Historically, classic demand gen approaches, like marketing qualified leads (also known as MQLs) and BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) have been at the center of how marketing organizations rank their leads as well as evaluate the effectiveness and ROI of the marketing campaigns. however, these approaches have not evolved to match the needs of the current B2B landscape. In particular the number of purchasing decision-makers who are involved as well as the overall buying journey has not been updated to reflect the reality of the B2B landscape. The result? Marketing and sales teams are leaving money on the table and many leads are not getting the attention they require to become customers.
Why the MQL is Antiquated and Rusting
B2B marketing has relied on the MQLs since the 1990s as the fictitious line in the sand where a lead has been nurtured through the marketing funnel and is ready for the sales team to close the deal. For over 20 years it has been relatively the same: an individual completes a call to action (CTA) such as registering for a webinar, filling out an online form, or registering for an information session, and that lead gets assigned a score based-on implicit (based on their engagement and what they have done) as well as explicit (based on their profile, who the person is) factors. When that score reaches an agreed upon threshold the lead is deemed ready to buy. The trouble is that according to a Forrester benchmark study, even after all this hard work, the probability that a deal that leverages a lead-centric (MQL) approach will close is less than 1%. That means that out of 100 leads that get handed over to sales 99% of them will end up not converting.
In B2B, a Person is NOT the Buyer
In the world of business marketing, it is important to remember that it is very seldom that decisions are made by one person. So why would we limit the view of our marketing efforts to just one person?
B2B buying has become a much more fragmented experience, with each member of the buying team owning only a small piece of the transaction. In this new world, each member of the buying committee needs to be engaged at different times and with different approaches and value messages, all in the hopes of building consensus across a very diverse set of functions, needs, and readiness. You need to rethink the idea that an individual MQL is an indicator of where an account is in the buying
LATANE CONANT, CMO, 6SENSE
Is ABM the Answer? Maybe not.
In the last few years, there has been a rise in the popularity of Account Based Marketing (ABM) as a solution to an individual being the buyer. Some companies have shifted from MQLs (Market Qualified Leads) to MQAs (Marketing Qualified Accounts). To distill this down, the practice looks at all the relevant insights that are available, including intent signals that are often sourced from third parties, and aggregates them into a score to determine fit and engagement.
Do these MQA’s represent buyers any better? Just as a person is not the buyer in a B2B setting, neither is an account. An account is a legal entity, and can not realistically be qualified. The real buyers are somewhere in the middle, and they are groups of people who are looking for ways to solve business problems, these are your buying groups. In fact, there can be several different groups within an account that may perhaps all purchase from the same company. There are likely several buying groups within the accounts that you already have which could represent many different opportunities, many at different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Opportunity is Knocking
So if an MQL is too narrow, and MQA is too broad, where will we find that Goldilocks approach? The answer may be by looking at opportunities. Having a group of people who are all working on the same opportunity will allow them to be grouped together in a related CRM object that they can all be associated to, while still being able to keep each persona and their wants, needs, and perspectives in mind. This group that shares a common interest around the opportunity make up the buying group.
