, business types, and the key personas involved. The audience framework plays an important role because it provides an answer to the most important question of who the buyer is.
   
   Furthermore, in order to plan a successful audience framework, you should start by identifying your target audience. To do this,  you’ll need the right combination  of browsing patterns, online activities, email clicks, content downloads, and site visits within your intent data stream. An intent data-driven audience framework helps when developing a uniform organizational definition of your primary target audience.
   
2. Defining key personas: In general, intent data offers a comprehensive picture of a buyer’s needs, interests, and pain points, which in turn, define personas from target audience segments. Marketers should  define personas by the various  job roles and business positions individuals hold. Then, the next step is to capture the emotive, functional, decision processes, and behavioral attributes in order to gain clarity about key personas.
   
   Also, it’s important to remember that a persona can have one or more of the following roles in a B2B buying process: a champion, influencer, decision-maker, user, and/or ratifier. When there are too many personas to target, quantitative and qualitative metrics such as  the number of personas and new or known personas can help prioritize which personas require immediate attention.
   
3. Understanding buyer needs: Marketers need intent data to determine which businesses or enterprises are best suited for their  solutions. Once you understand what your buyers want and/or need, you can curate personalized solutions to accelerate engagement and conversions.
   
   Not only do marketers  have to target the buying needs of their primary decision-maker, but also the entire group including their key personas. Knowing the needs of your  personas is pivotal when pushing a buying group across the sales funnel.
   
   Additionally, when buyers browse various online sites, they often gain knowledge and form opinions about different products or services. During this process, they also leave digital footprints which are often referred to as buyer intent data. This can help you understand where your buyers are within the purchasing process.
   
   Where do you go from here? You can start by learning how InsightBASE® Relevance Engine gives sales and marketing teams greater insights about a buying group’s interests and their purchase journey based on the execution of millions of online activities.. This vital intent intelligence platform can be integrated directly into marketing and sales automation systems thus helping marketing teams prioritize accounts for engagement campaigns. If you’re ready to move forward and apply this information to your business, reach out to us for guidance and/or suggestions that’ll align with you and what you do!