Are MQLs Dead?
In response to a reporter asking about a newspaper publishing his obituary, Mark Twain replied: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Think about the number of times when something or someone has been declared dead and were not. Paul was dead. (The rumor in 1969 was that if you played “Revolution 9” from the White album backwards, you heard the band in an apparent reference to Paul say, “turn me on, dead man.”) Thankfully, Sir Paul is still very much alive.
I grew up during a time when it seemed like a lot of things were dead: Poetry was dead. Followed by chivalry. Yikes, religion was dead? Sounds bleak.
Here are a few more things that are dead or dying this year: advertising (except digital), unsustainable packaging, modern décor, makeup wipes, square necklines and the American Dream. Seems as though the American Dream is always under attack.
Marketing has a bigger graveyard than any other corporate function. Cold calling has been dead for years. Outbound marketing is dead. Direct mail marketing – gone. Some even say that marketing itself is dead. As new marketing apps are introduced, as many or more are dead, or dying. This year, best-of-breed tech stacks are in. Next year?
Now there is a lot of discussion about MQLs (marketing qualified leads) being dead. This is the proverbial “crock.” MQLs are a part of the demand generation process designed by SiriusDecisions. Launched in 2002, and revised in 2012, the SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall became the de facto standard for managing demand generation processes. It is not as though the theory behind the waterfall was or is wrong. It has simply been wrongly implemented by most companies. MQLs are not dead. The processes around managing them are.
Here is how you can make sure MQLs live a useful life:
The need for a shared definition of a lead between marketing and sales. As amazingly simple as this is, agreement on lead definition rarely occurs in most companies. Hence, marketing metrics default to the number of leads and the cost per lead and sales ignores the leads entirely.
The lack of an accountable process. It is not too unusual for MQLs to drop into a black hole called CRM. Sales must proactively accept or reject leads and provide a reason any lead is rejected. (“I called them twice and they did not call back so they must not be interested” is NOT a valid reason.)
A judicial branch. This function (in small to mid-sized companies this “committee” includes the CEO) inspects leads that are rejected (did they or did they not meet the lead criteria); leads that are ignored (not rejected but not worked); and leads that are accepted but do not move in the funnel—to assure accountability.
It does not matter what you call leads at the top of the funnel. It is not the label that is broken. It is, and has been, the process for handling leads that is broken.