B2B marketing: selling to a group, not a person
In B2B, the buying decision belongs to a group of six to ten people, and vendors get only 17% of the total time in the process. The consequence is direct: your marketing has to convince in your absence, in internal exchanges you will never attend.
- Gartner measures a median buying group of six to ten decision-makers, each arriving with four or five pieces of information they found on their own.
- Vendors get 17% of the decision time, and 5 to 6% when several are in the running. The rest plays out without you.
- Forrester reports that purchases involve on average thirteen people internally and nine externally, and that three or more departments step in in 73% of cases.
- Procurement is a decision-maker in 53% of buying cycles and steps in early. The price question comes up sooner than people think.
- The content that wins is the content an internal champion can forward without you. It is a production criterion, not a detail.
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B2B buying group
The B2B buying group is the set of people who take part in a purchasing decision within a company: the initiator, the users, the people who evaluate, the one who approves the budget, and procurement. Gartner measures its median size at between six and ten decision-makers for a complex purchase. Its distinctive feature is that it does not meet in front of the vendor: each member gathers information on their own, then the group seeks a consensus internally, out of the seller's view.
What B2B really changes
The difference between B2B and B2C is not about tone or channels, contrary to what the market has been saying for twenty years. It comes down to a measured fact: the decision is made by a group, and the group works without you.
Gartner divides the buying group's time between independent online research, independent offline research, internal meetings, and meetings with vendors. That last category represents only 17% of the total, and when three vendors are in the running, each gets only 5 to 6% of the time. Forrester rounds out the picture with groups that bring together on average thirteen people internally and nine externally, and three or more departments involved in 73% of purchases.
For a management team, this shifts the budget question. Investing more in the sales force acts only on the 5% of the process where you are present. Investing in what circulates during the remaining 95% weighs on the part where the decision actually forms. This is not an argument against salespeople, it is an argument about the order of priorities.
At a manufacturer whose products go into projects designed by third parties, the sale is won well before the RFP, in the specification window.
What these cycles mean for the very structure of the site is covered in our article on the business-to-business website.
What to settle before funding a B2B plan
B2B marketing is hard to judge because its cycle runs longer than the quarter and most of the journey is invisible. That is what makes it vulnerable to cuts: the spending shows up every month, the result shows up over a year. A plan funded without a written time horizon will be cut before it has produced anything.
- How many people took part in our last five sales, and do we know?
- Does our content answer procurement's objections, or only the user's?
- Can an internal champion defend our offer without us, with what we left them?
- Over what time horizon are we judging this plan, and who accepts that horizon in writing?
- If the pipeline does not move within twelve months, what do we cut?
A solid answer starts from your recent sales and who decided them. A weak answer talks about awareness with no time horizon, promises qualified opportunities as early as the first quarter, or treats B2B like B2C with a more serious tone.
Deciding where to place a B2B budget between awareness, content, and prospecting is a trade-off settled on your real cycle. A 90-minute consultation settles it, with a written summary your team can execute.
Content that travels without you
Since most of it plays out in your absence, the production criterion changes. Useful B2B content is not the content that impresses during a meeting: it is the content an internal champion can forward in an email without having to explain it.
| Group member | What they are looking for | What unblocks them |
|---|---|---|
| User | Does it solve my daily problem | Concrete demonstration, specific use case |
| Technical lead | Does it integrate with what we have | Written technical constraints, no vague promise |
| Finance | How much it costs over three years | Total cost, including maintenance and migration |
| Procurement | What is the contractual risk | Posted price, clear terms, comparison possible |
| General management | What we gain by changing | An impact figure, with the source |
Most companies produce only for the first row of this table. It is also the row that decides the least. Publishing your prices or price ranges remains the most effective move of the lot, because it serves procurement directly, which is a decision-maker in more than half of cycles according to Forrester. The production of this content is framed in content marketing.
What stays in-house: the real list of people who took part in the last sales won and the last sales lost, with their role and their objection. That list cannot be bought and is rebuilt in an hour with your salespeople. What gets delegated: producing content by role, formatting it to be forwarded, visibility in search, and follow-up. A company that documents five real buying cycles gets a better plan than a company that buys a market study.
Measuring a cycle you cannot see
The classic B2B trap is to measure what is visible, meaning the end of the journey, then conclude that the rest is useless. The number of forms filled out says nothing about the share of the buying group you have convinced.
Three readings beat ten. First, the number of distinct people from the same account who interact with you over a period, which shows whether the group is forming. Next, the presence in closed deals of a specific piece of content, to be asked of the salespeople rather than a tool. Finally, the cost per customer acquired over a horizon of at least twelve months. The choice of channels is covered in LinkedIn and in Facebook for B2B. The general framework for indicators is set out in marketing indicators, and the budget trade-off in building the marketing budget.
Forrester reports that buyers increasingly use answer engines early on, but that they distrust them and seek validation from trusted human sources. Two consequences: your information has to be findable by these tools, and the person who validates it will remain a human. Betting on one while neglecting the other amounts to funding half the journey.
Reaching the next level in a B2B market is at the heart of the Generate demand and growth goal.
Already running a marketing team? See how we plug in as reinforcement on LinkedIn advertising.
Frequently asked questions about B2B marketing
What is the real difference between B2B and B2C marketing?
The decision is made by a group. Gartner measures a median buying group of six to ten decision-makers for a complex purchase, each gathering information on their own. In B2C, one or two people decide. This structural difference explains the longer cycle, the need for content by role, and the difficulty of measuring.
How much time does a vendor spend with a B2B buyer?
Gartner measures 17% of the total decision time spent with all the vendors in the running. When several are considered, each gets only 5 to 6% of the time. The vast majority of the process takes place in independent research and internal discussions.
Is ABM worth the investment for an SMB?
Only if your target accounts are few and high-value, and if your salespeople can name the people in the buying group. Without that list, the approach amounts to costly targeted advertising without knowing to whom. The entry condition is knowledge of the accounts, not the tool.
Should you publish your prices in B2B?
Publishing at least a range almost always pays off. Forrester reports that procurement is a decision-maker in 53% of cycles and steps in early. A company that hides its prices entirely gets ruled out before it can speak, and attracts the requests it does not want.
- Gartner, The New B2B Buying Journey, data from the Digital B2B Buyer Survey, sample of 750 B2B buyers.
- Forrester, Three realities about B2B buying networks, Buyers' Journey Survey 2025, accessed July 2026.
- Forrester, 2026 Buyer Insights, press release dated 21 January 2026.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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