Stop banking MQLs; Giving better B2B content feedback
The resources we have today are so crucial to fueling qualified pipeline with marketing.
?And improving your career as a B2B marketer, so I'll just jump straight into them.
Starting with one we'd never stop talking about...
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1. Stop banking on "MQLs"
Back in 2015, HubSpot published a report.
The title was:
"98% of Your MQLs Will Never Result in Closed Business."
Knowing that MQLs weren't helping them drive growth, HubSpot switched strategies.
They turned to Product-Qualified Leads (PQLs):?
Look, the idea of forcing people to surrender their emails, so you'd tag them as "MQLs," bundle to sales to perform magic, and justify your marketing expense is so old school.
Have you ever bought a product because the company tagged you 'MQL?'
I haven't.
Prospects and customers don't care about the virtual tags you place on them. And they won't buy your software because of that either.?
Yet B2B marketers have continued to obsess themselves over MQLs.?
Kill that obsession.?
Redefine MQLs or you ditch them for PQLs, if you want your marketing to impact sales & revenue.
Take Saleswhale.?
In 2020, when unlocking real growth became important to them, their company's CEO, Gabriel Lim, said:?
“The first thing we did was to stop measuring the marketing team by MQLs. Our marketing team, at the beginning of 2020 were obsessed with MQLs. Marketing constantly pointed fingers at Sales for not following up with their MQLs. Sales kept complaining that the MQLs were shit.”
Like HubSpot, Saleswhale grew faster two years after ditching MQLs for PQLs.
In short, their growth caught the eyes of 6Sense, the enterprise B2B brand valued at over $5.2 billion, who have now acquired them.
But ditching MQLs for PQLs is easier said than done.?
Per my research, it starts by aligning with relevant stakeholders to?ensure your product?can do the heavy-lifting of qualifying users fueled into it via marketing.?
Then being proactive enough to build a?Product-Led Marketing Strategy?to attract prospects on channels where they hang out:?
I researched and outlined the entire two-step process above...
And also examined four B2B SaaS companies that have pivoted from MQLs to acquiring Product-Qualified Leads (PQLs), and unlocking ongoing growth.
VEC's guide to acquiring PQLs was well-detailed, it got?featured on Product Hunt.
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2. Giving better B2B content feedback
Ben is the CMO of a US-based growth-stage B2B SaaS company.
They've just raised a Series A, achieved Product-Market-Fit (PMF), and now have funds to ramp up marketing. And they've decided to do this by going all-in on content marketing.?
It makes sense.?
The more you can educate the market and prospects, the more you'll earn mindshare, create long-term demand, and even capture existing demand.?
To achieve those, Ben assembled a larger content marketing team, of which Jenny was the content marketer. Jenny's role is to draft and publish 6 long-form blog articles per month.?
But before any article goes live, Ben must review and approve it for QA.?
To Ben's dismay, he notices whenever he gives Jenny feedback on her ready-to-be-published blogs, she gives him a sad look that reads:
"You're ruining everything:"
Ben knows Jenny, of all people, is very open to feedback.
So he's quite confused: Why does she get so devastated when he gives what he considers helpful feedback on her final drafts?
Well, therein lies the problem
Ben is giving helpful feedback, no doubt.?
But he's giving it at the wrong time.?
The lesson here is this:
You must learn to give B2B content feedback at the right time.
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I know, it's not easy.?
Aaron Vansintjan, Co-Editor at Uneven Earth, agrees:
"Giving feedback, like writing, is not easy. It takes practice and time, and it's tiring."
So how do you tackle something that's both tiring and not easy?
Tamilore, VEC's Chief People Officer, didn't stop her research after uncovering where the problem giving most content feedback, lies.
She studied popular feedback-giving approaches like the 10/50/99%, 99/50/1, and 10/60/90, respectively. All these formulaic-looking approaches are confusing.
So, she weighed in VEC's tight quality assurance process, and developed...
...the?Triangular Feedback Framework:?
This B2B content feedback framework follows a simple principle.
Don't be like Ben who only waited to give feedback on final drafts, when he should've been doing In-line Edits.?He could've saved tensions between him and Jenny if his supposed...
Constructive criticism of Jenny's drafts came AT THE RIGHT TIME.
Again, don't be like Ben...
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3. A path to crafting engaging SaaS content?
Conversations.
That's where crafting engaging B2B SaaS content all begins.?
Take this Newsletter.?
Hasn't it read like a conversation between you and me so far??
I bet it has.?
If it wasn't, would you still be reading or even care to share it like those I thanked at the beginning of this 2nd edition?
I doubt.?
So yeah, crafting engaging SaaS content all begins with conversations.
And that's what Ubelejit Dandison, a VEC alumnus, realized after months of working hard to get a hang of crafting engaging SaaS content.
According to her...
"People want to feel the human voice behind your written words... The more humane you are in doing so via your words, the easier it is to connect with them."
She didn't reach that conclusion by chance.
Her research led to this quote by Dave Gerhardt, Drift's former VP of Marketing, when talking about Conversational Marketing, a term he helped coin:
“It’s all about making something easier to remember, and creating real-estate in somebody’s mind.”?
But Ubelejit took it one step further.
She examined, observed, and outlined what's really helping her become better at crafting engaging B2B SaaS content:?
As you see above, the path to crafting engaging SaaS content, in no particular order, has 3 steps:
The last one, storytelling, is crucial.?
So much that Lejit also worked out a B2B storytelling arc in her guide:?
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Until the next edition of VEC's Product-Led Storytelling Newsletter on 25.04.2022
Small request, if you don't mind.
Got feedback on how we can improve this newsletter?
Make my week.
Hit 'comment' and tell me anything that's on your mind.?
But more importantly, thanks for reading, dear friend.?
With love,?
-Victor.?