Marketing-qualified leads can be a golden opportunity for marketers. Correctly done, a batch of MQLs will help sales boost their conversion rate.
Sales and Marketing alignment is crucial for any business that wants to increase its ROI. Marketing needs to provide sales with MQLs that are not abundant only in quantity but also in quantity. Sales has a complaint against marketing. The leads provided are not qualified enough.
Maybe some leads are irrelevant, or the data has not been updated or is wrong. Errors that cause disconnect between the perception of generated leads and what they actually are must be minimized.
If marketing continues to qualify leads irrelevant to the sales team, how can they be called MQLs?
What is a MQL (Marketing-Qualified Lead) exactly?
MQLs are nothing but leads that have been qualified by the marketing team as relevant. These leads are ready to be engaged with and nurtured.
When leads pour into our campaign from inbound or outbound marketing, they must be filtered down. We cannot speak to every lead that has shown slight interest.
We need markers to confirm and a system to qualify. And Marketing-Qualified leads are the product of the system. It helps us understand which leads are worth putting effort into.
An MQL is a lead that has crossed all checkmarks set by the marketing team.
There is a dangerous lack of high-quality MQLs, and it needs to be changed. Marketing can’t do it alone. They need to understand the perspective of sales.
Discovering the “correct” MQL
If an MQL is a lead that has crossed all checkmarks by the marketing team, why do they end up disqualified by the sales team? Because every team has a different definition of an MQL.
When speaking to the sales team, they usually tell you they know the customer and their pain points. And they are often correct. Sales teams are the ones that understand who the customer is supposed to be.
Marketing has the ideal customer built up through specifications, but the raw work that sales do makes it clear to them.
The creation of an effective qualifying system required marketers to listen to the sales perspective.
How would a system that enables sales & marketing discussion look like? And how it can translate into finding accurate MQLs.
A buzz has been surrounding the B2B industry, it is all about aligning sales and marketing. The idea is revolutionary. But how can it be broken down into actionable steps?
In our experience, it all starts with
Open Communication
Discovering an accurate MQL boils down to understanding what sales are looking for. When leads don’t convert, the two teams readily blame each other. But instead, the teams should be focused on talking to each other. Address issues and the gaps that exist while finding the leads.
Defining an MQL
Once channels for open communication open up, it is time to start defining the criteria for qualifying a lead into an MQL. You can start with the not-so-easily-answerable question:
- What behavior is the prospect engaging in that makes them relevant?
- Data helps in understanding past conversions and their behavior. What are some key indicators?
- Number of articles viewed?
- Subscription to newsletters?
- Signing up for or downloading demos?
- Sales also understand, intuitively, what makes a prospect qualified. Some actionable intuitions can be: –
- If a lead is ready for a call-back
- What is the leads email open-rate
- Have they answered verifying questions?
These above actions usually translate into good results. Prospects following such behavior have a high chance of being high-quality MQLs. You could also call this method lead scoring.
Weekly meetings
A good idea is to conduct weekly or bi-weekly meetings with the sales team. And understand whether the MQL batch delivered by marketing was up to the mark.
- How was this batch of leads?
- How could it have been better?
- What has improved since the last time?
These are good questions to ask! As marketers, a chance to deepen our understanding of communication and then transform it into execution is an invaluable tool.
Keeping the data updated
Outdated data is a problem for many organizations. But when lead qualification is crucial to the business, it should be avoided at all costs. As data quality improves, so does the qualification rate. Updated data also means saving sales time.
With follow-ups, email outreach, and more unique techniques, this problem can be easily solved. Especially now that CDPs are at play.
MQLs are still TOFU leads, but with nurturing they can transform into SQLs. Leading to meaningful conversations.
Transforming an MQL into an SQL.
SQLs or Sales-Qualified leads, in marketing and sales, means a lead that is highly likely to become a potential customer. All they need is a little bit of nurturing.
SQLs usually sit on the Mid-funnel whereas MQLs sit on the Top-funnel of sales.
Only will an MQL become a Sales-Qualified lead when it has been thoroughly vetted. Let us assume, with the above method we can generate a pool of quality Marketing-Qualified leads. Now, we must observe: –
- Their engagement with our product/services and content.
- Their Budget
- Need
- Time
- Authority.
Easy, right? On paper, yes. However, qualifying an SQL comes with its own set of problems.
But with our expertise, Coleda B2B tackles the problems of quality MQLs.
By understanding the behavior of the prospects and checking the data constantly. We have transformed the way MQLs are generated.
At Coleda, through rigorous trials and smart quality checks, we have been able to pick on the minute observations that make a quality MQL. But it doesn’t just end there; we ensure that a lead and the accompanying data are not outdated. Check it thoroughly before delivering it.
Marketing-qualified leads should not be a numbers game; it is the base, and a quality foundation makes the tower strong.
To vet and be thorough with an MQL yields effective results. Not only is it an opportunity for marketers to understand what makes a high-quality Marketing-Qualified lead but also aligns with sales. A practice that is becoming the cornerstone of acquiring relevant leads.
The conversation has started, and it begins by transforming how these two teams work and provide feedback to each other.
MQLs must not be deliverable in numbers; qualification should serve a greater purpose: Sales-Qualified lead transformation. Bringing prospects a step closer to the services offered.
