Marketing qualified leads (MQL) have always been hot favorites for B2B marketers since they can apply their advertising techniques to make those leads transform as sales qualified. But a new KPI is creating a buzz in the inside sales sector for quite some time- MQM, which is short for Marketing Qualified Meetings.
The lead qualification process has always been a point of the argument between the marketing and sales team. 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 (learn more about MQL vs SQL), and finally into a paying customer. But if the marketing and sales activities are not aligned together, then the lead qualification process can fall in jeopardy.
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 that they’re interested in initiating a sales conversation. Usually, MQLs are moved on to the sales department, which then tries to convert them into SQLs.
What is MQM?
Marketing qualified meetings, or MQM, are the meetings that 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 the pain points of prospects so that they can go ahead and agree to attend a sales-qualified meeting (SQM).
Marketing campaigns today need to 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 stages to finally buy a product or service from your company.
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 used to convince the buyers for the final sales meeting to reduce the chances of non-conversion.
Before the pandemic, hypothetically, if marketers drove 10000 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 MQL is handed over to sales to convert them into opportunities as part of the sales pipeline.
But after the pandemic, there was a substantial decrease in the number of events/programs of getting access to the target buyers. No one was prepared for this drastic change in the sales process, so now 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.
Need help with acquiring more MQMs and SQMs?
Let the B2B lead generation experts at FunnL help you generate sales-qualified meetings directly. With an experience of 25000+ SQMs, FunnL provides you with an intelligent all-in-one Inside Sales Platform 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 your ROI contact us and book your appointment.
