How qualified is your MQL? (Marketing Qualified Lead?)

We, marketers, are after MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads) and after Marketing Qualified Accounts) and measure our performance by how many MQLs are generated and how many leads are in front of the sales department. We love leads and want to add the funnel or CRM system. Then we want to calculate the ratio between MQL, SQL, and ultimately conversion. If the ratio is higher, then the strategic decision would be 'push for more MQL' resulting in more calls, more mail, more spending on Facebook ads, google ads, etc.

The fundamental question is 'How qualified is your MQL?"

Let us look at why we have to rethink this outdated process of funnels, leads, MQL, etc. We have to remind ourselves that we are in a post-COVID era buying has become completely digital.

Why MQL is outdated?

Thanks to the companies like Amazon, Uber, Ola, NetFlix, etc. Customers expect a great user experience from SaaS products. The customer is at the center and he/she has complete control of discontinuing a subscription at any time. Unless we have a real intention of helping customers and helping them realize their goals, MQL and MQA are going to be mere numbers.

Let us imagine a local shop near you, and the owner of the shop can identify you and knows your name, has that personal touch, and can help you with the right product. However, in MQL and in the lead generation process, there is no personal touch and there is a lack of concrete information about the need of the customers. There will be of lack of contextual information about the customers resulting in a waste of time for both parties.

Example

1) We add the customer as a lead when he checks our website and downloads an e-book. He may be a student who is curious to learn more, not having any intention of buying.

The question is how we can create that personal touch of a local shop for our customers digitally.

Sales and leads

I was discussing it with a CEO and he mentioned that he has created an extra email that is meant to register for free trials or to explore different SaaS solutions.

It is a known fact that we hesitate to fill out the forms or to give our actual contact numbers/mail ids while downloading the ebooks or PDFs. This is mainly because we want to avoid sales calls and sales emails.

Maybe because of sales pressure, salespeople are in a hurry to convert the lead into customers and start bombarding the emails without understanding the actual need of the customer. What I mean to say is that all MQLs are not equally qualified. The intention of visiting the website, downloading a PDF, and attending a webinar may not be having buying intention.

During pandemics, I used to conduct a ton of webinars and I found that the majority of my target customers are attending the webinars only for the sake of knowledge gathering or just out of curiosity. The leads were not qualified leads who were interested in talking further. If I pass the contact details to the CRM as MQL, those will be mere numbers.

What is the solution?

B2B buying has become a much more fragmented experience,with each member of the buying team owning only a small pieceof the transaction. In this new world, each member of the buying committee needs to be engaged at different times and with different approaches and value messages, all in the hopes of building consensus across a very diverse set of functions, needs,and readiness. You need to rethink the idea that an individual MQL is an indicator of where an account is in the buying journey.

-Latane Conant, CMO at 6Sense

One answer would be content and conversation.

I would like to take the example of Gong Sales Software here to show how effectively content can be used to educate and nurture leads. I found this to be a good example of qualifying leads.

Gong has created content with different contexts and in different forms (ebooks, webinars, case studies, videos, white papers) so that customers can check whether Gong's Sales Solution can be an answer to his problems.

The best part is that customers can drill down among various industries, geographies, and business sizes so as to explore whether Gong's solution can be an answer to their specific problem.

After proper research, if the prospective buyer is ready to discuss, then MQL has certain qualifications.

Credit- Gong Software. (https://www.gong.io/)

Why content and conversations are important?

The fundamental assumption here is that we want the customer to buy in 'our way' of buying. That is why we send them emails, call them for discussion, and try to push them hard to buy. (Yes. within year-end, they have to buy) But the customer wants to follow his own way of buying, and he will study, compare, check, go for a free trial, check ROI, carefully examine the value proposition, and then want to buy.

We want to acquire, score and convert leads into buyers as early as possible. Those are the metrics we want to measure internally.

Is this wrong?

No. I am not saying that.

What I am saying is, are we making the buying process easy for the buyer? Let me ask a few questions for greater clarity.

1) Have we created domain-specific information so that it is easy for the buyer to understand the value.

2) Are we addressing the major questions (usually asked by a specific industry) and making the answers available for easy access for the interested buyer? Say, a YouTube video.

3) How fast can we give specific information to customers? Maybe a recorded webinar or podcast can help customers or may be an AI-supported chatbot.

4) How easy is it for the customers to realize the value when they sign in for a free trial?

We need to rethink the demand generation KPI.