Lead generation doesn’t end at capturing leads but converting them into repeat buyers. And only a clear understanding of MQLs vs SQLs can spotlight how.

Buyers have chosen to become self-directed after never-ending cycles of analysis paralysis.

They are widely aware of recycled messages being reinforced through multiple channels, merely in a different tone. And they reeked of false promises.

To avoid it firsthand, doing all the work themselves was a simple choice and less of a hassle.

In return, marketing is aware of these changing patterns. So, their initial response – sending all leads from the organic interactions – turned out to be a dead end.

This realization gradually hit the marketing landscape: not every organic interaction cloaks a potential buyer with actual interest. So, another strategic framework has to take root.

While abandoning the old playbook is the primary step, marketing needs to adapt to the changing needs of the buyers and their role in it.

So, marketing’s working model has become more intent-driven than ever.

Amidst all available data, the intent to buy takes priority in segregating potential buyers and casual browsers. But intent isn’t all tangible data. It’s an amalgamation of intangible and tangible factors.

With many underlying motivations and desires driving prospects, marketers have little space for certainty.

But they can create it. With a simple addition, the addition of an umbrella.

The umbrella: a much-needed synergy between marketing and sales because –

Converting leads into active buyers is a relay race.

Turning prospects into customers includes passing the baton from marketing to sales. Marketing is the first runner, and sales is the second. See how crucial it is for each team to perform their best and pass the baton efficiently.

The marketing team focuses on engaging the prospect and instilling brand awareness – it’s all about making the initial contact. It requires a lot of patience and precision because the prospect they interact with should also fit the ICP.

There’s a significant nurturing process where the interest is generated to an extent.

For the sales team, the baton is the purchase intent. Once marketing has captured and nurtured even the tiniest interest, it’s time to pass on the baton. It’s the SDR’s responsibility to ensure this baton (the warm lead) crosses the finish line.

Handing off leads is a huge responsibility.

There’s no point in finishing the race without it – the lead is the priority.

Then, what if it slips through the fingers? Your brand loses potential clients.

This is crucially why getting marketing’s handoff to sales is paramount, and so is strategically converting an MQL into an SQL. But doing so requires getting the basics down – from underscoring what an MQL and an SQL are and their inherent differences.

What are marketing-qualified leads?

A Marketing-Qualified Lead has shown significant interest in your brand and has a higher conversion potential. These leads have interacted with your brand assets but aren’t ready to purchase yet.

So, they exist at the top of the funnel (TOFU), where the leads are captured and nurtured. Marketing teams ascertain this through curated and personalized content, targeted campaigns, and customized follow-ups.

Every little effort is directed towards moving the prospect towards the funnel. Before that, marketers underscore what their most promising leads look like.

This is discerned through specific preset behaviors and criteria that the prospect fits into. For example, traditional marketers segmented organic interactions as MQLs, but savvy modern ones have reiterated this. But today, this predefined set of criteria is more intricate:

• An ideal demographic fit
• The apt engagement level
• Past behaviors
• Lead scoring that aligns with brand objectives

And lastly, a crucial element in the modern marketing landscape – the MQLs need to illustrate purchase intent, not just engage with the brand. This has helped savvy marketers navigate market uncertainty and focus their efforts on prospects who actually want to buy from them.

The buyer behavior is so nuanced that marketers have tried their best to keep up. This is why MQLs existed in the first place – to bridge the gap between casual interest and sales-readiness. It made the marketing funnel smoother and wrinkle-free.

Marketing-qualified leads helped marketers spotlight which leads require further nurturing and are relevant for the brand.

Marketing’s gravitation towards quantity rather than quality caused the initial turbulence. When it sent MQLs further down the funnel, sales realized that most leads weren’t interested in a purchase.

The quality dipped.

And MQLs became rooted in a crucial marketing conversation: are they dead, or do they merely require reshaping?

However, the truth is that several traditional marketing tactics still rely on MQLs. They have their cons, but it’s only a matter of getting the crux right – to reiterate the very definition of MQLs, not erasing it from your strategies entirely.

Through a modified perspective, MQLs aren’t just the leads downloading your whitepapers. They must showcase interest in your offerings and be open to hearing from your marketing team.

A reliable lead generation service can help identify and qualify these prospects more effectively.

If not, they are not an MQL – this is the most basic understanding. With the ideal MQLs (who actually engage and illustrate the smallest of intent), your marketing strategies can work wonders. Quite seamlessly, personalized nurturing can take them to the next step to becoming Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs).

What are sales-qualified leads?

An SQL is a sales-ready account illustrating significant interest in your brand and wants to talk numbers with your sales team. They’ve interacted with your brand and communicated with marketing materials such as pricing models and case studies multiple times.

An SQL isn’t just interested in the top-of-the-funnel content but also the ones that may help them consider your brand as a potential vendor. Their purchase intent is significantly high.

However, this depends on whether these leads have been carefully evaluated by marketing and deemed the right fit for sales engagement. Last year, SDRs had one crucial concern – the lack of quality leads.

Ill-fitting MQLs handed off to sales waste SDRs’ time and resources, and don’t actually end up converting. This could clog up the sales pipeline with irrelevant leads, hampering the business and brand reputation.

So, sales possess their own qualified methodology. They must:

• Fit the buyer persona
• Illustrate greater interest and a specific need
• Pass the BANT qualification framework
• Showcase purchase readiness
• And lastly, have executive buy-in

Once the account fits the ideal framework and is categorized as an SQL, SDRs focus on personalized outreach, address objections and pain points, and offer detailed information. This also includes proposals, negotiations, product demos, and offering additional pricing charts.

Nurturing isn’t the intent here, but closing the sale is. So, the SQL is vetted further, successfully converting into an active client. Hence, they are positioned in the later stages, i.e., at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU).

The end goal is building a relationship and finalizing the purchase after handling significant objections. This is what sales focuses on by leveraging data gathered by marketing in the MQL stage.

While we have underlined the fundamentals of what MQLs and SQLs are, understanding their differences is crucial, too.

Then how else will the marketing’s handoff to sales be smooth?

By gauging how MQLs and SQLs inherently differ.

Conferring from the detailed discussion on what MQLs and SQLs are points to one crucial difference: the intent to buy.

An MQL is a curious contact who has just warmed up to your brand. Meanwhile, an SQL is a committed and engaged account in the decision-making phase.

Let’s dive into some of the salient differences between MQLs and SQLs that one should remember:

Transitioning from MQL to SQL: The important metrics

Gartner’s research asserts that a mere 21% of MQLs actually convert into SQLs. It’s demanding because most self-directed buyers aren’t gravitating toward lackluster solutions anymore.

MQLs convert to SQLs through meticulous nurturing, i.e., building trust and providing value. The spectrum moves from initial (passive) interest (curiosity/engagement) to high purchasing intent.

Understanding this progression from an MQL to SQL is crucial for better allocation of resources and alignment of marketing and sales.

Even segmenting leads into these distinct classes is vital for the teams to operate efficiently. MQLs and SQLs are at different stages of the buyer’s journey – they require fundamentally different qualifying frameworks.

Whether it’s a lead scoring system or a benchmark, it’s crucial to make the right distinctions.

At the nucleus of this lies a strategic alignment between marketing and sales, significantly impacting conversion rates. This saves ample time for your sales team to direct their communications toward the right leads at the right time.

To ascertain that the transition from MQL to SQL is seamless and ends up drastically improving your sales outcomes, begin by keeping the following elements in mind:

1. Lead Behavior

Tracking the prospect’s actions is paramount to correctly differentiating between MQLs and SQLs. These behaviors should indicate a genuine interest in your brand’s offerings.

It must also offer observable metrics signifying that the lead is interacting with your website and social media channels and frequently visiting the brand’s pricing pages.

Are they discussing pricing and negotiating with your SDRs? Which pages did they visit, and in which order? How long did they spend on a single page? Are there any forms they’ve filled out? Did they sign up for your email newsletters?

Each action is necessary to understand where the leads are in the funnel and what their intentions are. If they partake in these actions actively, they turn into strong signs of a high buying intent.

2. Lead score

Lead scoring involves assigning numbers and points to a lead based on their online behavior, past purchases, and demographic elements. It includes interactions with your brand and the likelihood that they will make a purchase.

But remember, in modern marketing’s complex landscape, lead scoring isn’t just about tracking email opens or website clicks. It’s about gauging real intent. So, the scoring should be based on three crucial aspects:

• Who they are (demographic and firmographic data)
• Online behavior (email clicks, website visits, whitepaper downloads)
• Interaction with the brand (likes, clicks, comments, signups)

The total lead score crossing a preset threshold signifies the lead is ready for a sales conversation, indicating they are closer to a purchase.

3. Focusing on the BANT questions

Asking the right question is paramount. Irrespective of the department, your strategies and campaigns should be designed to qualify the relevant leads, pushing them through the sales funnel.

The budget, authority, need, and timeline will eventually define how ready your SQL is. And it’s based on these questionnaires that SDRs modify their sales pitches, which is crucial in building a meaningful relationship with the client.

It helps sales understand:

• If the client can afford the solutions
• Does the person in contact hold the authority to buy?
• The specific requirements of the organization
• Do the needs match the urgency and timeframes of both organizations?

BANT is both the oldest qualifier and the gold standard for every organization. And with every new framework being a variant of BANT, it continues to be an efficient tool for lead qualification.

4. Marketing and sales alignment

While this aspect is crucial to orchestrate the customer experience across marketing channels, it’s also significant to gauge prospect intent.

Marketing and sales cannot work in silos anymore. And it’s why marketing and sales alignment has become such a buzzword. So, marketing must also join sales in listening to the buyer – what actually matters?

The answer will only come when your teams have learned the ICPs inside-out and understand who they are selling to. So, it all boils down to listening to your buyers’ needs.

The bottom line? Lead management can streamline business outcomes. 

A significant portion, if not all, of the B2B buyer is carrying out their communications digitally.

And as market competition intensifies, brands seek a different route. They don’t wait for customers to step within their threshold anymore.

Instead, organizations have amped up their digital communications tactics in this buyer-centric age. By doing so, organizations wish to reach 90% of those who start their buying journey online.

Of course, marketing teams must choose to move beyond the obvious. And meet their prospects halfway.

Because let’s face it –

The buyer attitude has drastically transformed and now entails certain intrinsic qualities that concern marketing teams: self-awareness and cautiousness.