How To: Turn MQLs into SQLs

Every business wants to generate sales. But, before you can do that, you need to generate leads. These are typically either marketing qualified leads (MQLs), or sales qualified leads (SQLs) — and converting MQLs into SQLs is one of the most important stages in a lead management process. It is the point where a lead who has shown initial interest in your product is considered ready for a sales pitch.

While you may want to convert these leads as quickly as possible, it’s important that the process is as carefully planned out as possible and that you utilise the right tactics to effectively convert MQLs to SQLs. In this guide, we’ll go through how to convert MQLs to SQLs, explain the difference between the two, and how to calculate and improve your conversion rate.

What is a Marketing Qualified Lead?

Before we can get into the finer details about converting MQLs to SQLs, we need to understand the difference between the two. An MQL is a marketing qualified lead. That is, a lead which has shown interest in your company’s product or service through various forms of engagement, such as reading a blog or whitepaper, downloading a resource, listening to a podcast, or filling in a form.

There are three main characteristics which we use to define an MQL at EM360Tech:

• Engagement with Content: The lead might download an eBook or a whitepaper, or engage with content like blog posts and podcasts.
• Significant Website Interaction: They might visit specific pages on a client's website (e.g. demo, pricing, product details) or subscribe to a newsletter.
• Email Engagement: They open and click on the marketing emails.

While an MQL has interacted with your business at a surface level, they aren’t ready for a direct sales conversation. At this stage, they’ve simply demonstrated that they’re interested, maybe curious, about your product, but they’re not ready to commit to a purchasing decision.

An example of an MQL: Sarah visits your website and reads a case study. She’s interested in learning more but isn't yet ready to engage with the sales team. Sarah is an MQL.

What is a Sales Qualified Lead?

Meanwhile, an SQL is a sales qualified lead. This means that the lead has moved down the sales and marketing funnel and is highly likely to make a decision about the purchase. As an MQL moves along the funnel, it must meet specific criteria in order to then be considered an SQL. This criteria is what’s known as BANT:

• Budget: They have the financial means to purchase your product.
• Authority: They are the decision-maker or they have significant influence in the buying decision.
• Need: They have a genuine need for your product or service, and you are able to address and fix a specific pain point.
• Timeline: They are looking to make a decision within the coming weeks.

Once the SQL has been established, the sales team is able to pitch the product to them to encourage them to buy.

There are three main characteristics we use to define an SQL at EM360Tech:

• Clear Intent to Purchase: They request a demo or to be contacted by the sales team.
• High Engagement: They show intent through actions like filling out a product inquiry form or engaging with a sales rep.
• Fit the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): The lead fits the criteria of your ideal customer profile, such as budget, industry, or company size.

It’s important that sales and marketing teams are fully aligned on what constitutes an SQL. Otherwise, you may lose resources on the wrong prospects.

An example of an SQL: John has downloaded multiple guides and then requests a demo of your product. This behaviour suggests he's ready for a conversation with a sales representative about making a purchase, and wants to explore the pricing and packages as per his company’s budget. John is now an SQL.

How to Calculate MQL to SQL Conversion Rate

In order to understand how successful your MQL to SQL rate is, you need to be able to calculate the conversion rate. This provides the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of your lead nurturing strategy, looking for areas of improvement and streamlining where necessary.

The formula is: 

MQL to SQL Conversion Rate = (Number of SQLs / Number of MQLs) X 100

For example, if you started with 100 MQLs and 30 of them became SQLs, your conversion rate would be:

(300 / 100) X 100 = 30%

Being able to calculate and understand this rate gives you deep insights into how well your MQLs are progressing through your sales funnel. The higher the conversion rate, the better your nurturing efforts are. However, if the rate is lower than expected, you’ll be able to audit your lead qualification and lead nurturing processes in order to improve your conversion rate.

MQL to SQL average conversion rate by industry

How to Improve MQL to SQL Conversion Rate

If you’re looking to improve your MQL to SQL conversion rate, you should be auditing how you’re nurturing your leads. Here are the ways we recommend boosting your conversion rate.

Introduce yourself and your product

As soon as you receive an MQL, you should take the time to introduce yourself, the company, and the product. This first nurture email should be focused on providing value rather than setting an appointment immediately, so we recommend sending personalised messaging that aligns with their initial interactions. 

For example, if they initially listened to a podcast, send an email thanking them and suggesting similar podcasts in the series that discuss the same or similar topics.

Follow up on LinkedIn

Once you’ve made your introductions, wait a few days before sending a LinkedIn connection request, along with a note that reminds them who you are. It’s highly likely that your initial email gets buried in the lead’s inbox. However, your LinkedIn note shouldn’t be a sales pitch, or asking for a meeting or call.

Instead, comment on something they’ve recently posted or ask a thought-provoking question about their company or background. Your goal here is to create a real connection and open the doors to creating a real connection between you and your prospect. This step is becoming increasingly crucial within the sales process, as more professionals pivot towards social media to research prospective vendors. It’s been reported that 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions, with 50% of those using LinkedIn as a trusted source of information. By connecting with your prospects, you can ensure you’re top of the consideration list.

Personalise communication

According to Segment, 89% of business leaders believe that personalisation is the key to success over the next three years. This goes to show the value of personalisation when it comes to converting your leads. It’s important to research the prospect, their company, and any potential concerns that you may be able to address.

We suggest sending targeting personalised emails, and sharing content that directly addresses their pain points. By sending this level of targeted, personalised emails, you can show that you genuinely care about what’s relevant to your lead and that you know how to help them.

Personalise your email based on their position in the company, the industry that they work in, and share any relevant examples of what you have done with other companies similar to theirs. Case studies are ideal for this type of communication, so make sure you’re able to pull together statistics of previous client work.

Call your prospect

There’s nothing wrong with picking up the phone and calling your leads — in fact, we encourage it! This extra touchpoint can really help drive engagement and ensure you’re on top of the lead’s mind. Just make sure you have a script prepared in case the call goes to voicemail. Leave a concise message, clearly explaining the reason for your call and encouraging a call back. Make sure you leave your contact information.

Emotional push

It’s time for an emotional push and to build meaningful connections. Creating inspiring, emotional messaging that brings a smile to the recipient’s face works wonders, while showing your human side. As AI becomes more popular, it’s refreshing to buyers to know that they’re talking to a human and that there’s a human behind the email, rather than a text generator.

Follow-up phone call

By now, you’ve made multiple touchpoints across a variety of channels. It’s important that you tie them all together so there’s no chance of any disconnect between you and the lead. Calling is very much personality-based, and allows for familiarity of voice. Ensure that you continue to craft an emotional connection with your lead by referencing the touchpoint they engaged with or responded to.

Link to demo

Now that you’ve established a rapport with your lead, you can start to include messaging with links to demos or videos about your product or service. Remember, this isn’t about what your solution can do, but what your solution can do for them.

Offering demos free of charge attracts more leads as your prospect can sample the service and discover how it addresses their particular needs and solves their pain points.

Continued communication

Now, you should be comfortable talking to your lead and be encouraging them to make a purchase. Whether it’s with weekly or bi-weekly communication, you should be keeping in touch with the prospect and continue to share value-added content. This could be sending them new podcast episodes or blogs relevant to their needs or updating them on any particular sales activity.

The idea here is to build trust and authority between you, rather than spamming their inbox with too much information or content. If you’re too aggressive at this point, they may unsubscribe from your email blasts, causing you to lose that lead.

Want to convert your MQL to SQLs? Download our best practice guidelines here.

Do’s and Don’ts of Converting MQL to SQL

Do:

• Be clear on the kind of content you’re using.
• Concentrate on generating content that solves your customer’s pain points by offering solutions they can easily put into action.
• Keep your content relevant to what your audience wants or needs to know. This could be a thought leader interview or a solution to an industry problem or business challenge.
• Repurpose all content on other platforms.
• Create social media posts that prospects can engage with.
• Include captivating CTAs everywhere.
• Drive traffic by retargeting visitors with content that movies them through the sales funnel.

Don’t:

• Hold leads in the sales pipeline for months, unless there is a positive signal. Instead, put it back into marketing nurture and reach out later.
• Use aggressive sales tactics. Instead, utilise consistent messaging and touchpoints.
• Leave unnecessary room for uncertainties and doubts that could lead to potential customers choosing alternative options.
• Continuously question leads about the past. Instead, focus on building a relationship for the future.
• Hand MQL leads to the sales team until they’ve been nurtured by the marketing team, and are sales-ready.

Generate Marketing-Ready Leads With EM360Tech

Converting MQLs to SQLs doesn’t need to be difficult, but we know it can be time consuming. But taking the time to nurture prospective leads can pay off in the long run. If you’re interested in learning more, or want to discover how EM360Tech can help you generate more leads, get in touch with our sales team.

We work closely with our clients to generate high quality leads that close deals. Collaborate with our team to tap into our exclusive audience of B2B tech buyers and C-suite executives.