Qualified Leads vs. Unqualified Leads
Every business wants to generate leads that turn into paying customers. However, not all leads are created equal — and figuring out which ones to focus on can be tricky.
This article will discuss the difference between qualified and unqualified leads, explore what a Marketing Qualified Lead is, and go through steps in defining an MQL for your business.
What Is a Marketing Qualified Lead?
A lead is an individual sales prospect interested in your product or service. This can be through your marketing efforts or outreach by your sales team.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a genuine lead interested in your products or services based on marketing campaigns. An MQL is a potential customer, although they have not made a purchase decision yet.
A lead is often considered an MQL by the marketing team when they perform actions including the following:
Downloading your free resources, i.e., how-to guides, checklists, templates
Signing up for a free trial or a demo
Filling out your forms
Visiting your website repeatedly and spending a lot of time on your products or solutions page
Adding items to their shopping cart
Reaching out to your team to learn more about your offerings
Subscribing to a newsletter
MQLs are promising leads as they have started to engage with your company. These leads need an extra nudge to buy your offering — they are more open to a sales pitch and receptive to a sales outreach.
Marketing Qualified Lead vs. Sales Qualified Lead
An MQL differs from a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).
SQLs are marketing-generated leads that have been prequalified by the marketing team and then qualified by the sales team.
When a lead has been qualified as an MQL, the marketing team will pass them on to the sales team for further qualification. The sales team will continue the initial contact with an MQL to explore their interest in purchasing the product or service. If a potential customer describes a problem that fits the company's solution, they are added to the sales queue, turning them into a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).
Steps in Defining an MQL
Marketing teams vary in the ways they define an MQL. If coming up with your definition is trickier than you thought, then here are six steps to guide you in determining what an MQL is:
Generate buyer personas.
Align sales teams and marketing teams.
Determine lead qualification by demographics.
Observe the buyer’s journey.
Refine generation strategies.
Improve lead scoring.
1. Generate Buyer Personas
Define your ideal customer's demographics, needs and pain points, online buying behavior, aspirations and frustrations, what they do in a day, where they spend the most of their time, and much more.
Your buyer persona will guide your marketing efforts and lead generation strategy. It feeds you information on your potential customer’s buying cycle, the channels they often use, and the kinds of content they consume.
Without defining a detailed customer profile, you risk chasing wrong, unqualified leads.
2. Align Sales Teams and Marketing Teams
Aligning efforts between the sales and marketing teams is crucial in defining your MLQ. Strong collaboration between these two teams increases productivity and avoids having too few leads or too many unqualified ones.
The sales and marketing teams can work together in the following ways:
Determining a consensus definition for an MQL. The sales team must be on the same page with the marketing team regarding what an MQL means for the business. A consensus definition between the sales and marketing teams is vital because the sales process from MQL to SQL is linked. Once a lead has been classified as an MQL, salespeople must qualify the potential customer before it can be considered an SQL.
Getting feedback from salespeople. Defining an MQL becomes more powerful when based on actual feedback from the field. Salespeople and customer service can provide anecdotal insights and sales intelligence on what they consider a qualified lead and describe buyer profiles that are easier to qualify. By working together, both teams can define parameters for an MLQ that salespeople will be able and willing to work with.
Implement marketing efforts that deliver qualified leads. Without collaboration between the two teams, the marketing team may not provide enough leads or generate too many unqualified ones. Qualification parameters set by the sales team that are too narrow may result in fewer leads. Salespeople may have to consider broadening the definition of an MQL for the marketing team to deliver enough qualified leads.
3. Determine Lead Qualification by Demographics
Define parameters that will provide a more systematic way of qualifying leads. A good starting point is demographic, sociographic, psychographic, and firmographic information about your existing customer base.
Examples of demographic parameters you can use to define an MLQ include age, location, sex, employment, education, income, and more. These are best used to complement sociographic, psychographic, and firmographic factors such as online presence, buying behavior, industry type, company size, job titles, etc.
4. Observe the Buyer’s Journey
The buyer's journey is a schematic that visually represents the buying process, helping you plan your strategy and refine tactics by ensuring presence throughout.
Observing the buyer’s journey will inform your sales and marketing efforts, how your sales funnel should look like, and how long each stage should be.
Here are some ways you can observe the buyer’s journey and integrate it into your sales and marketing efforts:
Work out where prospects spend time online and what they're doing when they get there (online behavior). Knowing this lets you map out which stages your marketing leads are at, based on where you appear in their journey.
Keep track of social media conversations to see what people are talking aboutK, how often they talk about their pain points, and whether you might be able to solve them. Ensure you can align yourself with these conversations.
Marketing automation software helps in making things like lead scoring scalable. It also enables the creation of customer journeys that map prospects' behaviors while allowing for personalization within each stage. This means focusing on prospects who've already visited your website and other actions that indicate they can be considered an MLQ.
5. Refine Generation Strategies
Once you have defined the buyer personas, explained what an MLQ is with both sales and marketing teams, established lead qualification parameters, and understood the buyer's journey, the next step is to refine how you generate new leads.
Here are some ways you can refine your lead generation strategies:
Leverage sales intelligence tools that help you save time. Owler is the perfect place to prospect new business, with over 14 million public and private companies in the database. Research all of your leads, prospects, and accounts with Owler Max’s comprehensive company profiles. Get all of the critical information you need about a business in one place.
Use a template. When calling business leads, plan out each call before you make it. This helps ensure that you stay on track and ask the right questions. Write down critical information like name, company, contact info, and other crucial details.
You should also list what kind of response you're looking for (e.g., set up an appointment, send more information) — having everything written out before you make it easy to stay organized during the call.
Personalize your approach. When sending out emails or making calls, don't just use the same one-off message every time. Learn as much about each lead as you can, and then change your follow-up message to suit them.
For example, if you're talking to an IT director with significant brand recognition, mention how great it is to reach them through their press coverage. This will give your interaction a more personal feel and let them know how valuable they are — something most people want to hear.
Follow up on time. Once you've determined who will make a good fit, act quickly. A day or two should be enough time to generate interest — a week can seem too long and may appear like you're no longer interested in doing business with them. Your response will show that you care about each lead with the right balance of enthusiasm and professionalism.
Look for referrals. If someone has given you their business card, ask if they would be willing to refer you to any of their contacts who might benefit from your services. Often companies appreciate when opportunities arise to bring in new customers because it benefits everyone.
You can also try contacting people on LinkedIn or Facebook to ask for leads, especially if you have mutual connections. This gives your potential client the chance to recommend you through their social group. Look into incentivizing existing customers for referrals.
Stay connected to keep your high-quality leads warm. Call back once a month to check in — this makes all the difference when it comes to doing business with them later.
Amplify your marketing efforts. Harness the power of content marketing, online videos, social media influencers, thought leaders, LinkedIn outreach, webinars, and many more. Ensure that your website contains relevant content for each stage of the marketing funnel. Don't forget to track the performance of your digital marketing efforts with analytics tools.
6. Improve Lead Scoring
The business landscape constantly evolves, and it's worth looking at lead scoring periodically to make sure they still apply.
Look out for changes in trends or potential new demographics you can reach out to. Dive deep into quantitative and qualitative metrics like marketing analytics, customer feedback, insights from salespeople, which inform your strategies moving forward.
Review your lead qualification, workflow, and lead generation strategies quarterly to ensure that they remain relevant.
Examples of Unqualified Leads
It’s easy to spot an unqualified lead. Unqualified leads are characterized by the following:
They have not done enough research about your offerings yet. They are unsure about pricing and offerings, or your price points are out of their budget.
They know their pain points but not the solutions.
They may have an idea on how to solve their pain points, but they don’t know what to look for in a solution specifically.
They have not undergone the nurture campaign cycle or have not been qualified by your marketing and sales teams.
While converting unqualified leads into paying customers is possible, the churn rate — or the rate by which a lead stops engaging with a company — is extremely high.
Discover Qualified Leads through Owler Max
Supercharge your lead qualification with Owler. Unlock exclusive insights into the companies you’re interested in and actionable news that will create new outreach opportunities with your qualified leads.
Reach out today and let us know how we can support your business.
