From leads to opportunities: the winning formula to optimise MQL to SQL conversion

The MQL to SQL conversion rate is a critical indicator of marketing and sales performance. On average, though, businesses convert 0-10% of their marketing leads.

Optimising your conversion process can directly impact business growth. It delivers better returns on your marketing investment, improves the efficiency of your sales function and accelerates revenue generation.

To secure predictable, long-term growth through an optimal conversion process, you must establish a strong qualification framework, enable lightning-quick speed-to-lead and devise a thoughtful plan for nurturing best-fit leads.

Here’s how.

Define exactly who your customers are and what their business challenges look like.

Develop marketing content that addresses those challenges and adds value at different stages of the buyer journey. This will ensure that your marketing keeps them engaged during their buying research.

Nurturing your MQLs in this way enables your sales team to focus on leads that are further into their buyer journey. This makes them more ready to engage in a meaningful sales conversation.

By aligning Sales and Marketing on a consistent conversion process and shared lead qualification criteria, you can enable your SDRs to promptly follow up on MQLs that are most likely to convert.

Buyers conduct their online research using multiple sources and platforms in a short period of time.

Increasing your speed-to-lead quickly sets you apart from competitors and enhances customer experience from the outset.

Yet, some MQLs will take more time to convert.

In industries with typically harder-to-reach prospects (e.g. healthcare), your SDRs might struggle to start a conversation with a busy decision-maker right after the MQL creation.

Keep these MQLs warm with a consistent lead nurture process, and rapidly improve your MQL to SQL conversion rates.

Tailored, multi-channel touchpoints will help you establish stronger relationships with best-fit leads and guide them through the sales funnel.

Over the last quarter (1 April – 30 June 2023), our conversion rates continued to rise well above the industry average (0-10%) and reached a new record of 42.3%.

Why settle for less?

Learn more about our proven conversion process and the results it delivers in our latest performance report.