Welcome back to the Saying Goodbye to MQLs blog series, where we answer your questions about transitioning from leads to buying groups and opportunities.

If you missed part 1 of the series, check it out here! We reviewed what’s the big deal about MQLs and why you should make the switch to buying groups today.

If we’re focused on buying groups, what about the individuals?

Now that we’ve gotten you hooked on to buying groups, don’t underestimate the importance of individual people. We will always be focused on marketing to people. We will always want to understand individual personas, their business needs, and their role in making a buying decision. But we must start rearranging our internal processes to better connect with these buying groups and understand the context in which they’re buying.

We should leverage the insight or signals of multiple people, who we believe are in the same account and interested in the same solution, to better understand the buying group and their needs.

The million-dollar question we often ask clients is, “Which is more interesting to sales: a person who downloaded four different white papers or four people coming from one account, downloading the same white paper and/or looking at the same solution?”

If you answered the latter, congratulations, you’re cashing in! If four people are looking at the same solution, that means the buying group is in motion, doing research to make a purchase decision, and there’s an opportunity for your organization there.

How will we know which individuals are related to buying groups and opportunities?

Every interaction with an individual (named or anonymous) provides insight and context into the deal. It’s our job to find out who did the interaction and what exactly they are interested in. The who can include account information, name, or title. The what is discovered by mapping the content that an individual engaged with back to solutions and opportunities.

Understanding this context will inform your organization’s next best action to better enable the buyer in their buying decision.

Not bought in yet? Here’s a play-by-play:

Assume that someone comes to our website and downloads a white paper. Answering who tells us that Bob is the VP of HR from Acme, and we see that he downloaded a white paper, “Hiring Best Practices In 2023.” With this information, we can assume that Bob is aligned to our talent management opportunity. We will associate Bob with this opportunity. Three days later, Sally, the director of talent management, attended a webinar on this topic. We now have two people that are associated with this opportunity.

So you see … individuals still matter. But understanding the context of why multiple individuals are visiting your website will bring you that much closer to assembling a buying group.

Ready to learn more about making this shift? Then check out the Saying Goodbye to MQLs blog series next Thursday. Have a question? Send it here, and we’ll respond in future blogs.