Think about the last time you bought something expensive for your business. You started by asking someone, most likely a person in your network who had already been through it, before you ever opened the potential vendor’s homepage.
Your buyer is doing exactly that to you right now. Their opinion of you is mostly formed before your site ever loads.
Your buyer’s committee is bigger than you think
That instinct, to check with someone else before trusting a vendor directly, is not unique to you, and it has only gotten stronger. Forrester’s 2026 State of Business Buying report tells us that the typical purchase now moves through thirteen stakeholders inside the buying company and nine more outside it, among them: analysts and industry peers your marketing has probably never reached.
Forrester’s own explanation is almost funny. Buyers increasingly use AI tools to research vendors. The tools often return incomplete or unreliable answers, and buyers respond by finding an actual person to confirm what they just read. The shortcut actually created more demand for outside validation.
A stranger’s word tends to beat your own
Imagine you’re a chef trying to convince someone of your culinary skills. You could present a beautifully crafted menu, but it’s the glowing reviews from diners who have tasted your dishes that truly win them over. The same is true in B2B. A customer, an analyst, or a podcast guest saying something good about you carries more weight than you saying it yourself, because that voice has little to gain from making you look good.
To help visualize this, Forrester expects 75% of enterprise B2B companies to grow their influencer and analyst-relations budgets in 2026. That budget shift is chasing the part of your buyer’s world your homepage never reaches: the analysts, peers, and industry voices already shaping the decision before you’re in the room. That audience does not need a better version of your pitch. It needs to already be hearing your name from someone who is not you. None of that has to replace what is on your site now. It just has to exist somewhere that audience already looks, and be easy enough to find.
Thinking about who should be vouching for your brand next? Contact us at Laguna Media Group for help with content strategies and execution that will put a credible outside voice next to your brand’s name.