A qualified lead is someone, who can become a potential customer to a company depending on the information and criteria they have received. Most importantly, you should know that there is no specific criterion as it varies from one organization to the other.
Also, clients raising their hand and interested to get more details are qualified leads. It means that cold prospecting or no purchased emails will be counted. In the digital marketing world, two types of thinking are present about qualified leads. One is sales qualified, and another is marketing qualified leads.
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About Sales Qualified Lead
When you have collected enough details to qualify for a lead for a sales outreach, it is SQL or sales qualified leads. They receive a one-to-one sales follow-up as they are highly valuable. Each company has to specify its definitions, indicating there is no specific clause.
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Marketing Qualified Lead
MQL or Marketing Qualified Lead is the first stage of qualification, referring to someone, attaining the minimum eligibility to keep up with marketing in the hope of converting and passing them to sales for further assessment. Over time, both SQL and MQL can be adjusted to meet the market changes, volume, and purchasing patterns.
Hopefully, you have now understood what is a qualified lead. They are a crucial metric while running a campaign and an essential part of the sales funnel. For many companies, it is vital to define the MQL and SQL as they are unique. Refine the eligibility criteria if you find that they are inefficient over time.
Why is the lead qualification needed?
Do you and your team excel at closing sales reports? Probably not, and you are not the one. Managing the leads and qualifying for growth are the most common challenges faced by companies. According to reports, around 25% of leads are legitimate and are advanced to sales. However, 79% never get converted, and 73% are not sales-ready. 50% who qualify are not yet ready to purchase the product. It indicates that lead generation is a crucial parameter for companies wishing to grow. To help them understand its need, here are a few reasons to look for.
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Saves time as you talk to the right people
Lead qualification is highly subjective, and the views you consider as leads may not be of any use for others. To avoid wasting time on things that are not fruitful, outline how your team is qualifying leads. If you are aware of personas, it helps find aspects, like the size of the company, industry, role of the buyer, etc. In short, what the need is to waste money on people who are not ready to buy. Instead of that, invest time in people where the chances are high that they will opt for it.
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Offers personalization
Scoring and lead generation are ways to meet your targeted efforts and nurturing them to enhance overall performance and efficiency. It is said that when you do so, there is an increase of 50% on sales-ready discussions and 20% on sale opportunities. Not only that, but the cost also gets reduced by 33%.
It helps in providing firms with the right information with personalized engagement. By making the right effort, the decision-making process will be better and help you move to the final purchase at a quick rate.
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Increases revenue and close rates
There is no denying the fact that qualified leads will enhance the close rates. But it is all-important that the sales and marketing team must be on the same page. It is all up to the team to implement a successful process explained with clearly defined terminologies. For that, it is always essential to prepare a qualification process, and the common way opted by many teams is the ANUM method. ANUM means Authority, Need, Urgency, and Method, and it provides details on the stage and quality of the prospect. It gives information on the amount of effort, time, and money needed to be an investment to convert the leads into customers.
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Get data
How many times have you heard from your marketers that they do not get data? It happens as the sales are not providing updates to their CRM. When you have a team-qualified team, you will have real-time data on your leads. As a result, it will be easier for marketers to take the necessary steps to optimize sales.
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Segmentation
With all the updated information, it would be easier for marketers to segment leads. Accordingly, they can run separate campaigns for every category, which will help in attaining the target.
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Marketing Qualified Lead
The information above has already explained what it means. In short, it is a lead indicating interest in what a company has to give on marketing efforts. It is a lead intentionally engaging with the brand by performing activities, like adding an e-commerce item, submitting contact details voluntarily, opting for a program, visiting a site repeatedly, etc.
The leads are curious to know about the brand, but they have not taken the first step into a sales conversion. But the chances are higher they will buy your product, increasing your sales. MQL shows the leads are interested in buying, and so they have engaged in your brand but have not taken any step yet.
How to Marketing Qualified Leads?
When you start from the initial phase, you want to invest in different avenues to identify which channel will be the best for your organization. Here are some ways to do so:
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Content marketing
To generate MQLs, a defined content marketing strategy would be great. If you are already in the process of creating high-quality content that prospects are looking for, you can get them to find your business. Here you can highlight the company’s products, customers, services, etc. It is a gateway to attract potential customers by informing them about your brand. The content can be customer testimonials, case studies, support and product documentation, webinars and visuals, sales collateral, podcasts, quizzes, tutorials, etc.
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SEO
The right SEO strategy can increase the MQLs for an organization, so consider investing in it. The main objective is to enhance the organic traffic to the site by targeting quality and quantity leads. All these leads that will come towards your site will fit your requirement. It is the right way to start getting more MQLs.
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Social
Social media platforms are the right channel for lead generation and the right way to connect with audiences. Aim to use the platform in a way to attract users by sharing relatable moments. These platforms are not about selling services or products but more about capturing and presenting moments. By using this tool, you can join on trending topics to engage targeted audiences.
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Paid search
If you want to know the opposite of SEO, paid search is the one. It will display the ads for which the business is paying but when someone is clicking on it. Invest some amount if you wish to develop a paid strategy to get more MQLs. The step is applicable when your business is ready to invest an amount; otherwise, it is impossible.
How to Sales Qualify Leads?
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Use long-tail keywords
While designing targeted advertisements on search engines, content for your landing page or website, look for long-tail keywords. It is a group of keywords specifically for your business and has highly valuable search intent. It has lesser traffic, but people searching for them are qualified. Hence, it is better to look for variations instead of creating new content describing the solution. Using synonyms in the phrases can also be a good alternative that you can prefer to do.
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Creating technical and feature-based content
Technical and feature-based content is the right way to attract more leads. Readers look for articles, blogs, etc., focusing on implementation, features, and technical stuff. As a result, when you post something related to that, you will receive leads. In a way, the qualified leads will perceive value, and you also have an idea of what will be helpful for your business. If required, you can mix up targeted social media campaigns and with this strategy to attain better potential buyers.
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Attend events, conferences, or sponsor them
One more way to attain sales-ready leads is by sponsoring corporate events or attending conferences, etc. It is the right way to establish a position and presence in the market. Additionally, networking can be a suitable way to earn some contacts, which otherwise was impossible. Thus, consider visiting conferences, events to create a market presence.
Final Words
The more accurate your SQL and MQL strategy, the more potential leads you can earn. Always remember that quality is the most important thing, and it counts over quantity.
To summarize, it is better to have both Marketing Qualified Lead and Marketing Qualified Lead teams on the same page. Hence, get ready to start filling the sales pipeline with high-quality potential leads. Consistently evaluate your strategy to find if you need to make any changes to exceed the lead generation goals.
Sources:
https://www.ironpaper.com/webintel/articles/what-is-a-qualified-lead-how-to-set-criteria/
https://impact.marketstar.com/blog/3-reasons-lead-qualification-is-key-to-successful-sales
