The Secret to Producing More High-Intent MQL Leads

Marketing qualified lead (MQL) growth is the foundation upon which B2B businesses build their sales pipeline and ultimately drive revenue growth. The importance of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) for B2B businesses cannot be overstated. These leads have demonstrated a level of engagement and intent that sets them apart from the broader pool of leads, making them more likely to convert into Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and, ultimately, paying customers.

In this article, we’ll let you in on a proven strategy to target MQLs as we shed light on the technicalities that make MQLs worth the B2B investment. 

The MQL Funnel: How MQLs Fit into the Lead Generation Process

The lead generation process can be visualized as a funnel, with MQLs occupying a critical position within this funnel. At the top of the funnel, we have a large pool of potential leads, often referred to as prospects. These are individuals or organizations that may have some interest in your products or services but have not yet taken any significant action to engage with your business. 

As prospects move down the funnel, they become “leads,” which are individuals or organizations that have expressed some level of interest, such as by visiting your website or downloading a piece of content. From this pool of leads, a subset will be identified as MQLs, based on their level of engagement and their fit with your ideal customer profile. 

An MQL then flows into the next stage of the funnel, where they are passed on to the sales team and become a “Sales Qualified Lead” (SQL). The sales team then works to convert these SQLs into paying customers, ultimately driving revenue for the business. 

MQLs vs. SQLs

While MQLs and SQLs are both important components of the lead generation process, they both have stark differences, especially regarding their roles in the lead generation process. 

Let us first dive deep into what MQLs are. These are leads that have demonstrated a strong interest in your offerings, typically identified based on pre-determined criteria: content consumption, online activities and behavior, and lead scoring. MQLs are passed on to the sales team for further qualification which then turns them into SQLs. 

MQLs turn into nurturing-ready SQLs after passing further lead qualification. SQLs typically meet specific criteria set by the sales team, such as budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT). Sales teams readily and actively engage with SQLs to move forward in the sales process. 

This only further emphasizes the role sales teams play in the lead generation process, as they are responsible for taking the MQLs passed on by the marketing team and converting them into SQLs. This involves further qualifying the leads, understanding their specific needs and pain points, and ultimately, closing the sale.

Qualifying MQLs: Criteria and Methods for Identifying Marketing Qualified Leads

Not all MQLs can automatically be converted into SQLs. You need to establish clear criteria and methods for qualifying MQLs to ensure that you’re passing on high-quality leads to your sales reps. Some key criteria for identifying MQLs may include: 

• Engagement with Your Content: Leads who have downloaded your whitepapers, attended your webinars, or engaged with your social media content. 
• Website Behavior: Leads who have visited specific pages on your website, spent a significant amount of time on your site, or taken specific actions (e.g., filled out a form). 
• Lead Scoring: A numeric score that reflects a lead’s level of engagement and fit with your ideal customer profile. 
• Demographic and Firmographic Data: Information about the lead’s job title, industry, company size, and other relevant characteristics. 

To qualify these leads, you can use a variety of methods, such as: 

• Lead Scoring: Develop a lead scoring model that assigns points to different lead behaviors and characteristics, allowing you to identify the most qualified leads. 
• Automated Lead Qualification: Use marketing automation tools to automatically qualify leads based on pre-defined criteria, such as website behavior or content engagement. 
• Manual Review: Have your marketing team review and qualify leads based on their fit with your ideal customer profile and their level of engagement with your content and offerings. 

Generating MQLs: Strategies and Tactics for Boosting Lead Generation

Now that we’ve established the importance of MQLs and their role within the lead generation process, let’s dive into the strategies and tactics you can implement to maximize your MQL generation efforts. 

Using Email Marketing to Convert MQLs into Customers

Since email marketing allows for direct and personalized communication with potential customers, it is possibly the most ideal channel to target and nurture MQLs. Additionally, email campaigns have a high level of measurability. This allows for data-driven decision-making, as marketers can identify which emails are performing well and which ones need improvement. Finally, it is important to note that MQLs demand frequent taps within a lengthy timeframe. With regular email check-ins paired with useful and resonating content, businesses can keep their brand top of mind and nurture leads over time.  

With the help of autoresponders and drip campaigns, businesses can set up a series of pre-scheduled emails to be sent at specific intervals. This ensures that leads receive a consistent flow of relevant information, increasing the chances of conversion without requiring constant manual intervention. This helps in building relationships and staying connected with potential customers until they are ready to make a purchase decision. 

The more effective MQL email campaigns are, the easier it is for salespeople to seal the deal. 

How Can Content Syndication Produce High-Intent MQLs?

Content syndication is a key marketing strategy B2B teams often leverage to increase their reach to the most relevant, ready-to-buy audiences across the web. It’s done by republishing top-performing assets to third-party platforms, all to convert these prospects into highly qualified leads. 

Its premise is simple: take your top-notch content, re-publish it via third-party channels, and watch your pipeline grow. You can increase the visibility and reach of your content, targeting a wider audience and attracting more MQLs. When your content is syndicated across multiple platforms and websites, it reaches a larger audience who may not have been aware of your brand or offerings before. Content syndication also helps in lead nurturing. When MQLs engage with your syndicated content, such as downloading an ebook or subscribing to a newsletter, you can track their actions and behavior. This valuable data allows you to tailor your marketing efforts and provide more personalized content, which further nurtures the MQLs along their buyer’s journey. 

Want to see what content syndication looks like in action? 

Four Tips to Generate Marketing-Qualified Leads with Content Syndication

We recommend following these four pointers to generate five-star leads from your content syndication campaigns. 

1. Refine Your Audience Targeting with Intent Data

Intent data is a form of sales intelligence. It refers to behavioral signals indicating a prospect’s intention to make a B2B purchase in the near future. These signals help you determine just how interested a customer is in your products or services. 

Examples of intent signals include: 

• Ad clicks 
• Keyword searches 
• Website visits 
• Email opens 
• Free trial registrations 
• White paper downloads 
• Social media interactions 

The more you track intent signals like these, the better you’ll be at determining precise levels of purchase intent among target prospects. Not only that, but you’ll also be able to spot content topics that resonate most with attentive audiences. Combining these two insights together allows you to put the right content in front of the right eyes at the right time, making it an important aspect of a successful content syndication campaign. 

To do this, seek out intent-driven content syndication platforms that target contacts most likely to convert. Be sure to combine this with your first-party data acquired from marketing tools, CRM platforms, and analytics software. The more intent data available to you, the more accurate your targeting will be. 

2. Combine Content Syndication with ABM

Content syndication and account-based marketing make a formidable power couple. Plus, your target accounts serve as the perfect audience for your content syndication efforts. After all, you’ve already identified them as your top priority accounts. 

Delivering syndicated content to your ABM target accounts accelerates the nurturing aspect of ABM. The result? Faster and more efficient generation of high-value, high-intent B2B customers. 

Content syndication and account-based marketing are a perfect partnership to get more MQLs. 

3. Fit Content to the Buyer’s Journey

To propel prospects further down the marketing funnel, syndicated content must align with your ideal customer’s interests, content preferences, and information needs. 

Different types of content complement different stages of the customer journey. For example, leads who are in the consideration stage may seek case studies, customer success stories, industry reports, and branded video content to help them finalize their purchase decision. On the other hand, leads who find themselves in the decision stage might connect better with things like product demos, free consultation offers, and coupon codes, as it gives them a chance to “try before they buy,” per se. 

Intent data can help inform this process, as these behavioral signals allow marketers to identify the best content syndication pieces, channels, and strategies to yield high-value MQLs and conversions down the line. 

4. Syndicate Content that Upstages Competitors

When deciding on which buyers to target with your content syndication campaigns, don’t discount those currently serviced by competitors. Instead, try to displace them. 

Identify prospects actively seeking to replace products or services from a competing brand or company. You can do this by monitoring customer reviews on sites like TrustRadius or G2. Use customers’ negative experiences to your advantage, creating syndicated content that addresses their specific pain points and highlights how you can solve them. 

Some of the best content syndication pieces for competitor displacement include: 

• Favorable comparison posts 
• Positive reviews that address competitors’ weaknesses 
• Case studies highlighting the benefits of your product or service over competitors 
• User-generated content that shows how your product addresses common complaints 

Each of these pieces helps to convince dissatisfied prospects that your company is a better fit for their needs. 

Summary

Targeting MQLs allows both marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts on leads that are more likely to convert into customers. Doing so might not look like much, but targeting MQLs maximizes your chances of generating revenue. It also helps to streamline the sales process and increase the overall efficiency of the marketing and sales funnel. 

MQLs, in a sense, serve as a bridge between marketing and sales teams. With a clear definition of what constitutes a qualified lead, marketing and sales teams can align their efforts and work towards a common goal. This collaboration ensures that leads are effectively passed from marketing to sales, reducing the risk of leads falling through the cracks and increasing the overall conversion rate. MQLs allow for more effective resource allocation, provide valuable insights into customer behavior, facilitate lead nurturing, and promote collaboration between teams.  

You can read more about aligning your sales and marketing teams using account intelligence here. 

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