Yes, this Tuesday, it’s time to join the rest of the marketing great and the good and give the old MQL a bit of a roasting…
There is a classic Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch from before we were born, in which a one-legged man has an audition for the role of Tarzan. The sketch finishes with:
You are deficient in it to the tune of one. Your right leg, I like. I like your right leg. A lovely leg for the role. That’s what I said when I saw you come in. I said, “A lovely leg for the role.” I’ve got nothing against your right leg. The trouble is – neither have you.
Now, I am not suggesting a one-legged person could not play Tarzan; we are a bit more broad-minded on that sort of thing than we were in 1960.
I do, however, feel that way about MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads).
The M, I like, it’s a lovely word for the role; I noticed that when it came in.
It’s the Q & L.
Let’s start with L for lead. This is probably why most contemporary marketing commentators are waging war on the MQL.
Fundamentally, MQLs are lone individuals expressing interest, whereas a B2B buying journey is the path of a hunting pack, not an individual, so it’s a fraction of a potential opportunity.
Getting a fraction of a potential opportunity will not set sales trousers on fire; it is a lead, like a detective might get a lead. It’s a thread to follow, and there is plenty of work ahead; it’s not a suspect confessing to the crime.
And, of course, a deal, like solving a crime, is the path of a series of leads that need to be worked.
Some, yes, are directly marketing generated, like a form fill, but they also come from the salesperson going door to door on LinkedIn, or an industry news story about a company having the need for a solution to the problem you solve, or a business card dropped into a prize draw for some branded shiny thing at your booth, etc., etc.
And most likely, it’s a combination of the above that we’ve wrongly attributed.
And some, yes, are bluebirds, where someone has not only the desire to buy, but the ability to buy, the authority to buy and, brace yourselves…… a big bag of cash, the prospect confesses there and then to their need for the thing you do.
So maybe lead is the right word, but the value we’ve weighted on them is wrong.
We expect high fives when we toss the lead into the sales, but what they see is a future of emptying the perps bin on their desk and sifting for clues, while the captain (who’s about to retire) shouts from their office.
Sorry, I’ve disappeared into my cop show analogy; I’m now concerned about the captains last day before retirement, probably a much better story than this….
What it ain’t is a deal.
Then there’s the Q for Qualified.
Let’s be very honest about this: that’s a bit of a stretch when you pop the word marketing in front of it.
If we broadly agree that attribution is, errrmmmmm…. a somewhat imprecise… thing.. (not a science), and a lot of what a prospect does with us before we meet is fumbling around in the dark, I don’t know how you can qualify something as a potential opportunity simply from the bloop beep bobs you see on your marketing radar screen.
You really need to speak to them, and that’s the job of sales.
At the beginning of my marketing journey, I spent a lot of time engaging with Hubspot content, as it was educational, and early in their life, they put a lot of work into that. The poster child of content marketing back in the day.
But, however much I bounced around their site in 2008 or whenever it was, I did not influence a deal for Hubspot until almost a decade or so later.
Maybe I was a lead in the loosest possible sense, and maybe the Hubspot cold case department was high-fiving when my name finally appeared on an order form.
But when I showed up as a beep on their sales radar – I was not the hottest of opportunities.
It was not worth a salesperson emptying my trash can on their desk looking for budget, authority, need and timeline.
So, yes, the M I like, a lovely word for the role.
We definitely play a role in lining up the suspects.
But, we might have something against the Q and the L.
Fancy more of this?
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I’m a 3xCMO, now a marketing strategy advisor and podcast host at Rockstar CMO. Although, I’m not a rock star, but a marketing leader, strategist, content marketer, columnist, speaker, industry watcher, and creator of ART (Awareness, Revenue, and Trust) for the companies I work with. But most of all, I am an enthusiastic tea drinker.
You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or now Threads! – or listen to my weekly podcast at Rockstarcmo.com
The half-baked thoughts shared on this blog may not reflect those of my employer or clients, and if the topic of this article is interesting or you just want to say hello please get in touch.