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A couple of months ago, Gabe Rogl, the CEO of Demandbase, posted:

BGM, or Buying Group Marketing, is the new ABM. Yes, ABM was named wrong in the first place. It should have been account-based go-to market, or account-based experience.  But it's because it's just not a marketing thing. And yes, it's still foundational for businesses that market complex solutions with long sales cycles, but there's been a clear evolution the last 15 years that's led us to the criticality of buying groups. 

It started around 2010, when the lead-based approach reached its endpoint. That led to the decade-plus evolution of ABM as a practice, as a job function, and as a technology. ABM was a huge step forward because it focused resources on accounts that led to the greatest LTV and made sales and marketing alignment a priority. But today, the best go-to markets are supercharging ABM by operationalizing buying groups as:

1.  Not everyone in an account is relevant to the sales cycle.

2. There are more people involved in a sales cycle than ever before. 

3. Accounts can purchase multiple products, focusing on the account alone without using buyer groups as a data object. This makes it very difficult to prospect, sell, forecast multiple opportunities in the same account.

4. Engaging buying groups de-risks every phase of revenue creation. Pipeline, win rates, renewal, expansion. 

5. It is an absolute competitive differentiator right now, because few companies are doing it well.

This is why he says BGM initiatives will drive the next wave of B2B growth. But on this episode, Jessica Fewless at Inverta joined Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber to challenge Gabe's post and thoughts.