Rikard Jonsson
Rikard Jonsson is Founder & CEO of Hey Sid and a five-time entrepreneur with a background in B2B SaaS, sales, and brand building. He believes B2B marketing is overcomplicated and writes about going back to basics: visibility, positioning, and consistent presence among the accounts that matter.
How to Reach Decision Makers in OEM Deals
Quick answer: To reach decision makers in industrial and OEM buying committees, start with the target account, map every role involved in the purchase, choose UK-ready channels for each person, and give sales proof they can use in live deals. Do not treat the most senior contact as the whole committee.
By the end, you will be able to:
Name the real buying group: Identify economic, technical, operational and procurement roles.
Pick the right access route: Match the tactic to the deal stage, account tier and committee visibility.
Stay UK-first: Use UK GDPR, PECR and ICO guidance as the starting point, with EEA caveats where formats differ.
Prove impact: Connect engagement from named accounts to CRM activity and pipeline discussions.
Approach | Best fit | Main strength | Main limit |
Account-level ABM | Early account coverage | Builds recognition across a named company | Can miss the exact people in the deal |
Person-based advertising | Known committee members | Reaches named individuals repeatedly | Needs clean account and contact inputs |
Executive referral path | Board or C-suite access | Opens doors where outreach is blocked | Relies on credible relationships |
Sales-led multithreading | Active opportunities | Builds consensus during live deals | Breaks down if sales lacks messaging support |
Intent-led prioritisation | Large account lists | Helps focus attention on accounts showing demand | Intent alone does not reveal the full committee |
What are decision makers in industrial and OEM buying committees?
Decision makers are the people who shape, approve, block or influence a purchase. In industrial and OEM deals, that group is rarely one person.
A UK manufacturer evaluating automation equipment, for example, may involve:
The economic buyer: Often a managing director, finance lead, operations director or plant leadership team.
The technical evaluator: Engineering, production, maintenance, IT or systems architecture.
The user group: Operators, project managers, service teams or field engineers.
The risk owner: Compliance, cyber, health and safety, legal or data protection.
Procurement: Commercial terms, supplier approval, contract structure and payment terms.
The internal champion: The person who wants the project to happen but does not always own the final budget.
This matters because industrial and OEM purchases are slow, technical and cross-functional. A single contact can love your offer and still fail to get it approved. The deal stalls because finance sees risk, engineering needs proof, procurement wants alternative suppliers, or the operations team is not convinced the change is worth the disruption.
For a wider view of how buying groups decide, read Hey Sid's guide to buying group marketing and the related article on the B2B buyer journey. This article focuses on the practical access plan: who to reach, how to reach them and how to prove that the work supports pipeline.
Why reaching decision makers matters
Reaching the right people changes the quality of a deal. You stop asking one champion to educate the entire company for you. Instead, each stakeholder sees evidence that fits their job.
Across the 150+ B2B companies we work with, the biggest predictor of whether a marketing program survives is not campaign performance. It is whether the team can prove business impact and defend the budget internally. Campaigns that generate strong engagement still get cut when no one can connect them to pipeline.
That lesson applies directly to industrial and OEM buying committees. A marketing team may show strong LinkedIn engagement from a target account, but the sales director still asks: did it help the deal? RevOps asks whether the activity connects to opportunities. Finance asks why the budget should continue.
Your access plan needs three forms of proof:
Coverage proof: Which target accounts and roles have been reached.
Engagement proof: Which people or companies interacted with ads, content, outreach or events.
Pipeline proof: Which open or future opportunities involved those accounts.
UK teams also need channel discipline. LinkedIn Sponsored Messaging formats can target UK members, while EU member targeting is restricted for these formats. For EEA programmes, use formats available in those markets and apply the correct consent model. For website tracking, the UK still requires attention to UK GDPR and PECR, and the EEA requires opt-in consent before tracking fires. Your compliance owner should confirm the setup before launch.
The Committee Access Fit Matrix
The Committee Access Fit Matrix is a decision model for choosing how to reach decision makers based on what you know about the account. It is designed for industrial and OEM teams with long buying cycles, mixed technical roles and lean marketing teams.
Use it before you pick a channel. Many teams jump straight to ads, LinkedIn outreach or events. That creates waste because the route to access changes based on three questions:
Do you know the account? A named target account is different from a broad market segment.
Do you know the people? A company name is useful, but a committee map is better.
Can you prove relevance? Generic messaging fails with technical buyers.
Situation | What you know | Best access route | What to create first | Risk to manage |
Market is broad | Industry and segment only | Build a tight target account list | ICP rules, exclusions and priority tiers | Wasting spend on poor-fit accounts |
Account is known, people are not | Company names and buying triggers | Role mapping plus intent review | Committee map by function | Over-relying on one champion |
People are known, deal is cold | Named contacts but no engagement | Person-based advertising and useful content | Role-specific proof points | Outreach feels cold if recognition is low |
Deal is active | Opportunity and known stakeholders | Sales-led multithreading | Mutual action plan and stakeholder content | Missing blockers in finance, legal or procurement |
Account is strategic | High-value deal or expansion | Executive referral plus ABM coverage | Board-level narrative and technical proof | Too much activity without one agreed story |
A simple rule: the less you know about the committee, the more you need mapping before outreach. The more active the deal, the more you need sales, marketing and leadership to work from the same stakeholder view.
What you need before you start
You do not need a large team to run this process. You do need clean decisions.
Prepare these inputs before you start:
A defined ICP: Industry, company size, geography, revenue band, installed technology and disqualifiers.
A first target account list: Start with 50 to 300 accounts, not the whole market.
CRM ownership: Sales and RevOps need one place where account status, opportunities and engagement can be reviewed.
Compliance review: Confirm UK GDPR, PECR, cookie consent and outreach rules with your compliance owner.
Message evidence: Case studies, technical notes, buyer objections and commercial proof.
Time window: Plan for a 60 to 90 day compounding period, not a six-week pipeline promise.
If you sell into both the UK and the EEA, write the UK plan first, then mark which tactics need an EEA version. That keeps the primary market clear while avoiding pan-European mistakes.
How to reach decision makers, step by step
Step 1: Build a sales-approved account list
Why this step matters: If sales will not work the account list, the campaign will fail in the handoff. Industrial and OEM markets are narrow enough that poor account selection becomes visible fast.
How to do it: Start with the accounts sales already wants, then add lookalike companies based on fit rather than volume. Use filters such as UK manufacturing sites, OEM category, installed systems, number of plants, export markets, regulatory pressure and recent expansion signals. Remove accounts with no credible path to budget.
Give each account a tier:
Tier 1: Strategic accounts with named stakeholders and high revenue potential.
Tier 2: Strong-fit accounts where the committee is partly known.
Tier 3: Good-fit accounts that need education before sales attention.
Pro tip: Ask sales to reject accounts, not just approve them. The rejection reasons improve your ICP faster than another data export.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not let marketing build the list alone. Do not include every company in a sector. Do not ignore accounts where procurement rules make access unrealistic.
Step 2: Map the committee by role, not seniority
Why this step matters: Senior titles are tempting, but technical deals often move through experts before they reach the board. You need the people who create the internal argument.
How to do it: Build a role map for each Tier 1 and Tier 2 account. Start with the likely functions: engineering, operations, production, IT, finance, procurement, compliance and leadership. Then add named contacts where you have confidence.
Use public sources carefully: LinkedIn profiles, company sites, job posts, conference speakers, supplier pages and news about plant openings or technology projects. Tag each contact by role in the decision, not just job title.
A Head of Engineering may be a technical evaluator. A Plant Manager may be the user owner. A CFO may be the economic buyer. Procurement may only enter late, but can still block the deal.
Warning: Person-level visitor identification remains effectively US-only for most practical B2B use under UK GDPR and EU GDPR. Do not build a UK or EEA plan around naming anonymous website visitors.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not assume the champion knows every blocker. Do not treat procurement as an admin function. Do not ignore technical users because they lack budget authority.
Step 3: Create role-specific proof
Why this step matters: Decision makers do not all care about the same evidence. A finance lead needs commercial confidence. An engineer needs technical fit. Operations needs low disruption.
How to do it: Create one proof set for each major role. Keep it short enough for sales to use in conversation.
Economic buyer: Payback logic, business risk, implementation confidence and board-level narrative.
Technical evaluator: Integration details, performance evidence, standards, security and system constraints.
Operations: Downtime risk, workflow impact, training, maintenance and service model.
Procurement: Supplier stability, contract structure, references and approval documents.
Compliance or legal: Data protection, safety, audit trails and regional requirements.
In industrial and OEM deals, proof often works better than broad thought leadership. A two-page technical explainer can carry more weight than a polished brand campaign if it helps the internal champion answer objections.
Pro tip: Build proof around the objection sales hears most often. If the common blocker is implementation risk, do not lead with brand messaging.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not send the same asset to every role. Do not bury technical proof in a long brochure. Do not let claims outpace what sales can defend.
Step 4: Choose UK-ready channels for each role
Why this step matters: Channel choice affects reach, consent and buyer experience. The right tactic in the UK may need a different version for EU or EEA members.
How to do it: Match channels to roles and geography. For UK campaigns, LinkedIn Message Ads and Conversation Ads can be used to target UK members. For EU member targeting, these formats are restricted, so pan-European programmes need alternative routes such as feed ads, document ads, sponsored content, sales outreach, partner introductions or events.
Use this channel map as a starting point:
Role | UK channel fit | EEA caveat | Best message type |
Economic buyer | LinkedIn feed, executive content, referral path | Sponsored Messaging restrictions apply for EU members | Commercial risk and growth case |
Technical evaluator | Document ads, technical content, peer events | Consent-first tracking for retargeting | Specification and implementation proof |
Operations | Paid social, industry media, sales follow-up | Check cookie and retargeting consent | Disruption, service and adoption |
Procurement | Sales enablement, supplier packs, direct follow-up | Avoid unclear data sources | Supplier confidence and contract readiness |
Compliance | Direct sales sharing, legal packs, secure content | Confirm regional data handling | UK GDPR, EU GDPR, PECR and audit evidence |
Warning: The LinkedIn Insight Tag should not fire before consent where consent is required. The platform's own consent cookie is not a lawful basis for your site.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not copy a US playbook into the UK. Do not treat the UK and EEA as identical. Do not let ad targeting run ahead of your consent setup.
Step 5: Warm the committee before outreach
Why this step matters: Cold outreach to a hidden committee often lands too early. Recognition makes sales messages feel less random.
How to do it: Run account and person-based coverage before asking for meetings. Aim ads, content and social proof at the same people sales plans to contact. Start with useful evidence, not meeting requests.
For a Tier 1 industrial account, a simple sequence might look like this:
Week 1 to 2: Awareness content for the account and named functions.
Week 3 to 5: Technical or commercial proof by role.
Week 6 to 8: Sales outreach that references the problem, not the ad.
Week 9 to 12: Executive follow-up, stakeholder expansion and objection-specific content.
This is not a promise of pipeline in 90 days. It is a planning window for recognition to build. Complex OEM deals still move at the pace of budget cycles, technical review and internal consensus.
Pro tip: Sales should know who has been exposed before they reach out. That changes the opening from a cold pitch to a relevant business conversation.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not launch outreach on day one to every contact. Do not measure the first month only by meetings. Do not stop before the committee has seen repeated evidence.
Step 6: Give sales a committee view they can use
Why this step matters: Marketing activity loses value when sales cannot see it. A useful committee view helps the account owner decide who to contact, what to say and what risk remains.
How to do it: Build a simple view inside your CRM or account plan. It should show the target account, known stakeholders, role tags, last meaningful engagement, open opportunity status and next action.
Do not flood sales with every click. Show patterns that help action:
Which buying roles have been reached.
Which roles are missing.
Which accounts are engaging before an opportunity exists.
Which active opportunities have new committee activity.
Which accounts need executive support.
If you use HubSpot, keep the company record as the shared reference point. Hey Sid's two-way HubSpot integration, for example, writes ad impressions, clicks and engagement totals onto existing company records as properties prefixed "Sid". It also imports deals read-only each night and can push companies from the CRM into ad audiences without editing or deleting existing CRM records.
Pro tip: Keep the sales view boring. If the field is not used in account planning, it does not belong in the first version.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not hand sales a separate report they never open. Do not confuse channel metrics with deal evidence. Do not overwrite CRM ownership.
Step 7: Measure committee coverage and pipeline influence
Why this step matters: If you cannot defend the budget, the programme is fragile. The point is not to claim click-to-close attribution. The point is to show whether target accounts moved closer to a decision.
How to do it: Track three levels of evidence:
Coverage: Target accounts reached, roles reached and committee gaps remaining.
Engagement: Meaningful activity by account, such as ad engagement, content response, connection growth or sales replies.
Pipeline context: Open opportunities, influenced companies, influenced pipeline and sales notes that show where marketing supported the buying process.
Use invented-for-illustration numbers only for planning. For example, if 100 target accounts include 400 likely stakeholders, your own data should tell you how many roles have been reached and where the gaps remain. Do not treat another company's ratio as a benchmark.
For a related measurement view, see Hey Sid's article on deal orchestration.
Warning: Do not present account engagement as proof that marketing closed the deal. Use it as evidence that the right account and roles were reached during the buying process.
Common mistakes to avoid: Do not defend budget with impressions alone. Do not report only leads when the goal is committee coverage. Do not hide weak account selection behind campaign metrics.
Tactics that work best for industrial and OEM teams
The strongest tactic is usually a sequence, not a single channel. Industrial buyers need trust, proof and repetition.
Use these practical rules:
Start narrow: Focus on the accounts sales can name, not a sector-wide audience.
Separate role messages: Engineering, finance and procurement need different proof.
Use LinkedIn carefully: UK member targeting supports more formats than EU member targeting, so plan the EEA version before launch.
Add partner routes: Distributors, systems integrators, consultants and trade bodies can open access that paid media cannot.
Keep outreach human: Personalised outreach should reference a business issue, technical trigger or relevant market pressure.
Retarget only with consent: Under UK PECR and UK GDPR, confirm your cookie setup before tags fire. EEA campaigns need opt-in consent before tracking fires.
Review committee gaps weekly: A target account is not covered if you have reached only marketing, sales or one friendly champion.
The best programmes feel coordinated to the buyer. They see useful content, hear a consistent story from sales and receive proof that matches their role.
Tools, firms and approaches that help
Several categories can help you reach decision makers. Treat them as parts of the operating model, not magic answers.
CRM and RevOps setup: HubSpot, Salesforce or another CRM should hold the account record, opportunity status and sales actions.
Sales intelligence: Contact databases and LinkedIn research help map roles, but your team still needs to verify relevance.
ABM platforms: Larger tools can support account targeting, buying signals and advertising, but lean teams may struggle with setup and ongoing management.
Done-for-you ABM partners: Agencies and specialist firms help teams that lack internal execution time. The right choice depends on team size, deal complexity and budget.
Intent data: Buyer intent data can help prioritise accounts, but it should not replace committee mapping.
For a broader comparison of approaches, read ABM Agency vs ABM Platform.
Where Hey Sid fits
This article is published by Hey Sid. Hey Sid is a person-targeted ad engine and done-for-you ABM platform for mid-sized B2B companies, including industrial technology, OEM, energy systems, automation, IT infrastructure and data centre markets.
Hey Sid fits teams that want to reach named people across ads, content and outreach without hiring a large ABM team. The Influence Loop connects Always On advertising, Authority Builder thought leadership and Precision Connect outreach around the same individuals, compounding over 60 to 90 days.
It is not the right fit for every company. Hey Sid does not suit:
Very small budgets: Companies under $25K/year are unlikely to get enough coverage.
Early-stage teams: Under 20 employees with no clear ICP should define the market first.
B2C or high-velocity B2B: The model is built for long, consultative sales cycles.
Teams needing pipeline inside six weeks: The model is slow by design and compounds over 60 to 90 days.
DIY tool buyers: Hey Sid is not for teams that want full manual control over every campaign setting.
Click-to-close attribution expectations: It reports account engagement and pipeline context, not a simplistic claim that one click closed a deal.
Common mistakes to avoid
Targeting job titles instead of buying roles: A title tells you status, while a role tells you influence in the purchase.
Building the list without sales: Sales will ignore accounts they did not help shape.
Treating UK and EEA formats as the same: LinkedIn Sponsored Messaging availability differs, and consent rules need market-by-market review.
Asking for meetings too early: Warm the committee with useful proof before the first sales ask.
Reporting only leads: Industrial and OEM deals need committee coverage, account engagement and pipeline context.
Over-relying on one champion: Your champion can support the deal, but they cannot carry every objection alone.
Using anonymous visitor identification as a UK plan: Under UK GDPR and EU GDPR, this is not a safe base for most practical programmes.
Ready to reach the right decision makers?
Hey Sid helps mid-sized B2B teams reach the named people inside complex buying committees through person-based advertising, thought leadership and outreach that work together over 60 to 90 days. If your sales team knows the accounts but struggles to reach the wider committee, Hey Sid can help you build recognition before the conversation starts.
FAQ
How long does it take to reach decision makers in an OEM deal?
Plan around a 60 to 90 day window for awareness, trust and engagement to build. That does not mean pipeline appears inside that window. Industrial and OEM deals often follow budget cycles, technical reviews and procurement steps, so your goal is to improve committee coverage and sales readiness before the buying group reaches a decision point.
What does it cost to reach decision makers with ABM?
Costs vary by account volume, creative needs, data work, service support and ad spend. For Hey Sid, the model is a service fee plus ad spend, with a minimum commitment, and $2.5K+/month minimum ad spend is a practical planning baseline. Teams with under $25K/year should usually start with ICP and messaging work first.
Can I reach decision makers without an ABM platform or partner?
Yes, if your team has time, clean data, CRM discipline and sales alignment. An in-house approach works well when RevOps can manage account lists, marketing can produce role-specific content, and sales can multithread consistently. A partner becomes more useful when a 1 to 3 person marketing team needs execution capacity.
Are LinkedIn Message Ads allowed for UK campaigns?
LinkedIn Sponsored Messaging formats can target UK members. For EU member targeting, availability is restricted, so EEA programmes need alternative formats and market review. For any tracking, retargeting or website tag use, check UK GDPR, PECR and ICO guidance with your compliance owner before launch.
How do I find hidden decision makers in a buying committee?
Start with role mapping rather than contact scraping. Review job titles, company pages, public posts, hiring patterns, events, technical papers and CRM history. Then ask sales to validate likely blockers in finance, procurement, operations, engineering and compliance. Hidden stakeholders usually appear when you map the decision process, not just the org chart.
Sources
Original framework used: Committee Access Fit Matrix. First-party insight used: across the 150+ B2B companies we work with, the biggest predictor of whether a marketing program survives is whether the team can prove business impact and defend the budget internally.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/
https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey
https://www.forrester.com/blogs/b2b-buying-groups-are-bigger-than-ever/
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-strategy/uk-digital-strategy
