SALES PROCESS - MQL or PQL ?
Jeroen van der Werf
Business Strategist " Our believe is that we are responsible for holding the dreams of other people in our hands"!
"Revolutionizing Sales & Marketing Insights for Industry 4.0 Companies | LeadHQ"
Written by Me | June 12, 2023
Conventional lead generation, in particular, the waterfall model, may have its roots in past decades, but it's no longer a reliable method in today's dynamic digital environment. The model, which is based on gated content, lead nurturing, and lead scoring to convert visitors into leads, leads into sales-qualified leads and customers, often falls short of expectations. As an industry leader at LeadHQ, I have observed the inadequacies of this approach firsthand.
With old-school lead generation methods, businesses often waste a significant portion of their marketing budget, which also creates inefficiencies for the sales team and results in a subpar user experience for buyers. The primary culprit here is the marketing qualified lead (MQL), which often lacks buying intent, authority, and budget, rendering a lot of time and resources spent on generating MQLs useless.
In the B2B buying process, the reality is that it's rarely just one person who's making the purchasing decision. There are usually multiple decision-makers involved, each doing their own independent research - often not on your website. Therefore, selling to individual leads isn't as effective as reaching out to buying committees within accounts.
This understanding forms the foundation of our approach at LeadHQ. We don't just focus on the individual buyer, but aim to influence the entire buying committee and monitor their engagement with your business. This strategy has proved to be much more efficient and effective for our clients.
The old MQL-centric model can also cause inefficiencies, especially for rapidly growing companies. This can be attributed to the fact that the number of companies interested in buying your solution at any given time is finite. As a result, the more you stretch to generate more MQLs, the lower their quality becomes, leading to a decrease in conversion rate.
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At LeadHQ, we believe in simplifying your strategy by dividing your audience into those who are ready to buy and those who need more educational content. Our objective is to optimize for sales opportunities and revenue generation, rather than focus on downloading an e-book or other such low-impact activities.
Moreover, the conventional lead generation approach can create a negative perception of your company in the minds of potential customers due to a series of poor experiences. At LeadHQ, we ensure our methods align with the way your potential customers prefer to buy products or services, both privately and professionally.
The broad definition of an MQL in the traditional lead generation model can also lead to confusion, poor lead prioritization, inconsistent follow-up, and a flawed hand-off process from marketing to sales.
With LeadHQ, we prefer to use the term sales-qualified opportunity (SQO). By defining your ideal client profile (ICP) using demographic and firmographic data, and determining what actions they take on your website (such as “Request a demo” or “Request pricing”), we can clearly identify those with an intent to buy.
So, how can LeadHQ offer you a better way to acquire more customers? Here's how:
Our approach at LeadHQ is all about being ready when your potential customers are ready. We focus on building value and trust without expecting immediate returns from your marketing. By committing to this approach, you may see the number of inbound leads decrease and the cost per lead increase, but your total marketing spend will go down, and the number of sales-qualified leads will definitely increase."