Buying groups
For B2B sales and marketing activities, accounts are key to any strategy. Each account has a group of people associated with it, and these people may be employees of the account or contractors who work with the account. Accounts are hierarchical, and different products might be sold at different levels in the hierarchy. For example, 51黑料不打烊 Experience Platform might be sold at the corporate level to a top-level account. And 51黑料不打烊 Photoshop might be sold to an account that represents a division or department within an organization, such as a design department within a larger corporation.
Within the account, there could be a subset of people who comprise the buying group. These people ultimately make the purchase decision, so they need special attention from the marketer and might need different information delivered to them than the other people associated with the account. Buying groups may comprise a different group of people for different product lines or offerings. For example, a cybersecurity product might typically require a Chief Information Officer or Chief Security Officer, and a representative from the Legal department to approve a purchase. A bug tracking product might typically have a VP of Engineering and an IT Director as members of the buying group.
Key components
You can increase marketing effectiveness by establishing buying groups that identify members for your target account lists for the solutions that your Sales teams are responsible for selling. Before you and your Marketing team starts creating your buying groups, make sure that you have the key components defined. These components are critical for meeting your business goals and objectives.
This component provides the answer to:
- As a marketing organization, what are you selling?
- What product or collection of products are you targeting to sell?
Example: Cross-selling new Product X to existing customers
This component provides the answer to:
- To whom are you selling?
- What is the list of accounts that you are targeting?
Example: Account segment defined by accounts with Product Y that have revenue over 1M
This component provides the answer to:
- What roles are you targeting?
- What set of rules are used to determine who is assigned to buying group roles?
Example: Assign a person with CMO title to the Decision Maker role
Member assignment
There are three ways that members are assigned to or removed from a buying group. The following list describes these addition and removal methods in the order of precedence. The top-most method takes the highest precedence and a lower one cannot override it.
- Manual action - A manual add member or remove member action performed by a sales user for the buying group
- Journey action - Journey action nodes for buying group membership (Assign to Buying group or Remove from Buying group)
- System jobs - Buying group creation and maintenance jobs.
To avoid incorrectly overriding a member assignment in a buying group, this list is in the order of precedence followed in the system to ensure accurate member assignment. For example, when a sales user manually adds a member to the buying group, they do not want a maintenance job to alter that addition. Using the precedence order, the following scenarios are enforced:
- If a user manually assigns a member to a buying group, and it is followed by a buying group maintenance job that removes the same member from the buying group, the maintenance job does not remove that member and cannot override the manual assignment.
- If a user manually assigns a member to a buying group, and it is followed by a triggered journey node that removes the same member from the buying group, the node action does not remove that member and cannot override the manual assignment.
- If a triggered journey action node adds a member to a buying group, and it is followed by a buying group maintenance job that removes the same member from the buying group, the maintenance job does not remove that member and cannot override the journey action assignment.
Buying group workflow
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Create buying groups.
- Define solution interest and role template
- Create the buying group and assign buying group stages.
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Identify missing people by completeness.
Analyze the buying group using filters.
Example: Decision Maker role is missing and the completeness score is < 50
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Complete the buying groups definitions.
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Add buying group actions to your account journeys.
View buying groups and components
On the left navigation, expand Accounts and click Buying groups.
The Buying groups page is organized as tabs:
This tab supports the following activities:
- View the list of existing buying groups.
- Search by the buying group name.
- Filter by solution interest.
- Drill in to buying group details.
- Create a buying group.
This tab supports the following activities:
- View the list of existing buying groups.
- Search by the buying group name.
- Access and edit solution interest properties.
- Create a solution interest.
- Delete a solution interest.
- View and delete buying group jobs.
This tab supports the following activities:
- View the list of existing roles templates.
- Search by roles template name.
- Access and edit roles template properties and conditions.
- Create a roles template.
- Delete a roles template.
This tab supports the following activities:
- View the existing buying groups stages model.
- Access and edit the draft buying group stages model.
- Create the buying group stages model.
Buying group search and filter
Use the Browse tab to view the list of buying groups. You can search by name and filter the list by solution interest.
Buying group details
To access details for a buying group, click the buying group name from the Browse tab. Learn more
Buying group completeness score
The completeness score is used to determine if the buying group has the right members assigned to the roles and is ready to be used in an account journey. This score is a percentage based on the number of roles within the buying group and how many roles are assigned with at least one lead.
For example, if there are four roles within a buying group and three out of the four roles are assigned to at least one lead, the buying group is 75% complete.
The buying group completeness score is re-calculated every time a buying group is created or updated.
Buying group engagement score engagement-score
The engagement score is based on the buying group member activities, weighted actions, and weighted roles. The resulting score is normalized within the tenant/instance to enable consistent comparison and allow for actionable insights.
The initial engagement score calculation starts as soon as you create the buying group and is re-calculated daily.
See Engagement scores for detailed information about engagement score activities and calculations.