Buying Roles in HubSpot will help you build a really robust Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy.
In Hubspot, the main tool you would use to monitor and implement a strong ABM campaign is the Target Accounts tool. And a key feature in using that tool to understand your audience and their engagement with your company is the Buying Roles contact property.
What are Buying Roles?
According to HubSpot, Buying Roles "identifies the role that a contact plays during the sales process. Contacts can have more than one role, and they can share the same role with another contact."
The default Buying Roles in HubSpot are:
- Decision-Maker
The person who is the final decision-maker - Champion
The person who is championing your product or service to the business (unusually one of your key personas) - Influencer
A person in the business that may have no final decision-making authority but is a key influencer to the decision-maker. - End-User
The person who will be using your product or service. - Budget Holder
The person who controls the budget. This person may also be the decision-maker but could also be someone who merely handles the numbers. - Executive Sponsor
This person is not a decision-maker but is in the executive group that acts like a champion or influencer (like a consultant or board member). - Legal and Compliance
This is the person who makes the decision on whether your product or service meets the basic terms and conditions for a supplier to the company. - Blocker
This is the person in the business who would or could block the sales process. They may be someone who has already chosen a competitor product or service and would be pushing back for several reasons. Sometimes the blocker tends to be the legal and compliance person or the budget holder. But can also be any of the other buying roles. This is an important role to identify quickly as you would need to prepare and approach a conversation with this person differently in order to break their barriers.
You can use this property as is or you can edit this property to align with your business language. The most important thing to understand about Buying Roles is that they are NOT your personas or job titles. They are the roles a person plays in the business in relation to how YOUR business will interact with them.