How Engaging the Full Buying Committee Helped Shorten Complex Sales Cycles

"We wanted to accelerate the sale cycle.” — Isaac Ware, Director of Demand Gen, UserGems.

As UserGems’ deals grew more complex, sales cycles began to stretch. Opportunities increasingly involved cross-functional stakeholders across RevOps, Sales, Marketing, and Finance, each contributing to consensus-driven decisions. While sales worked to multi-thread these relationships manually, the process was difficult to scale and often reactive.

Isaac identified an opportunity for marketing to support this motion by building familiarity earlier — not only with known contacts, but with the wider set of stakeholders likely to influence each deal.

Company & GTM Profile

The Challenge: Committee-driven deals slow progression

UserGems’ opportunities increasingly required alignment from multiple functional leaders. As the number of decision-makers expanded, deals slowed. While sales attempted to leverage UserGems’ own data to engage stakeholders, broader market conditions and extended consensus processes made acceleration difficult.

A key constraint was familiarity. Many influencing stakeholders remained unaware of UserGems until late in the cycle, slowing internal alignment and increasing friction during critical decision stages.

Isaac believed that earlier exposure across the broader buying committee could help reduce this friction.

How UserGems Supported Committee-Based Selling

UserGems implemented a system designed to introduce targeted awareness to the entire potential buying committee when opportunities opened.

1. Constrain: Define the full influencing group

When an opportunity entered Salesforce, UserGems pulled known contacts and expanded the group to include additional stakeholders expected to influence the decision — such as leaders in RevOps, Marketing, Sales, and Finance.

These expanded buying committee lists were synced into Primer and dynamically refreshed as deals evolved. This ensured marketing engagement extended beyond existing relationships and reached the wider set of participants likely to shape consensus.

This approach allowed earlier visibility with stakeholders who would later play a role in final approval.

2. Signal: Introduce awareness at deal activation

Buying committee lists were pushed into LinkedIn via Primer and achieved match rates above 70 percent. When deals became active, targeted ads were served to these stakeholders, providing steady visibility while sales continued direct outreach.

This created a parallel awareness layer across the broader committee rather than focusing only on the primary buyer.

"We saw across the board 67% more prospects involved in deals. And because of that, we saw 31% higher win rates on those 25% bigger deal sizes and 17% shorter sale cycles.”

3. Sustain: Maintain presence through extended cycles

As opportunities progressed and new stakeholders entered discussions, audience lists updated automatically. Marketing remained present throughout longer buying journeys without introducing additional manual complexity for sales.

The system reinforced consistency and recognition across deal participants, supporting existing sales efforts rather than replacing them.

Why Primer

UserGems needed a way to operationalize buying committee awareness without increasing sales workload.

Primer enabled them to:

• Expand committee targeting beyond known contacts
• Maintain dynamically updating audience lists tied to live opportunities
• Deliver consistent messaging to all deal influencersReduce the operational burden of manual coordination

This gave marketing a structured role in supporting deal momentum without altering the core sales process.

Practical Guidance from UserGems

• Engage the full buying committee, not only known contacts
• Introduce awareness at the moment an opportunity opens
• Automation supports scalable engagement
• Familiarity helps reduce hesitation in consensus-driven deals
• Dynamic audience refresh maintains relevance as committees evolve
  

The Outcome

By introducing committee-based advertising tied to live opportunities, UserGems observed measurable shifts in deal behavior:

• 67% more stakeholders engaged per opportunity
• 31% higher win rates
• 25% larger deal sizes
• 17% shorter sales cycles
  

Marketing played a more deliberate role in reinforcing deal awareness and reducing friction during multi-stakeholder decision processes. The approach supported acceleration without changing the underlying sales motion.