If marketing can quickly collect, correctly evaluate, and submit only the b2b leads to the sales team, the business then responds by growing completed deals. Sales managers also spend less effort and time and are working only with those who are interested and able to purchase the product.
Evaluation of customer potential allows you to have point-to-point communication with customers. This reduces the time between getting familiar with the customers and their purchase of a product, and helps segment and personalize communication with the audience. Thus, Qualified Lead makes the sales segment work more efficient, ultimately ensuring profitable growth and sustainable development of the company.
In other words, qualified leads are central to the marketing funnel. Everyone wants them, but not everyone understands what they are, how they differ, and what to do with them.
Why Businesses Need Marketing Qualified Leads
Leads play a key role in the sales process, effectively standing in as buyers of services or products.
While leads can transform into customers, they are no buyers yet. Realization of potential requires some study and evaluation. There are three qualifications to be considered at different stages of a marketing and sales strategy:
- Sales qualified lead (SQL) — an almost ready buyer who has shown interest in a product or service beyond the mere information consumption about it.
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) — a potential client who has shown interest in your content.
- PQL (Product Qualified Lead) — a client who used or has been using your product or services and is interested in their update.
Also Read: Why Businesses Should Invest More In Information Technology This 2021?
What is an MQL?
It is an unqualified contact at the top of the sales funnel expressing interest in a product or service. MQL does not buy but takes such active steps as:
- downloads demo versions of the product;
- fills out online order forms;
- agrees to receive the newsletter;
- adds pages to bookmarks, adds products to favorites, wish list and cart;
- often visits and surfs the website for a long time;
- requests additional information.
These are all, but some of the most common indicators. Finding out who is MQL and who is not depends on information received from lead, analytics, product delivery, and demographics assessment.
What Makes MQLs So Important?
MQLs have such value for a marketing strategy because they are more focused on quality than quantity. It’s better to have a small group of high purchasing power leads than hundreds of low-interest leads. It is harder to sell something to potential clients with low motivation, even if there are many of them.
Higher conversion rates mean more efficient sales and marketing processes, which is why it is good to improve not only your overall metrics but also the number of leads in your marketing funnel.
The Benefits of Implementing Marketing Qualified Leads
The use of MQL ensures the focus of the marketing teams on the clients with the greatest potential. That way they increase productivity and sales.
Workload optimization
Sales representatives do not waste time and energy on customers which brings zero results. Companies in turn don’t waste their resources on finding bad customers.
Having good knowledge of MQL helps improve team workloads to ensure that they only use resources for potential customers who can help maximize their ROI (return on investment).
Better coordination of sales and marketing departments
MQL is an important factor when negotiating SLAs between marketing and sales departments. Having a formal criterion for determining which leads are referred to the sales department reduces possible confusion and misunderstanding.
Better alignment facilitates feedback between the two departments. This translates into a lower bounce rate as the rating system targets “simpler” leads. The company’s resources are spent more efficiently when the process of switching between teams is smooth.
Improved content marketing
The MarketingSherpa survey shows that almost 80% of potential customers never make a purchase. This is a big business problem and another area where MQL identification can really help.
It will allow you to know exactly the audience on which you should target the content. This will improve ROI and customer acquisition initiatives.
Identification of priorities
Knowing which MQLs create the greatest opportunities helps you prioritize your marketing and sales strategy. Attracting quality customers from a small group of high-potential buyers is more effective than trying to convert leads from hundreds of different requests.
Don’t waste time and effort
Companies get leads from a variety of sources and then contact each of them to see if a business lead fits their product. The MQL definition ensures that marketing teams’ work is not in vain. When more qualified leads are passed to the sales team, that is when marketers can be confident that the sales team is working with the “hottest” leads generated from reliable data sources.
At the same time, sales teams do not chase a ghost. The use of MQL makes the outreach of sales departments targeted, which is more likely to lead to sales.
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How to Define MQLs?
Lead scoring is the process of ranking customers based on specific criteria that you create taking into account your business objectives, sales goals, and customer behavior patterns.
To determine the specific criteria for a qualified lead, you need to analyze the habits of other potential customers and buyers. This can include getting familiar with the demographics, location, job title, and company size.
- Check and see how MQL interacts with your marketing assets.
- Analyze how they perform compared to other successful leads which turned into customers.
- Examine the behavior: the way existing and lost customers act when they are ready for purchase. See how it was with the sales in the past and what was their way from being interested in confirmation of purchase.
- Study customer reviews, find out if there is something in particular that turns them off.
- Look for trends and tendencies: what do successful leads have in common? What pages, offers, and ads convert the highest quality MQL?
- Determine what makes customers choose you over your competitors.
This will help you focus on what really works to increase your sales.
Also Read: How To Differentiate Between Scammers And Legit Investors You Can Follow?
Conclusion
The criteria for evaluating potential customers are unique for each company, but the typical ways of a system developing include analyzing business/industry information of current and potential customers, expressed interests, and level of activity towards your branded content.
By monitoring and evaluating the criteria, companies can quickly determine the estimated value of each account. Marketing Qualified Leads to ensure that sales representatives don’t just call random phone numbers, but that they find leads.
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