What To Do If You’re Marketing To A Buying Team That Won’t Fit In A Minivan

5 rules to follow if your targeted buying team has more characters than ‘Game of Thrones’

One of the worst-kept secrets in business marketing today is the growth of the buying team. Over the years, I have described buying teams as having more characters than a Russian novel. Or talked about meeting the team in a minor league baseball stadium.
 

All jokes aside, buying teams are growing. And for good reason. Companies that do not engage the right people for major purchases are asking for trouble. Trouble of all kinds. I would hate to add a major new piece of equipment to a plant floor without:
●    Making sure your human resources (HR) department knows about any new skills or training your purchase will require of the staff
●    Determining the environmental impact of your new equipment: whether it will generate air pollution or other hazardous waste
●    Assessing any potential safety hazards that might pose a threat to the operator or nearby workers
●    Checking with IT to make sure it can communicate with the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system

In addition, the ways we reach this cast of thousands have changed. Once upon a time, you could place an ad in a few key trade journals and cover your audience effectively. Now there are dozens of options in both style and substance. Plain vanilla print ads have been replaced in most marketing programs with interactive, animation- or video-driven messages zeroing in on targeted buyers sitting in their rec rooms watching ESPN. It is hardly fair to mention the past and present in a single paragraph.

So, what is a marketer to do?

Rule No 1: Don’t Panic

Yes, there are a lot of players. Yes, their needs are diverse. But despite what some might have us believe, the members of this Mormon Tabernacle Choir won’t need individual song sheets. In other words, they won’t need their own content program, completed in the medium they prefer. Just because our prototypical IT directors, for example, like podcasts, that does not mean you have to give them one. Trust me, you will go broke trying.

Rule No. 2: It’s Not a Mob

It may be unruly at times, but the important thing is that the members of the team are not all created equal.

In fact, most companies have a fairly well-established process that involves what the experts call “decision rights.” Here is how it breaks down.

Influencers. In the typical scenario, there are some members of the buying team who simply need to be aware of what is happening. They may not actually need to take any action. And unless they are some kind of ‘Energizer Bunny’, they are probably too busy to do anything more than scan the documents and make sure everything looks okay. A good example might be the IT person, mentioned earlier, who needs to be assured your new equipment will communicate with the existing IT infrastructure. You won’t need a special marketing initiative aimed at this category.

Recommenders. In some situations, a decision made in one area of a plant will impact functions further down the line. For example, a bottling company’s change in container size or composition will have a big impact on the parts of the line that put the bottles into cartons for shipping. In some cases, they may have veto power. So their concerns will need to be addressed. But that simply may mean a sentence or two in your main marketing narrative. Some examples include:

●    Information Technology: Call out any IT requirements or detail all the communications protocols your products accommodate
●    Environmental Health and Safety: Document the steps you have taken to reduce or eliminate sources of pollution
●    Employee Safety: List the safety features you have added

Decisionmaker(s). In most cases, the person who makes the decision will be the one who is driving the project, which makes them fairly easy to identify. However, sometimes, a more junior-level staffer is the front person for the team, leaving the key decisionmaker in doubt. In the best-case scenario, the decisionmaker is the person who has the most to gain (or lose) if the project moves forward. Decision-making may also be shared among a small group. The smaller, the better. We will discuss the marketing needs of decision-makers in Rule No. 3.

Approvers. The decision-maker may not have the ability to authorize the sale. In that case, their supervisor may have the final sign-off. That may create a whole new level of review, or simply be a formality in cases where the supervisor has confidence in their subordinate. But their communication needs, once again, can be covered by the decision-makers.

The one wild card is purchasing. In the past, the purchasing or procurement function simply handled the details of the transaction, once it was approved. In many companies now, however, the process is divided into technical and commercial segments, with the former being the process described above and the latter being the negotiation of terms – not just price, but delivery, support, and long-term service agreements. Adding this extra layer of decision-making involves extra cost and makes a long process even longer. And it can get ugly.

For the most part, sales and customer service people have to address the needs of purchasing team members on a case-by-case basis.

Rule No. 3: Focus on the Key Players

From a marketing standpoint, you want to make sure you focus on the people you have identified as the decisionmaker and any approvers. They will be the ones who get the full package of materials designed to make the sale. They will need all the important information like competitive comparisons, specifications, pricing, support, and delivery.

In effect, you want to get the key decision-makers in your court. And as the buying process unfolds, they will become your advocates to the rest of the team. So you want to arm them with the information mentioned above to help them overcome objections from team members who remain skeptical.

Rule No 4: You’re in a Marathon, Not a Sprint

The buying process always seems to take longer than it should. It certainly takes longer than it used to when the buying team could fit into a booth at a fast-food restaurant. And, most likely, it will only get longer. And in five years, these will be the good old days.

In the same way, marketers need to think of the evolution of the process from beginning to end. In many companies, marketers develop generic materials that quality sales reps can mine to extract the salient points for individual stakeholders.

And, as account-based marketing and other, more targeted sales efforts evolve, marketing will have to supply additional information and materials to support the sales team in making the sale.

Rule No. 5: Make Your Selling Team as Powerful as Their Buying Team

Remember, you are all on the same team. You, your sales reps. And maybe even your customers and their buying teams.

Imagine how powerful your marketing would be if your marketing team, your sales team, and your customer’s buying team were all on the same page. All striving for the same thing: continuous improvement, whatever will enhance or improve the customer’s process, product, or service.

That’s a big idea. One that will bring down the house at Yankee Stadium, the Metropolitan Opera House, or wherever your buying team decides to meet.

Author Bio

Jim Everhart, author of “Brand Vision”, is a freelance strategist and writer, working with corporations and agencies to develop marketing communications tactics and campaigns. Visit www.brandvisionbook.com