Getting to know everyone behind an enterprise technology purchase

The question

An enterprise technology company sells into purchases that involve many people, each with different priorities and a different part in the decision.

It had its own working model of the groups behind a purchase. Marketing wanted that model tested against how buying decisions are really made, and to learn what each person needs to hear before choosing a supplier.

Our approach

We ran the program in stages, each starting from what the last had made clear, beginning with a survey in four markets (the US, the UK, Germany and France) that tested the company’s own buying groups.

The company’s messages then went to the buyers they were written for, persona by persona, and later stages brought in the people who influence the choice of an AI provider, senior technical decision makers and industry analysts, as the company’s questions moved on.

Interviews in those stages mixed structured questions with open conversation, so each audience could be measured and heard in its own words.

What the team came away with

The first stage gave marketing buyer personas built on survey evidence: who takes part in a purchase, when and why, and how that changes across kinds of business.

Later stages refined those personas in interviews and added messaging guidance for each audience, so every message could be checked against the person it was written for.

As new audiences came into view, each stage started from the existing personas and asked how the new decision makers related to them. The picture of the buyers could grow with the market without being rebuilt each time.

Marketing could now write to each person behind a purchase knowing how that person influences the decision, and what they need to hear before the company is shortlisted.