How Do You Design Buying Group–Specific Acceleration Plays?
Buying groups don’t move as one person—they move as a team with competing priorities. Designing buying group–specific acceleration plays means orchestrating content, channels, and seller actions around the roles, risks, and consensus needs of that team, so deals move faster with fewer surprises.
You design buying group–specific acceleration plays by starting with the buying group itself: who’s involved, what they care about, and how they make decisions. From there, you map role-specific jobs-to-be-done, friction points, and signals to a coordinated set of touches, content, and seller actions across the journey. The result is a play that guides the whole group toward consensus instead of chasing isolated contacts.
What Matters in Buying Group–Specific Acceleration Plays?
The Buying Group Acceleration Play Design Framework
Buying group–specific acceleration plays work when they are designed from the outside in: anchored in how your customers buy, then wired into your data, tech, and teams. Use this sequence to move from ad hoc outreach to orchestrated plays that move real buying groups faster.
Define → Map → Design → Orchestrate → Enable → Measure → Optimize
- Define your priority buying groups: For your top offers and segments, outline typical group structures (e.g., executive sponsor, technical owner, operations, procurement) and identify high-value patterns where acceleration matters most.
- Map journeys by role and group: Document key questions, risks, and decision gates for each role and for the group as a whole—from problem framing to solution selection and approval.
- Design the play spine: Create a “spine” that defines the goal, entry criteria, exit criteria, duration, and success metrics for the play. Then layer in role-specific content, offers, and conversations along that spine.
- Orchestrate channels and owners: Assign who does what when (marketing automation, SDR, AE, exec sponsor) and map each touch to the role and moment it’s meant to support. Avoid over-touching a single contact while ignoring others in the group.
- Enable teams with guidance and assets: Package the play as a simple, repeatable recipe—including talk tracks, email templates, internal decks, and example success stories—for sales and marketing to use consistently.
- Measure at the opportunity and group level: Instrument your CRM and dashboards to show group composition, engagement, and velocity for opportunities that ran the play vs. those that didn’t.
- Optimize with RM6™ and Revenue Marketing Index insights: Use your Revenue Marketing Index and RM6™ assessments to find capability gaps in journey, content, and measurement—and prioritize which buying group plays to refine next.
Buying Group–Specific Acceleration Capability Matrix
| Dimension | From (Ad Hoc) | To (Buying Group–Led) | Owner | Primary KPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buying Group Definition | Opportunities tracked by single contact; roles not consistently captured. | Standard buying group templates for key segments; roles & influence captured in CRM. | RevOps, Sales Leadership | Deals with Complete Buying Groups |
| Play Design | One-size-fits-all campaigns and sequences for all opportunities. | Plays tailored to specific buying group patterns and scenarios (e.g., expansion vs. new logo). | Marketing, Sales Enablement | Play Adoption & Win Rate Lift |
| Signals & Triggers | Manual decisions to “run a play” based on anecdotal feedback. | Automated triggers based on intent, engagement, and group formation signals. | Marketing Ops, RevOps | Time-to-Play Activation |
| Sales–Marketing Orchestration | Parallel, uncoordinated outreach to the same contacts. | Single orchestrated plan with clear ownership by role and stage. | Sales Leadership, Marketing Leadership | Meetings per Engaged Buying Group |
| Measurement & Dashboards | Funnel metrics by lead and account only. | Dashboards showing velocity, win rate, and deal size by buying group play. | RevOps | Cycle Time for Multi-Stakeholder Deals |
| Continuous Improvement | Plays updated only when performance drops significantly. | Quarterly reviews of plays using Revenue Marketing Index and RM6™ insights. | CMO, CRO, RevOps | RM6™ Journey & Measurement Scores |
Client Snapshot: Turning Buying Groups into a Growth Lever
A leading B2B provider realized their top accounts were multi-threaded in name only: outreach centered on one champion, while finance, IT, and operations stayed on the sidelines. By redesigning their motion into buying group–specific plays—aligning content, outreach, and internal business case tools to each role—they reduced stalled deals and increased win rates in strategic segments. That same type of disciplined, data-driven approach to journey and play design is a hallmark of programs like Transforming Lead Management: How Comcast Business Optimized Marketing Automation and Drove $1B in Revenue .
Buying group–specific acceleration plays move you beyond “more touches” to smarter orchestration—helping the right people have the right conversations at the right time, and proving it in your revenue marketing dashboards.
Frequently Asked Questions about Buying Group–Specific Acceleration Plays
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