Why MQL Marketing Qualified Lead is the gold mine for b2b sales
Marketing Qualified Leads or MQLs in the b2b industry are highly valuable and can often convert quickly if they are nurtured at the right stage in the b2b sales cycle. MQLs continue to delight the b2b lead generation segment because they can help close deals and can be effective ROI enablers for b2b organizations. Let us see some of the important aspects of MQLs and why they are the gold mine of b2b sales.
Beyond curiosity:
When it comes to MQL, the needs of the lead are already established and are well defined. These are the prospects that have shown interest in your products and services. Some of the prospects who have downloaded your E-book, or filled in the form or landed on the landing page, or who have attended the webinar or want to take a free demo of your product are all good leads that have high potential of getting converted. Although there is no guarantee that every lead who fills the form converts; MQLs on the other hand are highly qualified leads that may not need much persuasion to take the next step to make that purchase decision.
These are the leads that are a step ahead of just being curious and are already thinking of engaging with you. Marketing Qualified Leads if nurtured well with the right content assets or lucrative offers are easy to convert. You can then design more targeted nurturing campaigns for better results.
Segmentation and Personalization:
This is a stage wherein you don’t have to start from scratch and go looking for the decision makers right away. You already have someone whom you can now nurture with various techniques and make the most out of this opportunity. All you need is a more systematic and properly planned approach to take this lead ahead in the buying journey.
Planning can include segmentation, personalization, enhancing messages, communication and optimizing email marketing campaigns. Letting go of a MQL could be a big loss for the sales teams and hence this stage requires a more focused nurturing. Based on the company size, designation, industry etc. each MQL will be different and hence the approach should also be different for each one of them. This is not a one-size-fits-all thing, hence segmenting the leads can help you make customized offers to leads and give them what they want.
Personalization should be a crucial part of this stage and this can yield good results while you nurture the prospect. Personalized messaging and wanting to listen to your prospect instead of selling them services right away can pave way to building strong relationships that can grow over a period of time to ultimately convert. Email marketing can be customized to even focus on individual leads while designing a focused campaign to delight and engage the prospect further. Other attributes such as designing webinars as per demand, having appropriate and effective call-to-action to not miss a single chance of getting the lead into the loop can help a lot in the longer run.
Scoring leads:
Scoring is more important during the phase of nurturing because it helps monitor the leads that have huge potential to convert. With continuous and consistent scoring you can know where the leads are moving in the funnel and that can also give you the time to focus on the most potential leads and not the ones that have grown cold.
Conclusion:
Whether it is scoring leads, personalization or customization of email marketing campaigns one thing is sure, the efforts should be narrowed down to focus more on understanding, following and nurturing those leads that can be easily converted. This is the best way to optimize the MQLs so that they add value to your sales funnel and increase the ROI.