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All about Lead Generation Marketing, MQLs and SQLs and knowing the difference!
The first step in understanding MQL and SQL is to go back to the beginning. A lead is essentially someone who has expressed interest in your company's product or service in some way. (And everyone wants to improve their lead generation process.) But how does a lead demonstrate interest?
A lead is essentially produced by information collecting, such as filling out a form after downloading a piece of content that piqued his or her interest. Let's go through the different stages of a lead, namely, marketing qualified leads (MQL) and sales qualified leads (SQL) (SQL).
Why understanding the distinction is important
Now that you've obtained your leads, you're probably delighted (and rightly so), and you might want to jump the gun and send these leads directly to sales. DON’T. Think about where each lead is in the buyer's journey.
Determining a MQL from a SQL is a crucial sales and marketing interaction. This first step of distinguishing one from the other serves as the final basis for the lead hand-off.
MQL refers to a lead that, based on lead intelligence, is more likely to become a customer than other leads and is often transmitted via closed-loop reporting. This is determined by examining certain actions or levels of engagement, such as website visits and downloads of content offers. Only specific forms, such as direct business offers and other sales-ready CTAs, should ideally move a lead to the MQL stage.
The following step is SQL. This indicates that the sales team has qualified this lead as a possible customer. The SQL is in the purchasing cycle, whereas the MQL is not yet ready for that stage.
The most significant possibility for increasing your company's success is marketing and sales alignment. When marketing and sales teams collaborate on a single revenue cycle, marketing ROI, sales productivity, and growth all rise significantly. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
It may be, but with differing aims and expectations of each other, it is critical that marketing and sales work together to achieve the same revenue-generating goals - and keep each other accountable.
When sales and marketing work together, everyone wins.