Every Purchase is a Group Decision

By Rosie O’Hara

Why the smartest brands are marketing to the whole room.

B2G (Business to Group) is becoming increasingly important as marketing complexity rises.

Many still believe the myth of a single “consumer” who sees an ad, visits a website, and makes a purchase: one person, one decision, one conversion.

This idea was never accurate. With remote work, AI tools, and widespread social proof, it is now even more outdated and risks costing brands market share. Decisions are rarely made by individuals alone.

In reality, every purchase involves a group. Leading brands engage both buyers and all decision influencers.

We have entered the era of B2G, or Business to Group marketing.

The committee has always been in the room.

For B2B marketers in sectors such as building products, manufacturing, and life sciences, this confirms what we already know.

According to Forrester’s 2026 The State of Business Buying Report, the average B2B purchase now involves 13 stakeholders, and nearly 73% of buying decisions cross multiple departments.¹ Instead of one executive signing off on a deal, these committees include decision-makers, budget owners, technical evaluators, and end users, all weighing in from different angles.

While not new in B2B, this trend has accelerated and now stretches beyond business buyers. Millennials and Gen Z now represent 71% of B2B buyers. Those under 40 involve nearly twice as many people in decisions compared to older executives.²

The committee is not a remedy or an obstacle; it is the process.

The hidden architecture of every purchase decision.

Group dynamics are complex and essential to understand, because every member brings specific perspectives, priorities, and information to the decision.

Buying committees shape B2B deals and include stakeholders with different interests. For example, the CFO focuses on cost and ROI; the CTO evaluates scalability; and the VP of Operations prioritizes efficiency. Each prefers different content, channels, and timing.

This is why a single message through one channel is ineffective. Buying groups include researchers, influencers, end users, budget holders, and executives—each having distinct needs and preferred channels.

Adding to the complexity, most group decisions begin before your brand is involved. Influence often starts before any direct engagement.

Gartner’s research shows B2B buyers spend only 17% of their buying time in direct contact with vendors, meaning roughly 80% of the journey proves self-directed.³ Forrester’s data found 68% of B2B buyers already have a front-runner vendor before formal evaluation begins.¹ Many sellers step into a process already in motion.

If your brand does not reach each group member with the right content, channel, and timing, you are not truly competing. You are entering a conversation that has already concluded.

The consensus problem: When the group cannot agree.

Even when brands reach the group, another challenge remains: achieving consensus. Many B2B buyer teams experience unhealthy conflict during the buying process, according to a Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers. Buying groups are increasingly diverse, with members from up to four departments, each providing unique priorities and opinions.³

The impact of this conflict is significant. When buying groups reach agreement, they are 2.5 times more likely to say their deal was high-quality. But if they do not agree, the results can be serious: Forrester’s 2026 The State of Business Buying Report found that 86% of purchases stall, and 81% of buyers are unhappy with their provider.¹

This is not simply a sales issue; it is a marketing challenge. If your content and messaging do not address every stakeholder, you risk conflict, delays, and lost opportunities.

Gartner research shows 77% of B2B buyers describe their most recent purchase as complex or difficult, with internal consensus-building cited as the primary friction point. Sellers who engage only a single champion leave the majority of the group unaddressed. Unaddressed stakeholders are a common reason deals stall.⁵

Implementing a B2G approach is challenging. It calls for significant resources, teamwork, and coordination to engage every stakeholder. Varied priorities and influence levels make it difficult to craft messages that connect with all. Tracking group engagement, rather than individual activities, also requires advanced tools that many companies lack. As a result, marketing must go beyond building awareness.

This is not exclusively a B2B story.

This shift is especially significant for consumer brands, as group dynamics now go beyond boardrooms and formal buying committees.

When purchasing appliances, healthcare services, or financial products, consumers increasingly depend on others’ opinions. The concept of a “single buyer” is now outdated.

Capital One’s 2026 “Online Reviews Statistics” shows more than 99% of American consumers read online reviews before making purchases, and that reviews influence 93% of consumers’ purchasing decisions.⁶

The social validation loop, which includes friends, family, online communities, and trusted reviewers, functions in consumer marketing much like a formal buying committee in B2B. Social proof shapes consumer decisions by using peer influence to confirm choices and demonstrate value.

We have reached a turning point. Group dynamics seen in complex B2B buying, such as committee decisions, multiple influencers, shared choices, and peer validation, are now common across all types of purchases. B2B buyers often begin the journey with influence from external experts, peers, communities, and user groups all top of mind.

While differences between B2B and B2C marketing remain, one thing is clear: No brand can afford to market to a single individual when a group is making the decision.

Numerous factors are accelerating this shift, all pointing in the same direction.

Digital self-direction. According to a March 2026 Gartner survey of 646 B2B buyers, 67% now prefer a rep-free purchase experience, sending a clear signal that the majority of evaluation and decision-making happens independently before a sales conversation ever begins.⁴

Generational change. Today’s buyers grew up with digital tools and are accustomed to social, peer-driven environments. They do not make decisions alone because they never have. AI was the most-cited meaningful interaction type for researching purchases in Forrester’s 2025 Buyers’ Journey Survey. Buyers leverage tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot to summarize vendor comparisons, draft requirements, and validate sales claims. As a result, the invisible committee now includes AI-curated peer intelligence at scale.⁷

The trust gap. People trust global companies less and are increasingly concerned about misinformation. As trust in institutions declines, individuals turn to their peers. Brands that earn group trust, not simply individual trust, are more likely to succeed.

The B2G framework: marketing to the whole group.

Recognizing that every purchase is a group decision is only the first step; acting on this insight requires discipline. This is the essence of B2G, and it transforms marketing strategy. It prompts entirely new questions:

• Who are all of the people involved in this purchase decision, directly or indirectly?
• What does each of them need to know, feel, and believe to move toward a decision?
• Through which channels do they consume information, and at what point in the journey?
• What content builds consensus across the group, rather than just persuading one champion?
• How does the brand show up in the spaces where the group validates its choices, such as reviews, communities, peer networks, and social channels?

Multichannel marketing enables you to reach each stakeholder through their preferred channels. For example, connect with technical buyers through webinars and comparison content, and reach executives through LinkedIn or analyst reports. This ensures your solution is visible to all stakeholders.

For manufacturing brands, adopting a B2G perspective is essential. Manufacturing marketing includes complex products and long sales cycles, demanding detailed technical content to educate stakeholders. Marketing must address industry needs, offer clear information, and build trust using case studies and customer testimonials.

Brands that excel in complex distribution are not the loudest, but they are the ones with the clearest, most consistent, and audience-focused presence at every stage where the group forms its opinion.

What this means for your marketing strategy.

Adopting a B2G mindset requires changes to both strategy and operations.

Map the entire decision group. Start by building a comprehensive stakeholder map that includes all roles: decision-makers, influencers, and validators. The map can be a table or diagram listing roles such as ultimate approver, core committee member, and internal influencer, along with their priorities, decision criteria, pain points, and preferred channels. Consider the three main groups: ultimate approvers, the core committee, and internal influencers, like end users—each calling for different content and engagement.

Create content for every stakeholder. Because committees make buying decisions and each member has separate preferences, you must be present across multiple channels and deliver content that addresses each stakeholder’s needs, such as the CFO’s ROI concerns, the engineer’s technical requirements, the end user’s daily experience, and the procurement officer’s risk tolerance, all at once and clearly.

Focus on the invisible phase. Most of the buying journey occurs before a brand is even aware it is being considered. Your marketing must be effective even in your absence. Thought leadership, SEO, managing peer reviews, participating in communities, and building social proof are all essential because they shape group opinions.

Aim for consensus, not just conversion. Building agreement within the group and reducing conflict should be a top priority. Marketers can facilitate this by running workshops or meetings for participants to share their views, providing decision matrices and comparison charts that display specific priorities, sharing case reviews of successful group decisions, and offering guides that outline the buying journey for all participants. Interactive tools, like shared ROI calculators or scenario planning, can also promote open discussion and mutual understanding.

Track group engagement, not simply individual leads. Classic metrics like MQLs and click-through rates are less effective for B2G, as they overlook the group aspect of decisions. Gong Labs recently audited 1.8M “sales opportunities,” and the data showed that in deals over $50k, multi-threading boosts win rates by 130%, and that won deals have twice as many buyer contacts as lost deals.⁸

Miller Brooks has always operated this way.

For over 40 years, Miller Brooks has believed that successful marketing is not only about reaching one buyer, but about engaging everyone who influences the decision.

Our work has always focused on complex distribution channels such as building products, manufacturing, life sciences, and consumer durables, where the buying process includes distributors, contractors, specifiers, end users, procurement teams, and executives. We have always understood that winning a sale requires winning the entire group.

What has changed is that this complexity is no longer limited to B2B; it is now part of all marketing. Brands that understand and adapt to this shift will earn not only a buyer’s attention but the trust of the entire group.

Our role has never been just to win the buyer; it has always been to win the room.

That is what sets B2G apart, and it is the only way forward.

Miller Brooks is a full-service marketing agency in Indianapolis, Indiana, specializing in complex channel marketing, brand strategy, and integrated communications for brands operating in multi-stakeholder environments.