At the center of this transformation lies a stubborn fact: B2B decisions aren't made by individuals. They're made by buying groups, complex networks of champions, decision-makers, influencers, and blockers who must reach consensus before any purchase can move forward.

This reality demands a complete rethink of how we approach demand generation, lead qualification, and account-based marketing. It's time to ditch the outdated MQL model and embrace how buying actually happens.

The Buying Group Triangle: A New Framework for B2B Success

Think of effective B2B marketing as a triangle. Each side represents a critical dimension that must be understood and engaged simultaneously:

The magic happens when all three elements align. You can't effectively market to an account without understanding where they are in their buying process. You can't move them through that process without engaging the right roles within the buying group. And you can't prioritize your efforts without clear account-level intelligence about fit and potential for growth with your products or services.

This framework becomes the foundation for marketing to buying groups. It's a strategic approach that coordinates engagement across all key stakeholders within a qualified account, aligned to their collective movement toward a purchase decision.

Defining Modern Demand Generation: Marketing to Buying Groups

Marketing to buying groups means engaging all the key stakeholders involved in a purchase decision within a target account, across roles, needs, and stages of their buying process, in a coordinated way.

This requires a fundamental shift in how we think about demand generation.

From Individual Leads to Group Dynamics: Instead of scoring individual behaviors, we track engagement patterns across multiple personas within an account. We're looking for signals that indicate a buying group is forming, researching, and moving toward consensus.

From MQLs to MQAs: Marketing Qualified Accounts become the new currency. An MQA represents an account where multiple buying group members have engaged meaningfully, indicating collective interest and momentum toward a purchase decision. MQLs aren’t “dead”. They are still relevant as you transition and still play a role overall, but they just aren’t the whole picture.

From Campaign-Driven to Process-Orchestrated: Campaigns become contextual, triggered by where the buying group is in their process and what they need to progress to the next stage. Need more stakeholders engaged? Deploy content syndication and increase ad spend for that account cluster. Ready for sales engagement? Host targeted field events in regions with high concentrations of MQA’s.

From Handoffs to Collaboration: Marketing delivers buying committees to sales. Not random contact forms, but full pictures of engaged stakeholders with the context sales needs to facilitate meaningful conversations and drive deals forward.

The Operational Playbook: How Marketing to Buying Groups Works in Practice

NOTE: This is a major change for any organization. We would recommend going through this playbook with a pilot first, to understand the mechanics and challenges that might arise within your organization, so you can accommodate and adapt accordingly as you role this out company-wide.

‍Foundation Building: Start with your Ideal Customer Profile, but make sure it's operational across every system. Defining your Ideal Customer Profile is essential, but unless those attributes are surfaced in your CRM and other MarTech,, it’s just a forgotten slide. You need to  operationalize it for marketing and sales motions.. 

Study your winning deals obsessively. Focus your analysis on the deals that resulted in long‑term, profitable customers. Count the interactions, identify which roles were involved and what content resonated. Use those insights to refine your ICP and steer your marketing and sales priorities.

Process Mapping and Stage Definition: Map buyer process stages based on your winning deal anatomy, then operationalize those stages everywhere. Your systems, reporting, and sales handoffs all need to speak the same language about where accounts really are in their process.

To ensure marketing and sales teams are aligned and acting in concert, it's crucial to clarify what constitutes meaningful engagement. This includes understanding the number and specific stakeholders involved, the frequency of their interactions, and identifying patterns in both anonymous and known behaviors.

Always-On Orchestration: Build campaign logic that responds to buying process stages and account needs. 

• Start with simple, stage‑triggered workflows and progressively add dynamic content and channel coordination as confidence and infrastructure mature. 
• Tier engagement models based on account priority. 
• Include Cross-channel orchestration that maintains consistent messaging, helping move the entire buying group to consensus as they move through the journey..

Where ABM Fits: The Strategic Layer

Here's where confusion often creeps in. Marketing to buying groups is not the same as Account-Based Marketing, though they work beautifully together.

Think of buying group marketing as foundational to all modern B2B marketing. It's the new baseline for effective demand generation. ABM is the premium, high-touch strategy layer you apply to your most strategic accounts.

When to deploy ABM: Three things separate ABM from demand generation. You develop a target account list that's a subset of your ICP. You dive deep into each account's specific needs and create tailored campaigns, programs, and messaging for those exact accounts. You work hand-in-hand with sales throughout the entire buying process, with laser focus on what the individuals in those accounts need.

The confusion often comes from what many call "1:many ABM," which is really just more targeted demand generation. True ABM requires deep account research, personalization across channels, and focused offers to specific stakeholders within carefully selected accounts.

The Strategic Transformation: How Marketing Roles Must Evolve

This shift demands more than new processes. It requires fundamental changes in how marketing teams operate.

Digital Marketing Managers transform from funnel fillers to signal orchestrators, tracking intent across buying groups and orchestrating digital experiences that engage multiple roles simultaneously.

Campaign Managers evolve from persona marketers to multi-threaded program designers, building campaigns aligned to buying group dynamics rather than individual behaviors.

Field Marketing Managers shift from event coordinators to account orchestrators, designing regionally personalized experiences that engage multiple buying group members and support opportunity acceleration.

BDRs and SDRs become buying group activators, engaging entire groups through multi-threaded, signal-driven outreach aligned to account behavior and stage.

Marketing Operations evolves from lead flow management to signal infrastructure architecture, operationalizing buying group tagging, signal-driven routing, and opportunity-stage data alignment.

The Future of B2B Marketing: Beyond Buzzwords to Business Impact

This isn't about adopting another marketing buzzword or implementing the latest martech tool. It's about aligning your marketing strategy with how buying actually happens in today's complex B2B environment.

The companies that master this transition will gain sustainable competitive advantages. Higher conversion rates from marketing-influenced pipeline. Shorter sales cycles through better-qualified opportunities. Improved sales and marketing alignment around shared account intelligence. More predictable revenue through better leading indicators.

The shift from individual leads to buying groups represents the most significant evolution in B2B marketing since the move from traditional advertising to digital demand generation. Like all fundamental shifts, it requires new thinking, new skills, and new measures of success.

But for marketing leaders willing to make this transformation, the payoff is clear. Marketing evolves from a lead factory into revenue insurance, delivering not just more leads, but better opportunities that sales teams can actually close.

The question isn't whether this shift will happen. It's whether you'll lead it or be forced to follow.

Resources to help you transform your GTM to Buying Groups:

• Hear from other marketers transforming their GTM 
  
  • Funnel Is Broken webinar ebook
  • Full Webinar
• Learn how to operationalize Buying Groups
  
  • MQL→MQA transformation Toolkit
• Develop campaigns to engage your buying groups
  
  • Always On Playbook
  • Always on Webinar