What is the future of MQLs?

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Then going, fuck the MQL. It's all about brand now again. Collecting this time. The world of B2B marketing sales and service tech is moving fast. This podcast will cut through the hype, the hidden agendas and bullshit advice in search of the truth to help you make more informed decisions. We've obviously gone through a cycle of various different approaches to marketing that have helped marketing elevate its

profile in an organisation and let's face it, a few years ago, 10, 15 years ago, was known as the colouring in team in most organisations. There was no real way of proving the worth of marketing. It was just a support function for sales. Then we found through inbound, through how that combines with outbound through things like ABM, a way to justify marketing's contribution to growth and to revenue.

not directly but indirectly. And the whole concept of the MQL has obviously been the thing that most marketers have gravitated towards to use as a metric to justify that we're actually contributing to leads and opportunities. There's a big question mark now over the future of the MQL and where that fits in the playbook. everyone's got a different view, but if I can finish.

And there's a lot of talk about brand, brand's more important now. But all of this technology has been put into place to help the marketeer justify its existence and point to the reporting around the MQL and how it's contributing to the lifecycle of the lead attribution, all that sort of stuff. And if we move away from that more towards brand, how important is the technology? Well, to step back a little bit and probably challenge the reasoning that people are

I'm doing away with the MQL. My view would be that, and this is very pessimistic, is that marketers have said, look, let us prove to you the impact we're having on a business. Let us prove to you that we're generating revenue and we connect the dots between what we do and the money that comes through the door and that will elevate our position. And they've reached that point. Now it's time to kind of prove that. Lots of them are probably scratching around and thinking, actually, can I prove

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that me and my team have had that impact. And a lot of cases are probably thinking it's maybe not as easy to prove, or actually this is highlighted that we're not having the impact that we thought we were and should be having. And so the skeptical for you is that people are then going, fuck the MQL. It's all about brand now again. It's gone full circle. Just don't worry about MQLs. It's happening. Don't worry about it, Mr. CFO.

This is all fine. We've got loads of views on the website, all the other shit vanity metrics that have pre-existed the MQL. And now back in favor again. So if the question is, if it's not the MQL, then what is it? Is it social media impressions? Is it website views or all of that crap that really tells the business leaders nothing about the impact that marketing is having really? that, mean, that's the question I put back to you. What is it?

I don't, I mean, I still see that there's some validity in having the MQL. I think the problem with the MQL is that as everything in marketing, we go through cycles. when this whole playbook with inbound to, know, track people to your website, provide lead magnets that people would be prepared to give up their email for, which you can then use as a vehicle to nurture them, report on them as MQLs.

Obviously, they're all at different stages in terms of their readiness to buy. we always say no lead is equal. They're always at different stages. So I think the concept of the MQL is still sound. think it's the fact that early adopters embraced inbound, generated lots of MQLs, and great for them, got ahead of the game. And that's where you want to be from a marketing perspective.

I think the problem is now that whole playbook is so well established and so done to death. You have to then think, well, it's that diminishing returns thing with marketing. you're back to that situation where, because everyone is getting in a day with emails. Since something's good, it works, everyone latches onto it. then it diminishes the impact because the people on the receiving end, they're in a day with emails. They're sick of signing up to stuff because it just means they're in

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the email is going to get even more clogged up. So it's less and less effective and means that the con also there's so much content to choose from as well. So much free stuff like these podcasts and everything else. Are you going to now need to give your email up to consume some content? And I think that's what's actually happened. It's not the MQL as a concept doesn't work. It's just, it's just become harder and harder to get MQLs because people are less

inclined to give up their email address because they know they're going to get handed by BDR. Yeah. But that's misinterpreting what I think an MQL is. An MQL doesn't have to be a form submission or an exchange of an email address. An MQL can be what an organization decides it is. So if a good enough signal of intent from a potential prospect is something other than a form submission,

Maybe it's a subscription. We'll come on to that in a second. Maybe it's engagement with the blog. Giving up of data for a form submission is kind of the done practice, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that has to be how you define an MQL. So I agree that the diminishing returns of MQL production is meaning that the MQL rates probably broadly, if you looked at it at a macro level, are declining.

But I think that's more of an issue with the way that MQLs are measured rather than the MQL. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. I think the wider problem within MQL, and I was having this debate with the client this week actually, is that oftentimes the MQL becomes the only point of reference around marketing success and their performance when a good marketeer and really a good business person knows that marketing's impact extends beyond

the production of leads through things like brand through things like all of the unknown influence that you might be having on an individual, which is not necessarily easily tracked through messaging, positioning, everything else really connected to marketing is having an impact that you can't necessarily tie back to an MQL. It might be that 50 % of your marketing people's time and budget goes to the direct production of MQLs, but the whole

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marketing budget is then effectively measured against that MQL rate, which makes no sense. The solution is to look at MQL within a suite of different measures, which also try and assess the other impact that marketing is having. The problem comes back though is, is it possible to assess those things? it easy to assess the impact of brand, for example? And I think we all know the answer to that is no.

Well, have a different, when people say brand, almost always think of let's hire a very expensive London agency that's going to rebrand us and then we're going to do loads of brand type advertising. And, you know, we'll do extensive workshops with our clients and internally and create this amazing new brand. All the focus, all the money goes into brand and advertising and launching. And no one really gives a shit about your brand.

a launch. Marketing works when you forget about metrics and you don't concentrate on MQLs and all the other paraphernalia that will come into a reporting suite, but you focus on what really matters, which is building an audience and being consistently shown up to that audience and demonstrating a level of expertise and building trust with that audience over time.

And the more of an audience you can build, the more of a market you're creating for yourself. don't believe you can really control whether that or dictate whether that when that people within that audience decide to buy from you. No, the odd 95.5 rule that was talked about. Absolutely. So but what really works is to do that on a long term basis, like the clients that we work with on a long term basis, you can see the impact it's had. It's very difficult to pinpoint

how or where and measure that to the nth degree and be really certain about that measurement. you know it's had an impact because they've consistently showed up. The market has become more aware of them. It's got to know them. It now trusts them. And when they do need their type of service, they'll go to them because they're top of mind. That's where marketing really works. How you measure that is the problem. The reason why we use the MQL is because you can measure a component of it.

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And you can prove to people above that don't really get marketing. Look, this is where we're having. And that's the problem. Like all of our clients, thankfully, and the leaders that run those businesses understand that they are mature enough in their marketing. I need to say marketing journey. And then they throw up in my mouth, but they're mature enough in the way that they think about marketing to see past the fact that the impact is beyond just that singular.

and QL figure and they feel the impact of it in their businesses. So of course they would. But if you go to a CFO that maybe is in an organization that's had a marketing team that hasn't necessarily been performing or they don't have a marketing team at all and try and sell the concept of that to them, they're going to laugh you out the door. Where's the ROI? Yeah. If I spend this, what am going to get back? Absolutely. Yeah. That's the perpetual challenge, isn't it?

That is the challenge. in ideal world, we wouldn't get any content. You'd still continuously push out that content to the market because you know it's important to create awareness, to create momentum for your business. But someone that has never been through that journey, we've got clients that have been through that journey and they get it now. They've seen the impacts. They're less concerned about where's the monthly report.

They just know they need to do it because they've seen it work for their business and they've seen that how it's contributed to because what another one of our sort of long standing clients that said to us, it's not really about leads, the difference that you've made. It's the fact that every time we walked into a room with a new prospect, they knew who we were. That's the power of our. It's not until someone sees that that they get clicks. Yeah. Yeah. So it's our challenge as a business is to

convince people that it will work, it needs time. But there's been a multi-billion pound industry built around the concept of an MQL to justify marketing existence. I really do believe that technology is so critical for marketing and sales going forward. I think for me, it's about looking at how the tech can be used in a way that's

Emma Buckingham (11:56.864)
improving the lead management process, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing. There's so many, as I was going back to the earlier point, so much technology in place, but there's so many barriers to overcome to get it to work. we've worked with clients where they're spending three weeks just trying to get a landing page together. the tech should just be so easy to use that you're focusing on actually the campaign, the program.

And on conversion, mean, that's another point around MQLs is that it's a largely organizations are looking for the biggest number possible. But then we've seen throughout time, so many people generate 200, 300 MQLs a week even, and then not follow them up or even bother to try and convert them. I mean, that's just stupid. You'd rather have 10 MQLs and then be followed up properly, surely. we don't place enough. And this links back to our conversation earlier about the

disintegration between the sales, customer service and marketing teams, in that they're also all measured on different metrics. Ultimately, it should be a combined effort. think whilst marketeers value the MQL, because it proves their existence, whilst maybe leadership look at MQLs and are bought into the fact that it's a measure of effectiveness for marketing. And it is, by the way. And it is.

I don't think salespeople bind to the MQL concept because salespeople, like you say, they've got completely different targets and goals to marketing, really. I mean, everyone's responsible for generating revenue growth, but ultimately what marketing is measured on is very different to sales, really. I don't believe in this marketing should be responsible for revenue because I don't think they have an impact on sales in our B2B world when you're talking about complex big deals that need to be managed by a salesperson.

Should we be looking at sales and marketing that separately? Shouldn't there be combined responsibility? I think the problem with the MQL and sales is that salespeople, want the golden leads. Served upon a platter leads. They want the sales ready, ready to buy right now with no competition. That's what they want. And really, we all know that going back to the earlier point, no lead is equal. They're all at different stages. And if you serve up an MQL,

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that needs to be followed up by a salesperson, you'll get 30, 40, 50 people attend a webinar. They're all MQLs. You give that to a salesperson, they've got to follow that up. That's a pretty big effort to follow all that up. And you probably only get to speak to a small fraction of them. And then if nothing materializes from that, you just think, what a waste of my time. I'm not going to do that again.

If you've got a team of shit, I'm not doing that again. What's the alternative for them people though to call up someone that hasn't had any engagement with the business at all? Well, obviously the BDR role should be in between the sales function, the true sales function and marketing. Their job should be to follow these things up. But even so, I don't think people really appreciate. If you've got an ideal customer that

you've just engaged with for the first time. value of that is, given we know how hard it is to get through to people, I think it's really valuable, I don't think people appreciate in the sales roles that you are going to get these leads that are very different stages. You still got to value a lead that's even going to potentially say, we're not ready right now. Come and talk to us again in 12 months.

As long as you do something over that period to maintain that level of interest or maintain that level of awareness of your brand through marketing, then it's still a valuable lead. Well, it's not a lead, is it? It's suspect. Well, I don't know. I always get confused between the definitions of suspects and the suspects for me are a database of potential prospects. But they've shown some level of interest in the topic in which we're trying to sell to them. should sales...

and BDR team shouldn't necessarily think that that's going to mean that they're ready to buy. That's not what the marketing team and what an MQL is offering. What it's offering is a hint, a clue. Yeah, but that's where there's a disconnect. Yeah. And then, then the next step that marketing went through is to say, okay, well, let's score these leads then we've got too many to give to the sales team. Then we all know how that goes. scoring is qualification.

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which is effectively what lead scoring is trying to do. be done by a BDR. Should be done by a BDR. Yeah, absolutely. It's the connection between the marketeer, the BDR and the salesperson that is often flawed. And that's why the whole management of a lead isn't as effective as it could be. know, what happens after a BDR has had a conversation with someone and they're just not ready to buy. know, they should go into a nurture stream.

Yeah, but then, you know, then there's an expectation. Well, you can just automate that, but then we want to have that goes. No one likes to receive an obviously automated email, but there should be a nurturing program that runs alongside and it's a seamless handover between when there's an interaction over the phone and there's a qualification in that discovery call. And wherever that conversation goes and whatever the next action is, it should go.

to either a salesperson or it should go back into that nurture program. the technology, I don't think in most organizations is set up in a way that enables that to happen seamlessly. for some of our clients it is. So a good example of that. Obviously with the exception of all our clients. exactly. I don't want take credit for this personally, by the way, but one of our clients is a good example. Hopefully we're not giving away their secrets here.

but they have a process in between handover to sales that isn't handled by the BDR, it's handled by a market research team. So what happens when they generate a new MQL is they will then be qualified against an ICP fit. Absolutely. Which can be done automatically, often poorly. So they have a human step in between some of this automation that basically goes and researches that organization, which has shown some intent and will then

So they're a good fit, they're a bad fit and not until that happens will they go on to the sales and BDR teams or SDR teams. So that process is a better filter to prevent that kind of MQLs a shit opinion from spreading. Cause as you said, once that's set, then sales teams don't take it seriously. not then going to follow up this with the bottom of their list.

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which it really shouldn't be if marketing teams and businesses broadly are investing in the production of MQLs. For them not to be followed up is a waste of time, they just won't bother doing it in the first place. And by the way, that is a combination of human input and technology. So as soon as they're marked in that way, automatically they'll be routed through to the right salesperson if they are relevant, or they will be automatically sent a projection email, basically.

Sorry, not right for us. It's such a gap in so many organisations. We have these conversations all the time. You start talking to a potentially new client and you start asking the question, so what are you doing for a marketing? yeah, we're pretty advanced with marketing. We do this, that, and the other. Our webinar program is really successful. We get 100 people attend on average and then you carry on with the conversations. So those people that are attending, they?

good fit prospects. Yeah, absolutely. So effectively an MQL. I'm going call it that. What do you do with those MQLs then? they're not really followed up by the sales team. you're so you're getting a pat on the back from your leadership team saying what a great job you've done because you've got a hundred people to your webinar. Yeah. But none of them followed up. Yeah. And you can't prove whether any of them have been followed up in the past. They've actually converted to a customer. Yeah. No, no. So that then you start to you look at their face and they're going

having this sinking feeling thinking, yeah, we're just always focused on the next webinar, getting more people, more bums on seats, collecting this kind of... Wow, all that. It's the alarm. It's maybe telling us to call in a I think our studio time is finished and it's clearly professional studio.