There's something rather odd about the way we plan B2B marketing.
We spend weeks identifying our ideal customers. We build beautiful account lists, research decision-makers, argue over personas and get terribly excited when someone from a target company finally visits our website.
And yet, some of the people who will ultimately decide whether we win that business aren't on our lists at all.
They might never visit our website. They may never attend a webinar, download a report or have a conversation with sales.
But they have opinions. Sometimes quite strong ones.
And somewhere inside that buying organisation, those opinions are being heard.
I've been thinking about this as marketers start planning for 2027. We're getting increasingly sophisticated at tracking the people who engage with us. But I wonder whether we're paying enough attention to the people who influence them.
Because those are two rather different groups.
Forrester's State of Business Buying 2026 research found that a typical B2B buying decision now involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers. More complex purchases can involve even more.
Twenty-two people potentially shaping a decision. Good grief.
Now, that doesn't mean 22 people are sitting around a conference table debating your latest campaign. Their roles, influence and involvement will vary considerably. And these are cross-industry B2B findings, rather than figures specific to fintech.
But it tells us something important about the environment we're marketing into.
The trouble is, your marketing may have spent six months persuading the person who wants the product, while barely acknowledging the concerns of the people who can stop them buying it.
And suddenly that promising opportunity goes rather quiet.
It's tempting to call it a sales problem. I'm not sure it always is.
The 2025 Edelman and LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report looked specifically at these so-called hidden buyers.
These are stakeholders who influence purchasing decisions without necessarily being the people using the product or leading the procurement process.
The research, involving nearly 2,000 management-level professionals, found something I think deserves considerably more attention.
Hidden buyers aren't simply waiting to approve a decision someone else has made. They're actively researching, evaluating suppliers and forming opinions. They also value thoughtful content that introduces new ideas and challenges their assumptions.
Which rather changes how we should think about the role of marketing content.
For years, we've been encouraged to produce content that answers our target buyer's questions. Sensible advice. But what happens when the person evaluating the commercial risk has completely different questions from the person evaluating the product?
A technical demonstration might reassure your primary buyer. It probably won't do much for the executive worrying about the consequences of a failed implementation.
That person needs a different kind of confidence.
What interests me is that this creates an opportunity for brands that don't necessarily have the biggest budgets or the loudest voices.
The Edelman and LinkedIn research suggests that strong thought leadership can help lesser-known suppliers earn consideration and even turn sceptical hidden buyers into advocates.
I rather like that.
It means expertise and genuinely useful thinking still have commercial value, even when everyone else is competing to produce more content at greater speed.
And here's where social gets interesting
Forrester's 2026 research, based on more than 17,000 global business buyers, found that social media had become the second most meaningful source of information in the B2B buying journey, behind generative AI search.
I find the pairing fascinating.
Buyers can now ask AI to explain a complicated market, compare providers and summarise product capabilities in seconds.
But they still want to know what other people think.
They look for practitioners with experience, experts who understand the category, customers prepared to discuss what happened after implementation and peers who might have already made the decision they're considering.
Forrester's interpretation is that buyers are seeking human validation alongside AI-generated information.
And in financial services, where decisions can carry significant operational, reputational and regulatory consequences, that need for reassurance makes a great deal of sense.
Now, I wouldn't suggest that every social conversation represents purchase intent. That would be a fairly heroic interpretation of someone liking a LinkedIn post.
But social can reveal what buyers are trying to understand, whose opinions they respect and where uncertainty is building.
And that's where social intelligence becomes commercially useful.
You can examine the questions people ask in professional communities. Look at the debates attracting experienced practitioners. Study the language used around risk, integration, implementation or changing regulations. Identify the independent voices people turn to for explanations.
Some of the most useful findings might concern subjects your competitors are barely discussing.
Of course, social listening has limitations. Private conversations, internal politics and many procurement decisions remain invisible. A conversation online can't tell you who holds the budget or prove that an account is ready to buy.
It's one piece of intelligence.
But combined with sales conversations, customer research and win-loss analysis, it can help you build a far more useful picture of the buying environment.
Which brings me to planning.
The FinTech Marketing Community's recent research with Accuracast offers an interesting clue about where marketers are heading.
Their State of Digital Marketing in Financial Services and Fintech 2026 report found that 60% of senior marketing respondents expected high long-term returns from stronger sales and marketing alignment.
That's a sensible ambition. But alignment becomes considerably more interesting when the conversation moves beyond lead handovers and pipeline reporting.
What if marketing and sales worked together to understand the people influencing a purchase, including those neither team has met?
What if your content planning began with the reasons an otherwise enthusiastic buyer might struggle to secure agreement?
And what if some of your marketing investment went towards helping customers make a convincing case internally, rather than simply persuading them that your product is brilliant?
I suspect those conversations would reveal a few uncomfortable gaps.
So here's an exercise I'd suggest trying before you approve next year's content and social plans.
Pick one important customer segment or strategic account. Bring together marketing, sales and someone close to your customers. You don't need a two-day workshop, a collection of coloured sticky notes or an expensive new platform.
You need four good conversations.
1. Map who shapes the decision
Start with your obvious buyer, then work outwards.
Who owns the problem? Who evaluates the technology? Who worries about the financial, operational or regulatory consequences? Who can champion the decision, delay it or quietly veto it?
Separate what you know from what you're assuming.
And don't forget external influence. Analysts, consultants, industry experts, existing customers and professional peers can all shape the opinions brought into the room.
2. Find out what each person needs to believe
This is where things become revealing.
Your primary buyer might need confidence that the product works. A risk leader might need evidence that it won't introduce unacceptable exposure. A finance director may want to understand the cost of changing provider, or indeed the cost of doing nothing.
Ask sales where deals get stuck. Look at objections raised late in the process. Speak to customers about the conversations they had internally before choosing you.
Then use social research to investigate the wider concerns surrounding those decisions.
The question isn't simply what information each stakeholder wants.
It's what would make them comfortable supporting the purchase.
3. Work out whose opinions they trust
Now look beyond your own brand.
Which analysts are shaping the discussion? Which practitioners explain difficult subjects well? Where do experienced buyers exchange views? Are there credible customers or technical specialists whose experiences would help answer difficult questions?
This is also where B2B influencers become interesting.
I'm rather less concerned about someone's follower count than whether the right people trust their judgement.
A respected specialist with a relatively small professional audience may be far more useful to your buying group than a well-known personality with impressive reach and very little relevance.
That doesn't mean immediately signing up a collection of influencers. It means understanding where credibility already exists, and whether there's a worthwhile opportunity to contribute to the conversation.
4. Give buyers something they can use internally
Finally, examine your existing content.
Would any of it help someone persuade a sceptical colleague?
Could your customer evidence reassure a risk committee? Do you explain implementation trade-offs clearly? Have you published useful thinking on the issues creating hesitation in the market?
Maybe you need a more detailed customer story, an expert discussion, a credible comparison or a straightforward explanation of where your approach has limitations.
That last one can be surprisingly powerful. Buyers tend to appreciate a supplier who understands that every decision involves trade-offs.
The aim is to create material people can take into conversations you're not invited to.
And for measurement, I'd look beyond whether somebody clicked. Which target accounts are engaging across different roles? Are sales teams using the material to address objections? Are relevant experts sharing or discussing your thinking? Is it helping opportunities progress?
You won't be able to attribute every internal conversation to a particular article or social post. But you can look for evidence that marketing is making those conversations easier.
There's a final point worth considering.
The FinTech Marketing Community has increasingly championed the idea of marketing to humans rather than treating B2B and B2C as entirely separate worlds.
I think the hidden buyer research makes that point rather well.
Buying decisions may involve committees, procurement processes and increasingly sophisticated technology. But they're still shaped by people trying to make sensible decisions, protect their organisations and avoid being the person who recommended something that went horribly wrong.
That's worth remembering when we're enthusiastically filling next year's calendar with campaigns, content and channel plans.
Perhaps the most useful question to ask isn't how we're going to reach more of our target buyers.
It's whether we're helping the people around them feel confident enough to say yes.
After all, there's not much comfort in having a beautifully engaged prospect if everyone else in the buying committee is quietly reaching for the brakes.
Research and further reading