Over a long time, the sales and marketing operations in B2B organizations were thought to be discrete. However, this is rapidly adapting. Nevertheless, as companies throughout the world focus on stabilization following the Covid-19 pandemic interruption, harmonizing the two activities will become even more important.
According to estimates, imbalance between these two roles costs organizations more than a trillion dollars each year. At some point throughout the sales cycle, marketers must transfer over marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales teams as sales qualified leads (SQLs). A large percentage of marketing efforts and resources are wasted when sales and marketing teams are not synchronized.
Marketers and sales staff will see the need of collaborating in near future as organizations aim to avoid even more losses than they have already experienced.
Both of these groups have a specific role to play in the sales pipeline. Marketers are responsible for acquiring prospects and nurturing them into MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) based on predetermined criteria. This ensures they are qualified leads with a higher potential to convert.
Sales teams are then responsible for turning SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads) into clients. However, in order for this to happen, the two teams must collaborate on defining marketing qualified lead criteria and nurturing strategies — and there is evidence to back this up.
According to statistics, connecting sales and marketing teams boosts sales win rates by 38%. Companies who have successfully integrated the two roles have experienced a 24% increase in revenue and a 67 percent increase in the efficiency of their sales staff when it comes to completing transactions.
The Sales Funnel
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Leads move through different phases before becoming clients, as you can see from the sales funnel funnels.
1. Subscribers:
Customers that are not involved with your business are referred to as subscribers. They’re in the early stages of the purchasing process and are just looking for information on a topic or area that interests them. They’re more likely to sign up for newsletters or blogs you have accessible if they visit your website and find content that attracts them.
2. Leads:
Subscribers who are starting to heat up to your business are known as leads. They are well-aware of their requirements and join your email list with a clear goal in mind, such as gaining access to fenced information such as white papers, ebooks, and high-level publications.
However, not all leads are created equal. By nurturing these leads with targeted content and messaging that addresses their specific pain points, you can increase your B2B lead to MQL conversion rate, ultimately turning those interested subscribers into qualified leads ready for further sales engagement.
3. MQLs (Marketing-Qualified Leads):
These leads are at the assessment stage of the purchasing journey. They’re conscious of their issue, they’re aware of the resolution they require, and they’re looking for a product that provides that answer. MQLs, generated through targeted marketing efforts, suit your buyer persona well and are prospective clients for your company.
4. Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs):
These are leads that are ready to be sold. They are those who have the executive power to make purchasing choices in the B2B setting. This implies that if your organization produces quality material that puts it ahead of the competitors, they’ll likely persist through the sales conversation process.
5. Opportunities:
When real sales conversations are started, SQLs turn into opportunities. These are during the purchasing stage of the buyer’s journey. Opportunities communicate with the sales team on a frequent basis until the contract is finalized.
Must Read: What Is MQL & SQL and How Do They Differ?
Integrating Sales and Marketing Efforts to Boost Conversion of MQLs into SQLs
When sales and marketing teams work together, their capabilities are optimized. As businesses recover from the Covid-19 epidemic, marketing and sales channels will work together to cut expenses and boost growth.
To effectively nurture MQLs to SQLs, marketers will need to collaborate closely with sales teams at every level of the selling process, given the evolving behavior of B2B buyers. For any B2B company, the translation of MQLs into SQLs with sales and marketing alignment will be different in following ways:
Begin with a series of intensive marketing strategies:
In the aftermath of a pandemic, B2B sales and marketing teams will unite to conduct extensive outreach efforts to attract prospects. Companies must first recruit MQLs before they can turn them to SQLs.
Because of the pandemic’s impact on businesses, B2B marketers and sales people will need to build a big inventory of prospects to nurture leads and qualify them for sales outreach.
The majority of businesses will concentrate on doubling, if not quadrupling, the number of leads they create at the top of the funnel. However, it’s important to distinguish between unqualified leads, MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), and highly qualified leads (HQLs).
Focusing on nurturing MQLs with targeted content will be crucial to improve conversion rates and generate a pipeline of sales-ready leads.
Despite the fact that this method isn’t recent, B2B sales and marketing teams will have to devote more effort throughout the recovery phase to raising awareness within their target clientele. These initiatives will be aimed at raising brand recognition as well as educating people about the challenges that their products solve.
Enhanced Social Selling Engagement
In the previous several years, social selling has been a catchphrase, going forward it will be at the center of B2B sales operations. Social selling will be used by B2B marketers and sales professionals to nurture MQLs into SQLs by giving MQLs customized content at frequent contact points with the goal of moving them down the pipeline.
B2B marketers and sales representatives will boost their involvement with MQLs on B2B social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.
B2b companies will focus the digital customer experience in order to succeed in social selling. Virtual selling will take center stage, thanks to the pandemic’s increased acceptance of remote labor. Rethinking the digital journey that prospects travel to become clients will be a top goal for B2B marketers and sales professionals.
B2B marketers, on the other hand, will place a greater emphasis on using data to provide highly tailored and targeted campaigns to MQLs.
Ought to Drive Target Audience Traffic to Adaptive Content
After acquiring a large number of leads at the top of the funnel, sales and marketing teams will devote more resources to running promotions that route MQLs to adaptive content, therefore assisting their sales process.
B2B organizations, particularly those using an account-based marketing (ABM) tactics, will employ a variety of digital methods to boost brand awareness across numerous online venues where their target MQLs spend time. The goal is to make adaptive material intended to push MQLs down the funnel visible to everywhere they go.
Must Read: The Significance Of MQL For A B2B Marketer
Employing Dominant Lead Nurturing Techniques
B2B marketers and salespeople will be more active in nurturing leads. Given the detrimental impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on sales income, no one will be willing to risk a potential lead by delaying their heels.
To drive MQLs through the following stages, sales and marketing teams will use marketing automation to manage email campaigns through emails, blogs, and newsletters.
Sales teams will be more active in lead nurturing and Sales professionals from B2B organizations will deliver personalized messages to MQLs to encourage them to take the next step or transform to SQLs. This increased focus on nurturing leads aims to improve the MQL to SQL conversion rate.
More marketers will call judgement makers on a regular basis to deliver relevant information on how the company’s products address their problems, with the goal of converting them to SQLs.
Final Thoughts
Converting MQLs to SQLs will be a top focus for most B2B marketers and sales people after the Covid-19 epidemic caused most organizations’ sales revenues to plummet.
However, marketing methods that have worked in recent years may not work. B2B organizations who adapt to the present climate and employ lead nurturing techniques that adapt to the changes produced by the epidemic will be successful in distinguishing between MQLs and SQLs, ultimately converting more qualified leads.
Want to unlock the mysteries of B2B marketing? Contact Only-B2B today
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Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.