The lead generation process starts with effective collaboration and alignment of the sales and marketing team. It includes vetting the needs of prospects and converting them according to their preferences and needs. 

When the marketing team identifies the lead by assessing the initial interaction and hands them off to the sales representative, then the sales team will qualify leads more accurately. This ensures that the sales team is not wasting time analyzing leads that the marketing team has already been engaged in. These are regarded as marketing qualified leads (MQL). Read this article further for getting insight into MQL and how it can be helpful in the lead generation process.

Defining Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

In order to uplift the lead generation process, it is pertinent for every business to understand the definition of MQL for ensuring that only quality leads are entertained further. 

In simple terms, MQL is the customers who have shown interest in your product as the result of marketing efforts made by the company. It means they are open to the idea of sales and are willing to engage with the business but haven’t reached the sales stage yet. 

In comparison to other leads, marketing leads are more likely to be converted to the final customer and will be receptive to the marketing message. For instance, customers who knock on your doors by the way of filling out online forms, downloading ebooks, adding products to your cart, and contacting you for information are considered as MQLs.

Criteria for Marketing Lead Qualification 

Determining the criteria for MQL ensures that leads sent to sales are of the highest quality. It can guide the kind of marketing efforts to be made for targeting the right audience with materials and content that fits their needs. Further, identifying the customer’s demographic characteristics along with interests and habits are indicators of the ways MQL interacts with brands that in turn boost the lead generation process.  Therefore, marking a lead as MQL requires close attention as 90% of leads will fail at later stages of sales. The qualification criteria will be identified from the following efforts:

• Examining historical customer Behavior: Examining past sales and the paths undertaken by customers when they showed interest.
• Collecting Customer Feedback: Gathering empirical data regarding the reason for backing out just before actual purchase.
• Look for trends: Understand what offers, ads, and marketing campaigns caught the attention of customers.
• Identifying competitive advantage: Analyze what made customers choose you over competitors.

Differences between Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

The difference between MQL and SQL depends upon the customer’s interest and intent of purchase. There are abundant marketing qualified leads, but not all leads are converted into customers. This requires a comprehensive procedure to get quality leads on the table, accelerating the lead generation process to a greater extent. 

Moreover, sales leads go through stringent processes to segregate qualified leads from unqualified ones. Further, MQLs are not ready to make business with you and they require attention from your team for understanding their exact requirements. On the other side, SQL has done enough research about the product and is actively engaged with the sales and marketing team.

MQLs are generally at the beginning of the journey and assessing their own needs and identifying whether proposed solutions can solve their current problem. If we talk about SQLs, they are highly focused on quality rather than quantity and are sales-ready. It can be noted that not any interest is referred to as MQL. Sometimes, people are browsing and will step out, no matter what you do. In that case, you just need to recognize a promising lead that will make sense later.

Lead Generation Tactics for Generating Marketing Qualified Lead

We often observe that businesses struggle to generate marketing qualified leads and so we require lead generation tactics in place for targeting the right traffic.

Utilize Facebook Ads for Offering Relevant Content

Facebook is one of the popular social media platforms having 2.9 billion monthly active users. It is continued to be used as the new technology for generating quality leads and boosting revenue. 

Video Marketing or Webinars

Webinars are used as an effective marketing tool for generating MQLs. There are different webinars used by companies for attracting new prospects. It can make your lead generation easier as it can help you tap into a fresh audience.

Content Marketing 

Writing a well-informative blog post on a website can produce quality MQLs. This is called content marketing wherein solution-oriented blogs are published to target specific content. You need to focus on specific problems of customers and evoke certain emotions to capture the desired action.

Wrap Up!

For thriving and surviving in a competitive business environment, a consistent supply of MQLs is necessary. You may receive plenty of leads at the beginning, but nurturing them with the required efforts can convert them into quality sales leads. MQLs are not only weeded out but are intelligently transitioned to SQLs for converting them into customers.