Defining and identifying Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) is the catalyst for all marketing efforts. In this article, we will explore what an MQL is, how they can be qualified, the relationship between MQLs and SQLs (sales qualified leads), and how MQLs can help show return on investment (ROI) . What is a qualified marketing lead? A marketing-qualified lead is a lead who has expressed some level of interest in your company's products or services. If we think of the classic sales funnel - the top of the funnel being those who have never heard of your business before and the bottom of the funnel being those who are about to buy from you - the MQL are about halfway there. MQLs have all interacted with your brand in some way, whether by downloading a whitepaper, attending a webinar, or adding items to your online store's cart. These actions indicate that they have taken the first steps towards becoming a customer.
Once a prospect has been identified as a lead, it's the job of the employee email database marketing team to nurture them appropriately - to guide them further down the funnel until they become an MQL and can be passed on to sales. At this point, the sales team comes in and closes the deal. In general, MQLs become SQLs, but we'll go into that in more detail later. There is often a quid pro quo when leads become MQLs. In most cases, they agree to give you their contact details - email address, company (if applicable), phone number, etc. In return, they get something of value, like a piece of content that addresses one of their issues or solves a problem. for them. How to Define Qualified Leads for Marketing Your lead generation process may not be too fine-tuned - it may focus more on generating as many leads as possible rather than necessarily generating the right kind of leads.
Typically, marketers try to build as wide a network as possible to build a database of prospects, then connect with targeted outreach (development campaigns, email programs, content campaigns) to try to transform these prospects into MQL. For this reason, all leads that come in must be qualified before you start marketing to them. The first step to qualifying a lead is to see if they fit certain demographic criteria. For example, are they from your target region? Do they have a problem that your products can solve? If the answer is yes and if they have shown an interest in your business, then they are ready to be supported by the marketing team.