Previously in our blog, we had shared in detail about the “Importance of Defining Qualified Lead” and the next in line is Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).
Marketing qualified lead in simple definition means any prospect which has demonstrated some level of interest in your product or services and has passed a set of qualifications in order to progress further down the sales funnel.
Qualifications could be fitting in the buyer persona or someone who will most likely buy your product or service.
For example, in order to become an MQL, a prospective customer may have to have a certain number of employees in their company, be from a particular industry, or should have a minimum turnover requirement.
Below are 2 basic ways which can help to judge that a lead is more likely to become a customer eventually:
Sales Teams Efforts: This is when you have used your ideal buyer personas to collate a list of highly targeted buyers (or purchased a list) that could be open to hearing more about your solution to solve their problems.
Marketing Efforts: You have drawn the Ideal customer to your landing page using social media ads, inbound marketing etc. This also means that not all visitors who visit your site are prospects. However, few may have shown some level of interest and given you their email by signing up.
Finally, the Goal remains to find out who will really buy?
The crucial thing to know here is when will be an MQL be ready to become an SQL. After the lead is “deemed sales ready” by expressing interest to learn more about the product and solution, and the same is vetted by marketing team that it seems like a genuine buyer and is not a suspect — it is officially ready to be transferred to the status of SQL.
A sales qualified lead in simple terms is defined as — any prospect who has learned a bit about your offering by going through your site or downloading product information and is further interested in interaction to know more how your solution can solve their problem.
So typically an SQL is more qualified and better-informed customer. To progress from warm lead to sales closures usually companies today are offering free trials, demos and supplying more of content to move them to a decision stage.
The journey of SQL to sales closure is the most crucial one a salesperson encounters. The prospect at this stage would like to see a lot of conviction displayed by the sales team towards the solution offered and that it will solve the problem.
Towards the end of the day, isn’t it all about solving your prospect’s problem and adding value to their goal? All this you can offer your prospect, it will lead on towards a successful sale closure and the SQL will become a win for your company!!
Happy Selling :)