I think we can all agree that today’s B2B buyers are not waiting for your sales call. They’re already deep into their research and in most cases, more than halfway to a solution shortlist or even a decision before you even know they’re looking. The question for B2B marketers is, whose content is guiding them? Yours or your competition’s?
Buyers pulling themselves through the sales cycle is the new reality in B2B marketing. The linear, sales-controlled funnel (if it ever really existed) has been replaced by a complex, self-directed journey involving sophisticated buying committees. Made up of 6-10 stakeholders (Gartner) across departments, buying committees are using everything from Google to Reddit to LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity, to actively seek the best information sources to guide them to credible solutions. To earn their attention and ultimately their business, your content must be the best answer wherever those buyers are looking.
The Invisible Gauntlet: Self-Directed B2B Buying Committees
Forrester research shows there are an average of 13 stakeholders in a buying group, each doing their own research on solutions and insights relevant to their specific roles and responsibilities. This “invisible” research phase is where B2B brand influence is won or lost. If your content isn’t surfacing as the most credible, comprehensive, and discoverable answer to buyer questions, you’re basically sidelined. The challenge isn’t just about creating content; it’s about architecting your brand and solutions as the definitive resource for what matters to your buyers when and where they are researching.
The Strategic Opportunity: Embrace a “Best Answer” Content Ecosystem
If B2B buying committees are charting their own course, then your marketing needs to provide the most trustworthy and comprehensive map. This approach requires a shift from simply creating what your brand thinks is useful content to taking a more strategic approach that better empathizes with the buyer information journey. Understanding how the different roles of the buying committee discover, consume and act on information is essential for engineering Best Answer Content.
At TopRank Marketing, we’ve been advocating for a Best Answer Content approach for over 10 years. The idea was first documented in the book, Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing – back in 2012. Fast forward to 2025 and the most important aspects of a “be the best answer” approach continue to be relevant. Understanding buyer and buyer group preferences for information discovery, content consumption and triggers that motivate action is what enables the strategic creation of a content ecosystem, including distribution and engagement. The formula is timeless. It’s the variables that have changed.
Becoming the Best Answer: 5 pillars for engaging B2B buying committees
So, how do you operationalize a “Best Answer Content” strategy to engage the B2B buying committee of 2025? It boils down to a few key concepts:
1. Uncover the core questions: empathetic journey & ICP-driven query mapping.
To deliver best answer content, you have to understand the questions being asked. This means drilling down into the specific needs of each stakeholder on the committee from technical evaluators to financial decision-makers and end-users. Taking into account what makes your ideal customer profile (ICP) relevant for your solutions, understand what their unique pain points, information gaps, and questions at each stage of their journey (awareness, consideration, decision) are.
Best Answer approach: Avoid the mediocrity of AI-generated content and apply a smart AI approach that combines the best of human imagination and insight with the personalization capabilities of AI. Plan on creating targeted resources that directly address nuanced buyer queries like, “Integration capabilities of X software with our current martech stack?” (for the IT lead) or “ROI timeframe for solutions like Y within SaaS industry 123?” (for the CFO). This ICP specific treatment of query content topics is an essential part of a Best Answer content marketing approach and relies heavily on SEO and CRM data.
2. Create comprehensive & credible answers: E-E-A-T meets influence.
With questions identified, the next step is to provide the most thorough, authoritative, and trustworthy answers. A great framework for this level of content quality is Google’s Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness and Trust (E-E-A-T) guideline. While following E-E-A-T content quality principles is good for SEO and findability of your content, it is optimizing that content for credibility through incorporating internal and industry experts that really makes your content “best answer” quality.
Of course this isn’t about a single blog post, podcast or video; it’s about cultivating an ecosystem of content where each piece contributes to a holistic understanding for the diverse members of your ICPs buying committee. When that ecosystem of content strategically incorporates industry expert contributions and promotion, your best answer content can reach researchers with the kind of credibility that can put your brand on the shortlist.
Best Answer approach:
Early Stage (Awareness): Answer “What is…” and “Why is X critical for [their role/industry]?” with insightful articles, original research, and clear, jargon-free explainers.
Mid-Stage (Consideration): Address “How to solve Y effectively” or “Compare X vs. Z for [specific organizational need]” with in-depth guides, role-specific webinars, and case studies showcasing success from the different perspectives of the buying group roles.
Late-Stage (Decision): Provide definitive answers to “What are the implementation details and costs of X?” or “Why is [Your Brand] the optimal choice for [their specific scenario]?” through transparent FAQs, interactive ROI calculators, and detailed competitive differentiation.
3. Engineer discoverability: Optimize for the questions your buyers actually ask. And where.
The most insightful content isn’t worth much if it’s not discovered. With 66% of B2B buyers using search to explore products (Backlinko), SEO is the critical engine that connects your investment in a best answer content ecosystem with the committee members actively looking for answers. Even with AI Overviews on Google and the increased use of LLM search tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others, SEO best practices are relevant and even essential for ensuring discoverability of your content at the very moment buyers are looking.
Those SEO best practices include optimizing for the precise language, terminology, and questions that your buying group stakeholder may be using with search engines or LLM search. Conducting a SEO and content audit is important to uncover the topic gaps to fill with best answer content. Pillar topics can be defined and incorporated into a search optimized content plan meant to answer questions in the language buyers are using for search or anywhere else the discover, consume and act on information.
Best Answer approach: Prioritize long-tail keywords that mirror specific questions. Research actual questions asked by buyers through inquires logged in your CRM, reviewing industry forums and Q/A sites like Quora and Reddit. Structure content with clear, question-based headings (H2s, H3s). Leverage schema markup to explicitly signal to search engines that your content provides answers. Ensure your site technical health is optimal for crawling and indexing by search bots and LLMs alike.
4. Deliver with authority & trust: Use influence to build credibility into the answer experience.
There is more competition for B2B buyer attention than ever. There is also more information noise than ever. That’s why B2B buying committees are more discerning than ever and demand credibility from the information sources they find and subscribe to. To be considered in a sea of noise and sameness, your best answer content must be presented with authority. Delivering content with credibility and trust means what you say, how you present it and who validates it are equally important.
Best Answer approach: Making content credible means a mix of tactics conducting and citing research along with the validation of that research through insights from recognized subject matter experts (both internal and external). Your content plan should include coordinated efforts to amplify social proof through testimonials, reviews, and case studies that resonate with various buyer committee roles.
By all means, break free of boring B2B with diverse content formats that can appeal to diverse content consumption preferences of your buyers. That can mean everything from research reports, video shorts and stories, interactive tools, podcasts, webinars – to cater to different learning preferences of your buyers and to optimize for engagement. Frame your best answers around content topics and formats that represent your buyers preferences, not just the preferences of your marketing or agency team. From a brand perspective, engage in thought leadership with validation of brand ideas through influencer, analyst and media collaborations.
5. Facilitate collective confidence: Create content that unites the committee.
The ultimate objective for the buying committee is to arrive at a confident, collective decision. Your “Best Answer Content” should create the credible continuity of brand message across channels that can put you on the shortlist for consideration. At the same time, your content should inform individual members and empower them to build internal consensus and a shared vision for the buyer group as they make final recommendations.
Best Answer approach: Develop assets that are easily shareable and succinctly articulate the key benefits for the different departments that represent buyer stakeholders. Never assume content assets will benefit from human narration – like with a presentation. A presentation shared must be able to stand on its own and serve the interests of the intended audience with or without someone explaining it. Offer comparison frameworks or interactive tools that help the buying committee evaluate options against their criteria. Create content that illustrates how your solution contributes value uniquely to the different stakeholder departments in their organization.
Partnering for Best Answer dominance
Committing to and executing a sophisticated “Best Answer Content” strategy for the modern B2B buying committee is no small task. It requires a system that uses available data (SEO, CRM, Analytics) to inform content and buyer questions to be answered. It involves consistent creation of E-E-A-T optimized content that is optimized for credibility with influencer contributions and distribution as well as dedication to being the most helpful, authoritative resource in your niche While being the best answer wherever your customers are looking requires intelligence, effort and expertise, the payoff couldn’t be simpler: ROI.
This is exactly where a strategic partner can accelerate the success of a Best Answer Content strategy. At TopRank Marketing, we specialize in empowering B2B brands to become the best answer for their customers by integrating deep expertise in customer intelligence, data-driven content strategy, advanced SEO, and targeted influencer marketing to architect content experiences that attract, engage, and convert.
If you’re ready to transform your B2B content into the ultimate resource for your buyer, check out our Content Marketing solutions and let’s discuss how we can help you win their trust and their business.
About the author
Lee Odden has been recognized as a top B2B Marketing professional by Forbes, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal. For over 20 years he’s worked with his team at TopRank Marketing to help elevate the B2B marketing industry through creative marketing programs that deliver more authentic, experiential and inclusive content for brands like LinkedIn, Dell and Adobe. Lee is the author of Optimize and has published over 1.4 million words on his agency’s B2B marketing blog. As a trusted marketing thought leader, he has given nearly 300 presentations in 20 different countries on B2B content, search and influencer marketing. When not marketing, Lee is probably running, cooking or traveling.
