MOF_eBOOK_RD01

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Identifying the MQL There is one chief driver of MQL definitions: the buyer persona. Two factors should guide persona criteria: 1 2 a white paper or signing up for a demo at a trade show. Demographic fit. Are they an ideal customer profile (ICP) from the account and the contacts perspectives? Meaningful engagement. This might be downloading The foundational strategy is to define the ideal customer profile and find every possible way to engage. Content downloads remain the best way to start a meaningful conversation, as they indicate pain and interest levels. But while many B2B companies will interpret any content download as an indicator of a MQL, that isn’t enough. Behaviors alone don’t indicate a lead is an MQL. The ICP factor must be there as well. It’s more helpful to think of behaviors as a window into how you should engage with the buyer. Some behaviors are just noise, nothing more and nothing less. In some industries, the more content a lead downloads, the weaker they become as a prospect. Factors like buyer characteristics and industry matter as well. Some buyers may qualify at drastically different engagement levels or behavior types. Another important factor in evaluating MQLs: timing. To avoid drowning sales in worthless leads, marketers must recognize that not everyone is ready to talk to sales. Smart teams will optimize their messages to speak to both the leads that are ready and those who need more time and interpret signals to understand when the moment is right for qualification. 20 CHAPTER 03 Interest.Pain.Timing. Who Qualifies MARKETING QUALIFIED LEADS monstersoffunnel.com
Benchmarking buyer behavior MQLs represent the stage of the funnel where benchmarks become invaluable. Simply making assumptions (or worse, going on “intuition”) will inevitably lead to unqualified leads slipping into the sales bucket. Instead, teams can quantitatively measure how the market is handling a similar metric and evaluate how they stack up to businesses and competitors. For instance, benchmarks could also reveal that your Sales Qualified Lead to Closed Won ratios are comparatively low, indicating that your MQLs aren’t aligned to sales definitions. Or you could also find that Inquiry to Marketing Qualified Lead volume is too high, pointing to a lack of discernment in the MAL stage. Yet benchmarks are only as useful as the criteria they’re based on - and many marketers are measuring the wrong results or failing to measure the right ones. Businesses that compare themselves to other companies may fail to see factors, such as budget, that can make the results meaningless. Others search for their twin company, assuming that data will be the most relevant. It’s a misconception that can quickly lead to distorted conclusions, as there are unlikely to be enough businesses just like yours to yield data sufficient for trends. This is the more intelligent path: benchmarking with a business of your maturity, size and other similarities. If the company has the same type of sales cycle or ticket/sales value/MRR, you’ll have a much stronger foundation for comparing and evaluating your performance. Internal benchmarks are just as useful. You could find that recent qualified leads aren’t converting at the same rate as they used to because you’ve delivered the wrong message. Or let’s say that your social data points to a high number of shares for your video content, while only a few people have shared your white papers. That type of content consumption comparison might seem useful until you connect it to conversion rates. Then you find that your videos are popular with people who have no intention of buying anything from you, while the white papers are driving more leads through the funnel. By connecting your benchmarks to revenue and conversion, you’ll view your results in context and spot opportunities for dramatic improvement. By revealing the revenue truths at the heart of your lead scoring, your team can eliminate guesswork and refine your strategies. Remember, you cannot know how you’re actually performing without determining what you’ve gained or lost. 21 CHAPTER 03 Interest.Pain.Timing. Who Qualifies MARKETING QUALIFIED LEADS monstersoffunnel.com
Page 1 and 2: ARE YOU READY TO ROCK? get your bac
Page 3 and 4: Opening Act The Funnel Today and To
Page 5 and 6: opening act The Funnel Today and To
Page 7 and 8: The classic portal for funnel entry
Page 9 and 10: content reality check. is what you
Page 11 and 12: designing the content ecosystem In
Page 13 and 14: In the quest to create fascinating
Page 15 and 16: Buyers should be divided into two b
Page 17 and 18: The Future of the Funnel If there
Page 19: Traditional thought has held that M
Page 23 and 24: Marketing qualified leads can be on
Page 25 and 26: This is, after all, the stage where
Page 27 and 28: Jay Gaines, SiriusDecisions’ Grou
Page 29 and 30: Chapter 05 Building Trust by Jon Mi
Page 31 and 32: From relationship to revenue As sop
Page 33 and 34: Unfortunately, the one-dimensional
Page 35 and 36: So let’s talk about how we explai
Page 37 and 38: Build community. While marketers kn
Page 39 and 40: 76 % of marketers think their asset
Page 41 and 42: closing the set The funnel as a rev
Page 43 and 44: closing the set The Funnel as a rev
Page 45: MARKETING TO THE BEAT OF A NEW DRUM

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