This is the first in a 3-part series on audience understanding, co-authored by Ledger Bennett and DMPG (Graham Newell, Head of Global Sales), who are part of the Havas Media network. 

Ledger Bennett is a B2B marketing agency with expertise across the funnel, including big brand media thinking, customer experience, strategy, digital PR, and SEO.  

DMPG is a digital agency that combines data and technology to deliver effective omnichannel marketing solutions across disciplines.  

Most B2B brands don’t struggle to attract buyers because they lack demand, technology, or ideas. They struggle because they don’t know who they’re talking to. Not really.  

And in fiercely competitive B2B markets, the brands that win won’t do so based on features or price. They’ll win based on how well they understand their audience and adapt to their shifting needs and behaviors. 

As we’ll discover, things are changing fast.  

How is buying behavior evolving? 

Two shifts are happening at the same time. 

First, buying groups are becoming more complex and evaluating differently. A meaningful amount of evaluation now happens before a vendor gets a chance to shape the narrative, and lots of internal stakeholders are involved in that process. In addition, “Hidden Buyers” (who are typically focused on risk mitigation) now represent around half the decision-making influence in buying groups.  

Second, AI is reshaping how buyers evaluate options. Buyers are increasingly getting answers inside AI-generated summaries and bypassing vendor sites altogether. Therefore, brands need to show up as demonstrably relevant to specific roles, problems, or moments — or they’ll be removed from consideration before a human conversation ever starts.  

The value of sounding different. 

Most B2B categories are crowded with capable products, similar claims, and increasingly sophisticated marketing. Brands rarely win by boasting about features and benefits. They prioritize understanding and adapting to different buyers. 

When brands force everyone through the same narrative or journey, they introduce friction that competitors can exploit. In contrast, a depth of audience understanding allows brands to tailor everything that follows: their strategy, creative concept, content themes, tactical messaging, media choices, and sales conversations. 

What does a ‘deeper understanding’ actually mean?  

Let’s chip away at this question by first looking at the dynamics of a typical buying group. 

We need to understand a few fundamentals, like how different buyers evaluate value, how they perceive risk, the proof points that resonate with them, and the barriers that might prevent them from making a decision.  

Then, we need to ask questions that tell us something meaningful about our target buyers beyond basic surface-level observations. 

For instance: 

  • What podcasts, TV shows, media outlets, and content creators do they follow?  
  • What platforms, forums, Substacks, social channels, and online communities do they engage with?  
  • What are they passionate about (adventure travel, technology, endurance sports, French cinema)?   
  • Have they engaged with your brand before? If so, when, how, and why?  

Once a brand has pulled together the most relevant insights, it can start building different buyer personas that inform everything that follows: its strategy, brand narrative, content themes, tactical messaging, media choices, and sales conversations. 

Make it part of who you are.  

Conducting this kind of research shouldn’t be regarded as a helpful add-on. It needs to actively shape how a brand plans, prioritizes, and executes its marketing.  

To achieve that consistently at scale, data, insight, and execution need to be connected in a single system. Having a single system to coordinate audience understanding allows learning and insights to compound over time and be activated quickly, rather than being debated endlessly or trapped in silos.  

But to be clear, the idea here isn’t to just “use AI” or “collect more data.” It’s to remove the planning bottleneck by designing data and technology as a system. This requires:  

  • A trusted data foundation that connects account, role, behavior, and intent signals.  
  • An orchestration layer that can adapt journeys based on those signals. 
  • Content that works well in both human and AI contexts, so the brand consistently shows up as the best answer, not just another option. 

Every interaction teaches the system what builds confidence and what causes drop off. Brands can then use these insights to avoid the mistakes their competitors are making: running slow, assumption-led plans. 

Do you know who you’re talking to? 

Some B2B buyers are primarily looking for reassurance. They want to know: “What’s the risk of making this decision? How can I minimize the potential for things to go wrong?”  

Others are more focused on potential opportunities. They want to know: “How could this product help us expand into new markets? Where could it take us in the next five years?” 

Now of course, this is an oversimplification of how buyers think. But the point is, buyers are different, and they need to be communicated with in the right ways.  

How we can help  

At Ledger Bennett, we can help B2B brands do that with Converged. Combining LinkedIn data with your first-party data (optional), Converged provides invaluable audience insights that can inform every aspect of a campaign — and ultimately, increase its effectiveness. 

Keen to find out how? Let’s chat.