Performance Marketing

How to Effectively Shift MQLs into SQLs

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Successfully turning an MQL into an SQL means knowing how to deliver the right information at the right time. Click to learn more.

Getting a prospect to jump from a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) to a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) means knowing when to give the right information at the right time. Otherwise, pitching to sell your product/service at first communication with them can seem like asking someone to marry you on the first date. Luckily, there are ways you can effectively nurture your audience to know when they’re ready to convert and when you can capitalize on that opportunity. 

Clearly defining the sales process: MQL vs SQL  

First, define what an MQL and SQL mean to you or your client. What kind of conversion is required for someone to become an SQL and move on to the sales team? Is an MQL someone who downloads a piece or multiple pieces of gated content accessed? Is an SQL someone who has continuously interacted with content covering a specific topic for more than 3 months? The goal is to have marketing turn prospects into leads and sales moving prospects along through lead nurture into a “sales-ready” position. When both teams work hand in hand, higher quality leads are passed to the sales team and result in a higher closing rate. 

What is an SAL? 

A Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) is the process that exists between an MQL and SQL. The purpose of the SAL stage is to act as a check and balance for MQLs. This underlines the importance of having pre-determined criteria in place for the sales and marketing team. Each company will have its own variation of what qualifies as a SAL; some factors could include your current company goals, the campaign focuses, a prospect’s industry, the services needed, their company size, etc. This formal lead acceptance process includes a step-by-step follow-up process and timeline after a SAL is taken over by the sales team.  

There should be a clear line between your marketing and sales teams when these lead hand-offs should occur. The dangers of not defining best practices for lead hand-offs means your potential prospect could be left in the lead nurture stage too long and become uninterested or worse, become a missed sales opportunity. By aligning both teams’ goals early on, you can effectively identify, pursue and strengthen the chances of leads converting. 

Understand your customer’s research process 

Understanding your customer’s needs is the key to building and maintaining a healthy customer journey. This requires you to know about your audience’s typical questions and concerns, as well as determine the average sales cycle. 

Where is your audience doing most of their research throughout the process? This valuable information is the key to creating content that meets them on multiple channels. This way, when prospects come across helpful content on various sites, it won’t be seen as annoying. Think of platforms where it makes the most sense to advertise to them, timing, and where they’d be most likely to convert based on the topics they’ve expressed interest in. 

Supply content that aligns with the customer journey  

Now that you know the spaces your customer will most likely frequent, it’s time to serve your prospects the content. Developing an audience that you own within your database will help you foster 1-1 prospect/business relationships. If you’re able to convert audiences through webinars, tradeshows, whitepaper downloads, and more, you can continue to communicate with your audience through more personalized emails. 

Why is this important? Google is getting rid of third-party cookies in 2024 and the only reliable, hard data that your company will be able to rely on will be first-party collected. Shifting your content and email marketing tactics with this in mind now will help strengthen your database and keep you ahead of your competitors who may not have invested in their first-party data collection when Google’s updates are fully implemented. 

Monitor campaign engagement opportunities for higher conversions   

Setting up “buying signs” is one way you’ll know when your audience is most likely to convert. That when your audience hits those trigger points, you’ll know it’s time to increase your calls-to-action to buy. 

There are three layers to achieving more audience ad engagement:

Asking For A Bigger Budget - Do you feel there is an opportunity to achieve more success by spending more? Is there more room to grow? If the ad you’re putting out is being received exceptionally well by your audience but not reaching enough people; chances are, your budget is too small. By increasing it, you’ll have a competitive budget in Google’s eyes that’ll keep you toe-to-toe with your competitors.  

Shifting Budgets - When there is a chance to grow but asking for a bigger budget is not an option, it’s time to try shifting budgets. Say you have two similar campaigns running right now, can you allocate part of one budget to the other that is underperforming? 

Optimizing Your Campaign - If you can’t spend more or shift your budgets, try looking at tactics to grow within your campaign/s. By analyzing your campaigns on a microscopic level, you’ll learn how to effectively improve your ad presentation based on the audience behaviors that have set in already.  

“If you’re driving the maximum amount of impressions that you can and it’s pulling out a really efficient conversion; the only way to get more success out of that is by optimizing how often ads are being clicked on,” our paid media manager, Miles Teague explains. “You might be serving a million impressions but if you’re generating 5,000 clicks, that’s a lot of missed opportunities. So, if you can make the ad look more appealing and get that to 10,000 clicks, you’ve grown your lead volume without actually reaching more people.” 

Why use an agency for better lead generation? 

While marketers in-house may come from an agency environment or background, going with an agency means the paid media experts there are actively working on multiple accounts every hour of every day. This means the entire team is hands-on with campaign launches, optimization, and client collaboration daily. There’s a bigger opportunity for client success because of the constant team collaboration discussing the trends they’ve seen their most successful clients and campaigns have in common. 

Contact Investis Digital

Check out our Demand Gen vs. Lead Gen guide for more lead generation tactics. If you’re looking for a paid media or lead generation partner, click here to speak to an expert at Investis Digital.