MQL Full Form

Like other professionals, digital marketers and advertisers use many acronyms and abbreviations. According to online sources, the number of acronyms in digital marketing may exceed one million. MQL belongs to the category of common digital marketing acronyms. We are making it easier for beginners to decipher this important acronym by discussing the important aspects like MQL full form, MQL meaning, and MQL criteria. In addition, we will decode two important acronyms – SAL and SQL – related to MQL.

What is the Full Form of MQL?

The full form of MQL is “marketing-qualified lead“. Lead refers to an individual or organization that has shown interest in the products or services offered by a business. The lead is tagged as marketing-ready as he is not yet ready to buy the product or services. Marketers understand a lead’s interest in a product/service based on specific actions like downloading an eBook, subscribing to a newsletter, or attending a webinar.

What is the Meaning of MQL?

Before placing an order or completing a deal, a prospect passes through a series of stages – awareness, consideration, decision, and action. Marketers represent the buyer’s journey visually in the form of sales funnels. They position MQLs in the middle of the sales funnel. An MQL remains in the consideration stage after crossing the awareness stage.

Marketers guide MQL across the buyer’s journey through nurturing. Their lead nurturing strategy focuses on gathering relevant information about MQLs. Brands usually nurture MQL by sending automated emails, sharing educational content, and making personal phone calls. However, they do not introduce the brand during the lead nurturing process as marketers focus on collecting information that will prepare the MQL to receive sales calls.

What are the Key Criteria for Identifying or Defining MQL?

Companies and startups these days generate leads regularly using top digital marketing channels – websites, mobile apps, search engines, social media, video platforms, and paid ads. However, they detect MQLs by scanning and filtering leads using a slew of parameters or criteria. We are highlighting the key criteria marketers use for identifying MQLs.

Customer Demographics

As important statistical data, customer demographics help marketers understand and define important characteristics of potential customers. Customer demographics include a lead’s personal information like age, gender, location, marital status, education, occupation, and income. Also, customer demographics help marketers identify a B2B lead’s organization, position, and decision-making capacity.

Buying Habits

Marketers determine the buying habits of a lead by assessing the behavior of existing customers. The behavior helps them understand what makes customers buy products or services provided by the business repeatedly.

They primarily focus on the behavior that converted leads into customers in the past. Marketers compare the lead’s behavior with the buying habits of existing scores. The behavioral information makes it easier for them to detect leads who are interested in the product or service.

Interaction with Marketing Assets

As noted earlier, an MQL conveys his interest in a product/service by interacting with the brand’s marketing assets. However, each lead interacts with marketing assets in various ways. For instance, the lead may visit the pricing page or request a demo while visiting a website.

Likewise, he can register for or attend a webinar. Marketers decide if a lead is marketing-ready by scoring and prioritizing brand interactions. For instance, they prioritize leads who have attended a webinar or event organized by the brand. Likewise, they ignore leads who visited multiple web pages on the website.

What Makes MQL Different from SAL and SQL?

While understanding MQL’s meaning, beginners must decode two important lead generation acronyms – SAL and SQL. SAL stands for sales accepted leads, while SQL stands for sales-qualified leads. After identifying MQLs, marketers nurture them by sharing educational and informative content. Also, they determine if the MQL is ready to move to the next stage in the sales funnel during the nurturing process.

Sales accepted leads (SAL) refer to the MQL qualified by the marketing team and accepted by the sales team. The sales team identifies SALs by scoring MQLs using a variety of parameters – need, location, budget, authority, and timeline. These parameters help the sales team ensure that there is a high probability that the lead will become a customer. Salespeople convert the SAL into SQL through follow-ups and nurturing.

Sales-qualified leads (SQL) remain in the decision stage of the sales funnel. They have expressed their intention to buy a product or service clearly. SQL indicates their intention to buy by requesting a demo, asking for a quote, or sharing information through the contact form. In addition, they met the criteria set by the sales team to qualify as potential customers. Hence, the sales team converts SQL into customers through effective nurturing.

[We have discussed other aspects of MQL and SQL in this insightful blog post – MQL to SQL Conversion Rate.]

Conclusion

MQL is one of the commonly used acronyms in digital marketing. When decoding MQL meaning, beginners must understand the significance and role of lead scoring systems. Lead scoring systems automate the identification of MQL by assigning scores or rewarding points. They score leads by measuring their interaction with a brand using specific marketing channels.

For instance, these marketing automation tools tag a lead as marketing-ready when he clicks on an email link, attends a webinar, or requests a demo while visiting the website. The lead score makes it easier for digital marketers to detect MQL without putting in extra time and effort. Also, they can convert the MQL into SQL by nurturing him early in the buyer’s journey.