The lead qualification process has always been a point of contention between the marketing and sales teams. While the marketing team focuses on getting maximum leads in the form of MQLs, the job of an inside sales team is to convert those MQLs into SQLs and, finally, into paying customers. However, the lead qualification process can be jeopardized if the marketing and sales activities are not aligned.
Also Read: Know the Difference Between MQL vs SQL
What is MQL?
MQLs are leads who know about your business and are interested in the brand. They may have read your blogs, signed up for a newsletter, or engaged with your brand on social media. However, they haven’t done anything yet to indicate their interest in initiating a sales conversation. Usually, MQLs are moved on to the sales department, which then tries to convert them into SQLs.
Key characteristics of MQLs include:
- They have shown interest in the product or service.
- They meet predefined criteria that qualify them as potential customers.
- They must still be ready to purchase but require further engagement and nurturing.
What is MQM?
Marketing-qualified meetings, or MQMs, are held before the sales pitch to educate and convince the prospective buyer to continue the sales process. The main purpose of these meetings is to identify and offer solutions to prospects’ pain points so that they can agree to attend a sales-qualified meeting (SQM).
Today’s Marketing campaigns must drive customer engagement strategies with the right prospects to develop the sales pipeline. MQMs are extremely versatile since they can move prospects from awareness to education, consideration, and decision-making stages to finally buy a product or service from your company.
Key characteristics of MQMs include:
- They represent a critical point in the buyer’s journey where immediate action is likely.
- They are identified through real-time triggers such as website behavior (e.g., visiting the pricing page repeatedly), engagement with sales materials, or responses to personalized offers.
- They indicate a higher conversion likelihood than standard MQLs due to their current intent or behavior.
Delivering an MQL is Crucial But not sufficient. Why?
In the post-pandemic scenario, you cannot afford to stop your journey at generating MQLs from leads. What marketers and SDRs need today are the venues that enable them to educate the customer, answer their questions, respond to objections, and manage negotiations. MQMs are indispensable marketing tools to convince buyers to attend the final sales meeting and reduce non-conversion chances.
Also Read: Ways to Generate More MQLs for Your Business
Before the pandemic, hypothetically, if marketers drove 10,000 visitors via various marketing events, an expected 5% would convert into leads, i.e., about 500 leads. Some of these leads become MQLs (marketing-qualified leads) based on their level of interest. After this, the MQLs are handed over to sales to convert them into opportunities as part of the sales pipeline.
But after the pandemic, the number of events/programs to get access to the target buyers substantially decreased. No one was prepared for this drastic change in the sales process, so sales and marketing teams had to come up with innovative prospecting and pitching techniques. One of these innovations in the inside sales process is marketing qualified meetings.
Although MQM is a relatively new concept in inside sales, it is gaining popularity since it considerably shortens the sales cycle. There is no doubt that MQLs are significant, but marketing and sales representatives need a more determined approach to get maximum conversions in the pipeline. MQMs not only inform and create awareness among the buyers but also make sure that they remain in the funnel till conversion. This way, MQMs increase your possibility of getting more sales-qualified leads and a better conversion rate.
Also Read: Key Strategies to Identify Qualified Leads
Conclusion
MQMs have the potential to enable more timely and targeted actions based on real-time buying signals. Understanding their characteristics is key to optimizing lead generation and conversion efforts.
Businesses can effectively leverage MQLs and MQMs to streamline their marketing and sales processes, improve conversion rates, and ultimately drive customer acquisition and retention growth.
Let the B2B lead generation experts at FunnL help you generate sales-qualified meetings directly. With an experience of 25000+ SQMs, FunnL provides an intelligent all-in-one outsourced inside sales company that permits you to design, manage, measure, and optimize your inside sales campaigns for better business development. If you wish to increase productivity and maximize ROI, contact us and book an appointment.
