Marketing Qualified Leads

Marketing qualified leads in modern marketing, creating or generating leads and converting them into paying and loyal customers is a primary pillar of success. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are necessary for the lead generated and sales funnel.

What is marketing qualified leads (MQL)?

Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are potential customers more likely to become valuable customers based on their interactions with a company’s marketing efforts. These leads seem interested in a product or service, show engagement with marketing content, and meet specific criteria that align with the target customer profile. The lead qualification process includes evaluating a potential lead's level of interest and readiness to make a purchase.

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How to identify marketing qualified leads?

Steps to identify marketing qualified leads are as follows:

Define MQL criteria
Implement lead scoring
Analyze website and content engagement
Monitor email interactions
Segment leads
Track source leads and channels
Assess ideal customer profile
Utilize marketing automation
Coordinate with the sales team

Define MQL criteria: Initially, establish clear criteria that define an MQL for the business, as these criteria may include specific actions or behaviors, such as website visits, content downloads, email opens, form submissions, or engagement with particular marketing campaigns.
Implement lead scoring: Utilize lead scoring mechanisms to assign points to leads based on their actions and behavior. Assign higher scores to leads that show strong engagement and align well with the ideal customer profile, and, if leads reach a certain score threshold, become MQLs.
Analyze website and content engagement: Utilize website analytics and marketing automation tools to track visitor behavior. Analyze page views, time spent on the website, and content interactions to identify leads showing interest.
Monitor email interactions: Track email marketing interaction, like clicks, opens and responses, to identify leads actively interacting with the emails.
Segment leads: Segment your leads based on demographics, behavior, and engagement. By categorizing leads into various categories, marketing efforts and communications are tailored to nurture better.
Track source leads and channels: Assess the sources from which leads originate and the channels driving the most engagement, as this information helps refine your marketing strategies to attract more MQLs.
Assess ideal customer profile: Evaluate each lead’s fit with your customer profile, considering factors like company size, industry, territory and other needs.
Utilize marketing automation: Marketing automation platforms can help in identifying MQLs. Automation software can track and analyze lead behavior at scale, making identifying and managing MQLs easier.
Coordinate with the sales team: Collaborate with the sales team to establish shared definitions of MQLs and SQLs, and ensure alignment between marketing and sales efforts.

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How to calculate marketing qualified leads?

The steps to calculate marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are as follows:

Define MQL criteria
Assign point values
Set score threshold
Calculate lead score
Analyze and segment MQLs
Pass MQLs to the sales team

Define MQL criteria: Start by defining the requirements that qualify a lead as an MQL, and these criteria may include specific actions, such as website visits, content downloads and other interactions.
Assign point values: Assign point values to each qualifying action or behavior based on its perceived level of interest.
Set score threshold: Determine the minimum lead score required for a lead to be considered an MQL, as this threshold indicates that the lead has shown enough interest and engagement to move to the next stage of the marketing and sales funnel.
Calculate lead score: As leads interact with your marketing touchpoints, track their actions and accumulate points based on their engagement.
Analyze and segment MQLs: Once leads have reached the MQL threshold, they qualify as MQL and analyze the data to segment and categorize MQLs based on their lead scores and other relevant elements.
Pass MQLs to the sales team: When the leads become MQL, the sales team further engages and nurtures them and focuses on converting these leads into sales qualified leads (SQLs) and customers.

Marketing qualified leads vs. sales qualified leads: Differentiate between them

Marketing qualified leads are potential leads who have demonstrated interest and engagement with a company’s marketing efforts. These leads are early in the buyer’s journey and have not yet indicated a solid intent to purchase. MQLs are determined by lead scoring, assigned points on lead behavior like, website visits, content downloads, an email is seen and other interactions.

Whereas sales qualified leads (SQLs) are potential customers who have progressed further along the buyer’s journey and are ready for sales engagement. These leads have demonstrated a strong intent to purchase, and the sales team has identified them as potential opportunities for conversion.

Employee pulse surveys:

These are short surveys that can be sent frequently to check what your employees think about an issue quickly. The survey comprises fewer questions (not more than 10) to get the information quickly. These can be administered at regular intervals (monthly/weekly/quarterly).

One-on-one meetings:

Having periodic, hour-long meetings for an informal chat with every team member is an excellent way to get a true sense of what’s happening with them. Since it is a safe and private conversation, it helps you get better details about an issue.

eNPS:

eNPS (employee Net Promoter score) is one of the simplest yet effective ways to assess your employee's opinion of your company. It includes one intriguing question that gauges loyalty. An example of eNPS questions include: How likely are you to recommend our company to others? Employees respond to the eNPS survey on a scale of 1-10, where 10 denotes they are ‘highly likely’ to recommend the company and 1 signifies they are ‘highly unlikely’ to recommend it.

Based on the responses, employees can be placed in three different categories:

Promoters
Employees who have responded positively or agreed.
Detractors
Employees who have reacted negatively or disagreed.
Passives
Employees who have stayed neutral with their responses.