Drawing a summoning circle for qualified leads
Season 7, Issue 7: An interview with demand gen savant, Axel Sukianto!
đŹ In this issue:
Axel Sukianto gives us the latest on MQLs, lead scoring, and intent measurement
Sharing some resources from an SEO conference I went to
Links + voting on next topics!
Hi Mehketeers,
Between last weekâs issue and todayâs, I spent a lot of face time with the one and only Axel Sukianto (Director of Demand Gen at UpGuard and founder of my fave Aussie marketing community, Generate.) On one hand I do just want to give Axel a big shout out for being a great friend and marketer, and on the other I also want to say I only invite people to be interviewed for Mehdeeka when I have a question that Iâm seeking an answer to and theyâre the right person to answer that question.
All this to say, Iâm hugely biased but also Axel is genuinely the best person I know to be answering todayâs topic! We love to see conflicts of interests being declared.
Straight into it:
MQLs with Axel!
Quick glossary for any junior marketers out there:
MQL = marketing qualified lead
SQL = sales qualified lead
PQL = product qualified lead
SAO = sales accepted opportunity
PLG = product lead growth
Kayla: How do you (personally) define an MQL, and where do you think marketing falls short on the effectiveness or implementation of them?
Axel: MQL definition will (and should be) different from company to company because your product/business/sales process is unique. So it is ok if you hear or see a definition on a podcast/webinar/newsletter that is different to how you have it at your company. That is ok.
MQL = marketing qualified lead. To me as a demand gen marketer, setting up a marketing funnel is key and I usually think about it in some version of:
Lead > MQL > SQL > Opportunity > Closed won or lost
MQL should be more qualified than a lead, and I think about it to be a mix of fit + intent.
Fit: Are they the right âfitâ for your product/service: This could be a mix of demographic (e.g. location), firmographic (e.g. industry), do they use a certain software, or there is a certain painpoint they face. This depends on your business.
Intent: Have they shown intent? Intent to me is showing some indication that they are interested in your product/service. An example that I like to use is whether they visit high intent pages, an example is your pricing page. Not many web visitors will hang around your pricing page if theyâre not looking to buy.
Implementation failures, I can think of three:
Lack of alignment with leadership/sales: You want to create something that the whole company can rally behind and âMQLâ becoming a common terminology in the business. Make sure you âroadshowâ what you come up with, with leadership and the sales team, see if they agree this is what an MQL should be (importantly, that this should be the stage before SQL or whatever handoff point you have with sales). If sales doesnât use it, then your definition of MQL becomes less effective.
Quantity > Quality: Marketers have targets to hit, and MQL might be one of your targets (I dont personally recommend MQL as the only target for marketers to have since it is too far away from pipeline/revenue and not something sales can really get behind). But this might mean you focus the definition to make sure you pass over a certain amount of leads to sales. Donât. Use MQLs as a marketer of how many actual qualified leads there, dont expand the definition to willy nilly to meet your number. Be truthful to your business and to yourself.
Experimenting with MQLs. It is not a set and forget, continue to experiment on both the definition of MQL as your product evolves/market shifts, but also to experiment on how to increase the number of qualified leads you pass to sales
K: If you donât recommend volume of MQLs as a target, whatâs a suggested replacement for it, for any marketers out there fighting against this?
A: My position with targets for sales-led marketers has always been stage 2 opportunity (sometimes called sales qualified lead/demo complete/demo held, and for PLG, it should be something after signup or activation.) That should be the north star metric of marketing teams on the demand gen side.
The reason being, it is closer to revenue and it will be easier for sales to collab with you because it is a stage that is closer to what they do and something important to them.
MQLs (especially given the fact that it isnt always agreed on what the defintion is within a company or even the industry) shouldnt be the only metric â you can measure it as part of a leading indicator for that stage 2 opportunity goal, but MQL should not be the only metric.
K: Do you think lead scoring is a way of the past and something marketing as an industry is moving away from? (Or is it still relevant in certain contexts?)
Similar to attribution, Iâm yet to talk to a marketer who is happy with their lead scoring model. No one is ever truly happy with it.
Personally, I find lead scoring tricky. Iâll explain one reason: I find it hard to compare the value of a lead being in a certain country vs the value of visiting a pricing page.
For example, if a lead being located in Australia is 10 points, then what is the value of visiting a pricing page? is it the same, less than 10 points, or more than 10 points? what about the value of us having a mobile number? is that also 10 points?
The calculation + weighting will be based on assumptions and preconceived values of the team setting it (maybe historical knowledge from a previous role?) It is kinda an educated guess from everyone involved.
That being said, I do think depending on the business there is a place for lead scoring. it helps teams prioritise leads and helps that alignment between sales and marketing since it provides an âeasy to understandâ framework to assess the quality of leads, and the prioritisation of the follow up. Also honestly, if your leadership/sales team insists on it and thats all they ever know, sometimes it is the path of least resistance to set that upâŠ
K: Over the past couple of years there's an evolution into measuring intention instead of activity scoring, or having the score tied to intent, do you think this is a better method?
A: Yep, I think it is moving to intent. Joining that with the latest buzzword right now âAIâ â marketers should consider measuring intent to qualify your leads to send to sales, but also leverage AI to help prioritse these leads. some martech softwares have AI built in to help you with this.
This method focuses on understanding a lead's intent to provide deeper insights into their readiness to buy. Intent-based scoring helps prioritise leads based on their actual intent to buy rather than only their level of activity. This way, sales will focus on the leads more likely to convert.
But what is important is to not use lead scoring in a vacuum. Use lead scoring as part of an integrated campaign for sales. For example, if you have a campaign with a list of leads, score them to help the sales team prioritise, but also provide relevant assets: landing pages, videos, call scripts, email sequences to help them work on these high scoring leads. That is how sales will work and use your lead scoring model because youâve done the whole body of work to drive pipeline and revenue.
K: As marketing is always evolving, what would you say is the future of marketing qualified leads and how we'll "qualify" them?
A: I think there will always be a place for âqualified leadsâ, but it might not be called MQLs. I've seen the term hand raisers/demo requests/PQLs â the name might be different but marketers will need a stage of leads before the SQL/demo/trial to provide that leading indicator of the success of your marketing efforts.
That being said, MQLs should not be the only metric marketers should care about - but it forms part of the important funnel for any marketer.
I personally think it'll go the direction of intent.
K: If someone hasn't implemented any of this, where would you say is the best place to start?
Start thinking about your funnel.
Do you have a funnel? If no, no shade, start mapping it with your business/sales leaders and find the right funnel fit for you and your business.
If you already have a funnel, consider how relevant MQLs are and, to my point above, check if the business is using the funnel stages/terminology that you've set up. If they are not using the same language as you, you have some work to do.
What if you have a funnel and you want to go take your MQLs definitions and lead scoring to drive pipeline and revenue?
Follow the example above â but what is important is to not use lead scoring in a vacuum. Use lead scoring as part of an integrated campaign for sales. For example, if you have a campaign with a list of leads, score them to help the sales team prioritise, but also provide relevant assets: landing pages, videos, call scripts, and email sequences to help them work on these high scoring leads. That is how sales will work and use your lead scoring model because youâve done the whole body of work to drive pipeline and revenue.
Quick summary of Axelsâs advice
Youâve got nothing set up > Map your funnel, define an MQL for your business
Youâve got an MQL definition > Make sure sales agrees with it, and itâs in use
You and sales and MQL bffs > Consider if and what typeof lead scoring is right for your business
Youâve got lead scoring and/or intent measurement > consider augmenting it with AI or other technologies (Salesforce and HubSpot have their own offerings for this)
SEO resources!
I went to a recent SEO conference and some of the speakers gave out some great resources:
Sally Millsâ website has free scripts automating tasks like redirects using fuzzy matching, scraping, and keyword clustering
If you have issues with Google My Business, and officale Google support isnât helping, this community is apparently even more reliable (and faster)
If youâre fixing up your Google My Business profile, this check list can help you boost the quality (and ranking) of your profile (and if youâre in agency or freelancing, you can use it to let a client know how much of an impact you can have on their listing)
Fun links
Pintrest released a new âtrending palettesâ guide.
This ad is a collaboration between Rimowa (the luggage company) and Parallel Studio. No notes, itâs SO good.
If you donât feel like watching my video on website projects, perhaps I can interest you in a supplier briefing template (this link will make an editable copy of the doc).
Weâre more than half way through Season 7, so have a quick vote on what youâd like to see for the remainder of it:
See you in the next one!
Kayla