If timing is everything - just how useful are MQLs?

If timing is everything - just how useful are MQLs in B2B Marketing?

Drift’s VP of Marketing said of a Harvard Business Research study, that if a web lead came through the website and if they didn’t get a response within 5 minutes, then the capability to convert was reduced by 10 fold. Is anyone following up on web leads within 5 minutes?

According to Drift, buyer demand for real-time engagement has grown to the extent that 46% of respondents reported that they expect a chatbot response within five seconds or less. 43% expect the same using online live chat.

Do we need to rethink Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) in B2B businesses?

Not all MQLs are of equal value. We know this from the origination of the channel as to how well they convert in the funnel to a sale. But have we stopped to consider whether MQLs are the right indicator of passing leads onto a sales team?

Should an instant click-to-call demo be considered? Can chatbots kick off this process until an eager sales team member becomes available?

Timing is everything. 

Timing and intention are far more critical than channel and engagement lead scoring. 

At the point of demo or purchase, your prospect is ready to test a few systems. If you can pip your competition to the post by structuring those first encounters quickly, you could win the sale, even if your sales cycle isn’t instantaneous. You achieved the primacy effect.  

Whether the lead is via the web or offline, it’s worth considering their eagerness to engage. At that moment on the web you have an interested party, almost despite the original channel they came in on (e.g. PPC, social etc.). In that moment you can grab their attention. It would be prudent to consider what they were doing at that moment on site. 

According to Oracle, who transformed their funnel so they could pass sales “conversation-ready leads”, MQLs are no longer an indicator of sales conversion success. Instead of focusing on the volume of MQLs being passed to sales, they focused on the number of leads that were qualified with the intent to have a conversation. 

The game is no longer just about numbers. Today’s marketing landscape is about engaging customers in more authentic ways that build trust and – ultimately – stronger relationships.

How do we know leads are ready to have a conversation? 

For me, it comes down to timing and intention. 

Around four years ago, I started researching a product-led approach to qualifying leads. This led me quite neatly onto PQLs, Product Qualified Leads, as a better measure of success for Sales. 

Essentially a lead who has experienced meaningful value through using your product - perhaps through a free trial or a freemium model. Unlike MQLs, which base buying intent on arbitrary factors such as email opens, whitepaper downloads, and webpage visits (unless they are intentional timely demo form fills!), PQLs are tied to meaningful value.

As a result, PQLs are more likely to become customers than other Leads. 

Similar to the MQL model, not all PQLs will be equal. There will be those using your product who have become “activated”. They’ve experienced that ‘aha’ moment and get your product. They’ve undertaken a series of actions that’s made them far more likely to progress to a full member or sale than other PQLs that haven’t solidified those key actions. 

It may be that you can score and scale your PQL like an MQL. It would allow your activation team, or Sales enablement team, to understand how to get the Lead “active” in the product/ service. 

Through my research, I found an example of Google Doc’s activation checklist:

• Create a document.
• Add a teammate.
• Share a document.
• Edit a document.
• Write a comment.

It might be that if a prospect undertakes one of those actions they have a 5% chance of conversion, but if they did 3 they might have a 60% chance. What’s the tipping point that will allow you to assess the value and number of actions that will increase your PQL conversion to Sale? 

The PQL model might be useful for predicting the conversion into Sales or working out who the Sales team should focus on. But are there other factors to consider in the process of handing off leads from Marketing or Growth into Sales?

When more than one buyer is involved in the purchasing decision? Say you have multiple users of the product or multiple leads associated with one business deal. How do you identify and score them as a collective? Forrester's Demand Unit Waterfall model recognises those purchasing decisions made by groups. Especially longer sales cycle enterprise Leads that could be in your funnel for upwards of a year.

How then do you keep this single or collective nurtured through to sale? At what point do you hand them over to a Sales Relationship Manager?

Account Based Marketing (ABM) steps into the equation and models such as Forrester’s Revenue Waterfall come into play. The above references acquisition Net New Lead Strategies, but it doesn’t account for additional revenue opportunities from repeat business, upsells, and cross-sells. 

Whatever the size or nature of your business, one thing is for sure, the interaction with an intentional Lead is time-sensitive, even if they remain in your funnel for a long time. 

My advice: 

• Be quick off the mark to ensure you don’t miss any Leads in your pipeline that have come through to purchase (within minutes to hours). 
• Get them quickly to experience your product or service. And at the very least have a demo or conversation with them (within hours). 
• Ensure they become activated in the product (within days of access), or you’ll potentially lose them to the competition. 
• Concentrate your efforts on the timing and intention of the Lead, and worry less about whether they’ve achieved 100 points via marketing engagement methods. That’s a long-tail chase, and you’ll end up missing out on more timely purchasers.