MQLs aren’t dead. But rubbish leads are.

It’s a recurring topic at marketing conferences. Designed to shock.

MQLs are dead.

While I understand that there are factors in play that mean their importance is being re-evaluated, to say MQLs are dead is an oversimplification. I think they’re very much alive. But only when done right.

The traditional definition of a marketing lead is outdated, and you certainly cannot rely on them as your only metric. It focuses on individuals, rather than recognising the collective interests of buying groups for one thing. And traditional sales follow-up on leads is usually slow or non-existant, killing conversion rates.

I’ve seen some really bad leads. A report download is NOT a lead. Someone who comes to an event is NOT a lead. Neither is someone who engages with social post, clicks through an email or someone who so much as breathes… you get the picture. Imagine hundreds of these flooding a CRM system and expecting sales to follow them up. Never going to happen.

The secret is asking your sales team what they want. What does a good lead look like to them? That they’d be excited to follow up with? If marketing defined its MQLs in the same way, and delivered them to sales, then that can only be a good thing right?

It might be a prospect actively raising their hand and asking to be contacted about a particular product or service. Or it might be a scored lead that meets an agreed threshold which delivers a highly engaged prospect matching the profile of someone sales want to talk to. Or it might be something else entirely that sales define as “good.” Whatever the definition, the right MQLs are great opportunities for sales to start a meaningful conversation with prospects of interest. 

That all said, you can’t solely rely on MQLs to demonstrate the impact of marketing. They should be combined with other performance marketing metrics, as well as brand and engagement metrics to provide a full picture of how a business’ investment in marketing is influencing long and short term growth.

But it’s certainly not time to bury MQLs.