How to Use LinkedIn to Build Trust With 13-Person Buying Committees

B2B buying committees have undergone a generational reset. Who influences decisions, how they research, and what they expect from vendors has shifted, and marketing strategies need to catch up.

According to Forrester's State of Business Buying 2024 Report, the typical B2B buying committee for enterprise deals now involves 13 stakeholders, and that number is growing. While size matters, the transformation is more than just a numbers game. The generational makeup of these committees changes entirely how purchasing decisions are made, what criteria matter most, and where trust is established.

Millennials and Gen Z now account for 64-71% of B2B buyers, according to Forrester. In deals worth more than $1 million, 67% of buyers come from these two cohorts. This demographic transition matters because these generations have very different expectations of vendors and conduct research in ways no previous generation has.

So how do you build authentic trust with a committee of 13 stakeholders spanning multiple generations, each with distinct values, research behaviors, and decision criteria? The answer is LinkedIn.

Gen Z and Millennials want the real deal

Trust has always mattered in B2B relationships, but for Millennials and Gen Z, it's become the defining, decisive factor. These generations don't just evaluate vendors on product features and pricing; they also assess alignment with their personal and professional values.

The data reveals a striking pattern: 86% of Gen Z are more likely to buy from a company that supports social causes. A national survey by BBMG and GlobeScan found that Gen Z does not trust businesses to act in the best interests of society. 

This skepticism extends directly into B2B purchasing. Research shows that 63% of Gen Z consumers would abandon a brand they felt was not authentic or trustworthy, compared to 53-59% of older age groups. The message is clear: authenticity and trustworthiness drive loyalty for younger buyers.

For Millennials, the emphasis shifts slightly but remains values-driven. Research comparing shopping preferences shows that Millennials prioritize brand reputation more strongly than Gen Z, and they place significantly higher importance on sustainability considerations. As one study notes, Millennials approach shopping, valuing transparency, sustainability, and reliability.

These aren't superficial preferences. They change everything about how purchasing decisions are made. Corporate platitudes? Hard pass. Millennials and Gen Z have grown up in an apocalyptic, burning world, and want the world to be better. 

How modern buyers form preferences

Understanding when and how buying committees form their vendor preferences is vital in order to build real, genuine trust. The data reveals an uncomfortable reality for traditional B2B marketing, though: by the time vendors enter formal consideration, the decision is already made. If you’re not the chosen one (before you even know they were looking), you’re cooked.

According to Forrester's 2024 Buyers' Journey Survey, 92% of B2B buyers start their journey with at least one vendor in mind. Even more striking: 81% already have a preferred vendor when they first make contact, and 85% have defined their requirements before raising their hand. And scarier still, according to Hubspot’s 2025 State of Sales Report, 71% of buyers prefer independent research over talking to sales.

This means the critical trust-building phase happens during the dark funnel. This is not when Darth Vader does the research, rather it’s independent research, consulting peers, and forming opinions without consulting the actual vendor. 

Those kids out there on their newfangled LLMs, ‘doing their own research’, and making decisions based entirely on information accessible online and vibes.

The research phase has also evolved beyond what you want potential clients to see on your website. 67.4% of Gen Z rely on online reviews when researching a product, and 66% will avoid a product if reviews are outdated or insufficient. 80% of Gen Z trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, making those case studies ineffective if your online reviews are less than glowing.

For B2B marketers, this creates a quandary. You have to get your peeps to trust you before they signal buying intent. Luckily, there's a platform where professional buyers conduct research, evaluate vendors, and form preferences. That platform is LinkedIn.

Why LinkedIn solves the multi-stakeholder issue

LinkedIn's evolution from professional-networking-and-Bitcoin-bro to the place where all professionals hang out makes it the ideal platform for building trust with today's complex buying committees.

1. It hooks you up with real, actual, people

LinkedIn provides access to actual decision-makers by role, function, and seniority. Unlike account-based marketing that targets companies broadly, LinkedIn enables precise engagement with the CFO concerned about ROI, the VP of IT evaluating integration complexity, and the Director of Marketing assessing user adoption. And, it does this all at the same time, with messaging tailored to everyone’s specific concerns.

According to our analysis of over 100 B2B companies, 71.9% of marketers agree that leads from LinkedIn ads align more closely with their ideal customer profile and are more likely to be senior-level decision-makers compared to other channels. When you're trying to influence a 13-person buying committee, this precision becomes essential.

2. Building trust from and to every level

Younger buyers trust authentic voices over corporate messaging. Research shows that Gen Z and Millennials trust influencers and peers more than traditional advertisements. They seek unfiltered experiences and genuine expertise. In B2B contexts, this translates to executive thought leadership (but you can’t call it that, because that’s corporate-speak).

Data from our benchmark analysis shows that 53% of B2B marketers now amplify organic posts with Thought Leader Ads, recognizing that perspectives from real people like founders, executives, and subject matter experts build credibility that branded content cannot.

These ads showcase posts from individuals rather than companies, creating the authentic, human connection that younger buyers demand. And this can happen across the entire workforce; while the CEO connects with other CEOs, all staff can be ambassadors for their employer. Everyone from the receptionist through to the CFO is important to create genuine, positive, and authentic connections.

3. The multiplicative effect: LinkedIn makes everything better

LinkedIn's power extends beyond direct engagement on the platform itself. Our analysis of cross-channel attribution reveals that accounts exposed to LinkedIn ads demonstrate remarkably higher conversion rates across all marketing channels:

• 46% higher paid search conversion rates (up to 69% in top-performing campaigns)
• 43% improvement in meeting-to-deal conversion for SDR outbound when accounts saw LinkedIn ads first
• 112% lift in conversion rates from website content pages for accounts exposed to LinkedIn ads

This multiplicative effect is because brand recognition and trust built on LinkedIn make every subsequent touchpoint more effective. When a Gen Z procurement manager sees your paid search ad after engaging with your executive's thought leadership on LinkedIn, they're not encountering a stranger. They already feel like they know you, and more importantly, they trust you. 

4. The 95-5 rule: You don’t know most of your future customers exist

The LinkedIn B2B Institute's research established a critical insight: only 5% of your target market is actively in-market at any given time. The other 95% are out-of-market but will eventually (hopefully) buy. For complex enterprise deals with 13-person committees, the buying window might be 12-18 months away.

But we know that for many buyers, the first you’ll know about their interest in your product is when they request a demo. If you’re waiting for a bat signal sent to your desk, you’ve already missed out. Instead, you must build what behavioral scientists call "mental availability": you’ve already got to be in their minds when they enter the market.

LinkedIn enables you to do these two important things:

1. Broad-reach content that builds mental availability with the 95% through brand awareness campaigns, executive thought leadership, and educational content. Basically, putting you on their radar
2. Precision targeting to capture the 5% showing intent through retargeting, account-based campaigns, and lead generation

This Swiss-army-knife platform solves all the issues that CMOs lose sleep over: building long-term brand equity while hitting short-term pipeline targets (no more crying over pipeline targets).

How to make LinkedIn work for you

For B2B organizations navigating the complexity of modern buying committees, several principles should guide your LinkedIn strategy.

• Invest in authentic voices. Corporate content alone isn’t going to build the trust that buyers want. Empower executives and subject matter experts to share genuine perspectives. It’s also OK if the perspectives acknowledge industry challenges or go against a more traditional narrative. Be authentic. Be brave. 
• With 13 stakeholders involved in average enterprise deals, your LinkedIn strategy must reach and influence multiple people. 
• Prioritize brand building over lead capture. When 81% of buyers have a preferred vendor before formal evaluation, the leverage point is mental availability. The data shows top performers are allocating 31.3% of LinkedIn spend to brand awareness and engagement.
• Embrace format diversity. Single image ads declined from 61.2% to 53.3% of spend while video ads (+4.7pp), Document Ads (+4.3pp), and Connected TV (12.6X growth) captured budget. Millennials and Gen Z acknowledge we all learn in different ways; not everyone likes long-form blogs, or TikTok videos, so there has to be a mix.
• Measure trust indicators, not just conversion metrics. Cost-per-lead optimization misses the strategic value of trust-building. Track metrics like cost per ICP account engaged, cross-channel lift effects, and customer lifetime value to understand the full impact of trust-first marketing.

Trust and authenticity hit different

The expansion of buying committees to 13 stakeholders, combined with the generational shift toward values-driven decision-making, has changed the B2B landscape. Trust and authenticity are vital if you want to build trust.

LinkedIn is the platform where professional buyers research, evaluate, and form preferences. This makes it indispensable for trust-building at scale. As one marketing leader observed, B2B marketers surveyed indicate that 56.4% will increase their LinkedIn budgets by more than 10% in 2026. Whatever is going on, it’s working for them.

Have you got rizz? Is your business keeping it real? Or are you letting your competitors take your customers while you are still stuck on AdWords?

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