WHAT ARE MQAS AND WHY ARE THEY THE FUTURE OF DEMAND GENERATION?
WHAT ARE MQLS & MQAS? In demand generation, for some time marketers have been using marketing qualified leads (MQLs). MQLs are leads that are considered ready to pass to sales. They are individuals who have indicated they’re more interested than other leads by engaging with your brand but have not made a purchase yet. However, there is a current shift in the world of demand generation from Marketing Qualified Leads to Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs). Market Qualified Accounts are similar to Marketing Qualified Leads but rather than focusing on one individual, MQAs focus on entire accounts that are ready to go to sales. MQAs are accounts that have reached a sufficient level of engagement to indicate possible sales readiness.
MQAS EXPLAINED Imagine a football team and a coach. If the players decide they want a new Nike football kit, each player researches the kits and engages on every possible level, there’s a clear marketing opportunity. The players of course are not the decision maker, but they will have some influence on how the budget gets spent. If the Nike marketing team waits for engagement from the primary decision maker (the coach) they may not receive any engagement until they decide to purchase. This analogy illustrates the error in relying solely on MQLs and how it can lead to missed marketing opportunities. Think of a company which has numerous amounts of people interacting with your website and marketing materials. Each individual hasn’t engaged enough to set off MQL bells by themselves, but together when you look at the account you can see there could be interest from the company as a whole.
ARE MQAS STRONGER LEADS? Buying teams within organisations are getting bigger which means there are more influencers to affect the decision makers purchasing decision. Understanding the level of communication that goes on within a business is vital. If an idea is being discussed within an organisation not all the engagement will come from the person considered the decision maker, but this doesn’t mean that there’s not a sales opportunity there. Having more people involved in the research stage of a purchase can in fact make the lead stronger. Although the final decision is ultimately with the decision maker, the influencers within an organisation can have a big part to play in the purchasing decision. With privacy laws like GDPR becoming more prominent, focusing on MQAs instead of MQLs allows you to market in a less-invasive manner.
MEASURING MQAS One good way to measure engagement form an account rather than an individual is to assign minutes to each action a prospect takes. For example, if a prospect opens an email this might account for 1 minute. Downloading an eBook could account for 10 minutes and scheduling a meeting with a sales representative could account for 30 minutes. Based on the amount of time accumulated within an organisation you can determine if the account qualifies as an MQA.
FINAL THOUGHTS Tracking accounts rather than individuals can deliver higher quality leads that could have easily been missed. Salespeople aren’t measured on the number of leads they close; they’re measured on the number of accounts they close. The best Marketing Qualified Accounts are the ones you wouldn’t have discovered when scoring for individual engagement.
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