After years of Marketing throwing so-called “leads” over the fence to Sales, and account-based marketing (ABM) teams completely missing new buying centers within an account, it’s time for a go-to-market (GTM) revolution.
The primary motivator is, for many organizations, the B2B buyer is not one person, but a buying group composed of multiple players.
And, applying lead-centric or legacy ABM processes to members of a buying group results in a longer sales cycle, a poor buying experience, lead leakage and a waste of marketing investment. The better solution is a buying group motion where revenue teams focus on identifying, qualifying and moving opportunities through the sales cycle.
But how do you drive organizational change in systems and processes entrenched in leads?
Well, here’s your pitch …
Limitations of the MQL model
More and more sales and marketing teams are noticing that lead-centric processes are breaking down. Here are the all-too-familiar signs:
- Most opportunities are either closed-lost or recycled.
- Lead-to-opportunity conversion rates are low, wasting resources and spend.
- Opportunities have only one contact when there are obviously more people on the buying committee.
- The sales team has limited to no visibility into the engagement of the full buying team.
- Marketing teams are incentivized to deliver high lead volumes that don’t convert down the funnel.
Despite these problems, many companies are stuck on a hamster wheel of MQLs that don’t convert and don’t result in revenue.
Ultimately, MQLs should never be your source of truth or sole KPI. Rather, they are a leading indicator, a data point and a way for companies to identify priority leads. They are a dial to hone your messaging, processes and follow-up approach. By focusing on MQLs – and by-extension, leads – sellers often underestimate all the personas on the full buying committee. Essential context about the group making the buying decision is missing, including relevant buying signals. Simply stated, MQLs alone ignore the signals that matter.
Further, when focusing solely on leads and contacts, sellers can’t see the buyer overlap and the influence those disparate opportunities have on the account as a whole.
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Source: https://www.techtarget.com/blog/transforming-your-gtm-approach-from-leads-to-buying-groups/
