Marketing Qualified Buying Groups (MQBGs) are quickly becoming the new standard in modern B2B marketing.
Buying groups are everywhere right now. If you listen to Gartner, Forrester, Jon Miller, or many other thought leaders in B2B, they’re talking about buying groups.
In this article, we’re going to break down what buying groups are, how to use them to identify marketing-qualified buying groups (MQBGs), and why you should care.
What Are Marketing Qualified Buying Groups?
In B2B, particularly when we’re talking about B2B software, there is rarely ever just one person in charge of buying the product. These are large, considered purchases… usually anywhere from 5-figures annually up to 7-figures annually. One person isn’t the deciding factor. But rather, there’s a group of people who are all contributing to the buying decision. This is now being called a “buying group”.
A buying group is usually made up of various people, in various roles, in an organization, who play different roles in the buying group. You have influencers: people who can influence a decision, but not make a decision. You have decision-makers: the ones making the final call. You have people who may be there just to make sure a specific requirement is being met, like a security requirement or an integration requirement. You may have procurement folks who are involved in signing off on the expense itself. There can be a lot of people involved.
And typically, the larger the purchase, the larger the buying group.
So, when you hear the term “buying group” or “buying committee”, this is what is being referred to.
Why Marketing Qualified Buying Groups Are Replacing MQLs and MQAs
To some people and orgs, buying groups have always been a big deal. But, they’re starting to become way more talked about due to the rise and fall of both the MQL and the MQA.
The MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) was the north star for marketing for a long time. Marketing departments had weekly, monthly, and quarterly MQL goals that they had to fill. And, considering the nature of the MQL, the performance against those goals could be manipulated in order to hit a goal. And thus, the value of the MQL dropped tremendously, to the point that any interaction with marketing at all could qualify someone as an MQL. So, MQLs started losing their luster.
Then came the Marketing Qualified Account (MQA).
As platforms like 6sense, Demandbase, and Terminus gained popularity, leveraging large volumes of intent data, the MQA quickly became the new north star for marketing teams, especially those running Account-Based Marketing (ABM) programs.
Instead of qualifying individual leads, marketers could now qualify entire accounts based on behavioral signals. On the surface, this felt like a major evolution.
And for a while, it was.
But over time, the cracks started to show.
MQAs have several structural limitations:
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They rely heavily on proprietary scoring models that combine first-party and third-party intent data.
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Third-party intent data can be noisy or unreliable, often based on anonymous, aggregated signals.
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The scoring logic is typically a black box, meaning marketers can’t easily adjust or audit what’s driving qualification.
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They lack specificity.
For example, imagine Wells Fargo surfaces as an MQA.
That sounds promising.
But who at Wells Fargo is actually showing buying intent?
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A decision-maker?
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A junior analyst?
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Someone in an unrelated department?
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An entirely different buying committee?
With tens of thousands of employees at a large enterprise, an MQA can feel less like a clear signal and more like a starting point for a scavenger hunt.
Sales is left asking:
“Who exactly are we supposed to call?”
And that’s the core issue.
An MQA tells you an account might be active, but it doesn’t tell you which buying group inside that account is actually in market.
Because of the above, MQAs are now also starting to fall out of favor.
Enter the buying group.
The buying group is designed to be a midway point between the MQL and the MQA. It’s not just one person who may or may not have any influence on a buying decision. But, it’s also a lot more specific than just pointing sales at an account, saying, “Go!”
Buying groups seem to be that perfect sweet spot, where we know that these are the right people, with the right authority, at the right accounts, at the right time. And now, everyone is chasing the buying group.
But here’s the thing about buying groups: If you don’t have a mechanism that allows you to “qualify” a buying group, you’re still chasing something that may not be a real opportunity. So, we need to introduce some sort of qualifying mechanism to the buying group concept.
How to Build Marketing Qualified Buying Groups in Your CRM
Here is where the rubber meets the road. When you introduce the concept of a Marketing Qualified Buying Group (MQBG), you can now fulfill the promise of…
- The right people
- With the right authority
- At the right account
- At the right time
And, if you do this primarily through the lens of first-party data, you remove the shakiness and false positives that come with third-party intent data.
This truly is the ideal way to qualify buying intent within a target account. But it’s not simple. It requires a lot of architecture and a lot of research.
First off, it’s important to note that MQBGs don’t necessarily replace MQLs or MQAs. If you’re doing demand gen, you’ll likely still have the concept of an MQL. And, if you’re doing ABM, you’ll likely still have MQAs. MQBGs sit alongside these other MQs, but should be treated as the highest priority.
The most important part of this is to identify who the buying group is at each target account. This is the hardest part, because it’s going to require research. If you don’t do this research out of the gate, you’re basically back to MQLs and MQAs, and just hoping the person you have is part of the buying group. So, do the research and build the buying group in your CRM.
There are a few ways that you can build the buying group in your CRM. You can indicate the buying group as a field on the Contact object. You can also indicate the buying group via Opportunity Contact Roles (OCRs) on the Opportunity object. You can find other ways as well, but either of these would work.
One thing that’s super important to keep in mind here is that, because buying groups take a certain amount of time to research and define, this isn’t something you’re going to do for your entire total addressable market (TAM). This is something that you’re going to do for the best accounts in your ideal customer profile (ICP). You won’t even do this for your entire ICP, just the best accounts in your ICP.
From there, you’ll need to figure out a scoring model that focuses specifically on the members of your buying groups. It’s best to have a completely separate scoring model for MQBGs, because you won’t need nearly as many demographic scoring inputs, since we already know that these are the right people. Therefore, the scoring inputs will mostly be focused on behavior scoring.
There are a few things you’ll need to consider in your scoring model:
- Do we qualify the entire BG when only one member of the BG has the requisite score?
- Or, do we only qualify the BG when the BG as a group hits a score threshold?
- Do we have a different qualification process depending on whether a member of the BG fills out a Contact Us or Request a Demo form?
Note: We’re going to have a subsequent article that does a deeper dive into potential lead scoring models for MQBGs, so stay tuned…
Then, you’ll need to factor this new MQBG system into your Lead Lifecycle. In this case, you may be able to have a parallel stage in your Lifecycle specific to MQBG that differentiates it from an MQL or MQA. But, you probably don’t need to create a whole separate Lifecycle just for MQBGs.
Note: We’ll go deeper into the Lead Lifecycle considerations for MQBGs in a future article as well
Once you’ve altered your Lead Scoring and Lead Lifecycle, the next thing you’ll need to consider is how these MQBGs will be routed, and to whom. Depending on how you architect this, the routing may stay the same as MQLs, where they’re assigned to a BDR/SDR before going to sales. Or, you may route these directly to sales reps, since we already know who the accounts are, and that these folks are the right people. There’s no right or wrong way here, other than making sure that these are at the top of the priority list for follow-up.
Operationally, these are the biggest considerations that you’ll need to have when thinking about creating an MQBG process in your org.
How to Score a Marketing Qualified Buying Groups
Now that you’ve seen the things that you need to consider, you may be thinking that this is a lot of work, and well, is it worth it? And the answer to that question is, yes. Let’s dig in through the lens of a traditional BANT qualification process. (Yes, there are others, but BANT is fairly ubiquitous, so that’s why we’re using it here.
- Budget – Well, because we researched these folks, we know that there’s at least one member of the MQBG who has the budget
- Authority – Again, because we researched who these folks are and their role in the organization, at least one member of the MQBG has the appropriate authority
- Need – Research helps here again, as we know that these folks are the people in the org that need our product/service
- Timeline – Based on the first-party data we’re using to score the BGs, we can be pretty certain that we’re getting them at the right time
So, the fact that we have an MQBG means that the BANT criteria should already be met. This is a huge step ahead of using traditional MQLs. When someone MQLs, that person could fail every single metric of the BANT criteria, and we won’t know until a human calls them. But with an MQBG, it’s nearly impossible not to meet BANT criteria.
This is also much better than an MQA. For one, with an MQA, you don’t know who the people are who are demonstrating the intent that qualifies the account as an MQA. That means that they could be anybody in the org… including people that would fail all BANT criteria. For another thing, if the MQA is a large account that may have multiple buying committees, sales may spin their wheels trying to find out which buying committee is the one demonstrating intent. This could lead to missing one or more BANT criteria.
Lastly, when you hand over an MQA to sales, you’re sending them on a wild goose chase, trying to find a handful of needles in a large haystack. With MQBGs, we’ve already removed the hay. All we’re looking at are the needles.
Yes, it takes time to clear the hay away when doing the research. But, it’s way easier to do that up front when we have time, than it is to do that once the clock starts ticking. See, once the BG is in-market, they are going to want to move quickly. And, any delays in contacting these folks or getting in front of them gives your competition an edge. The first brand that enters the buying process always has an advantage. Time kills all deals. You don’t want to wait until they’re in-market to start your research and start identifying the BG. That takes time… and it can definitely kill deals before they even start. Do the research up front, before they’re in-market.
Outside of the above, it also helps to focus your marketing efforts. When you’ve identified a BG–or several BGs–at an account, you don’t have to worry about marketing to people that aren’t in the BG(s). You can focus your marketing to the folks in the BG(s) and ignore the rest. Other folks may be interested, and come to the website, or engage with you on social media, but because they aren’t a part of a BG, you don’t have to proactively target them. This means that you should be spending less to advertise to these accounts, as you’re able to be more laser-focused.
You also have the ability to personalize your marketing much better. When you don’t know specifically who you’re marketing to, and what their needs and problems are, it’s really difficult to personalize your marketing efforts. But when you’ve done that research and know exactly who these folks are, what they need, and the problems you solve for them, your personalization efforts become much easier. You can personalize the web experience for them, you can personalize emails, you can personalize ads, and personalize as much (or as little) as you want. And, as we all know… personalization leads to better, more effective marketing.
To close out the benefits of this approach, you’ll finally be aligned with your sales team. You’ve already aligned with them to define the BGs. So, when you pass an MQBG over to a sales rep (or a BDR/SDR), there’s a nearly zero chance that sales is going to come back and say that marketing is sending over bad leads. Because we already know that these are the right people! We’re sending them the exact people they asked for, with scoring and qualification. Your sales team (or BDR/SDR team) is going to be so much happier about the leads you’re sending over. A happy sales team is a productive sales team.
Why You Should Use Marketing Qualified Buying Groups
If you’ve made it this far, it should be clear to you at this point that using BGs and, more specifically, MQBGs is a great idea. There are a ton of advantages and very few drawbacks.
That being said, using MQBGs is definitely a bit of uncharted territory for most organizations. It’s a complete shift in perspective as to how to go about driving engagement within accounts. It’s a bit scary. And, yes, it requires research. But that research is research you should already be doing anyway, so it’s not superfluous.
In subsequent articles, we’ll do a deeper dive into the Lead Scoring considerations and the Lead Lifecycle considerations that are required when operationalizing your BGs and MQBGs. Until then, start thinking of how you can operationalize in your organization. And, if you’d like some additional brainpower, you know how to reach us.
