What Is SQL Marketing? [Battle Between MQL vs. SQL]

With all the different acronyms flying around the SaaS marketing space, it’s hard to know which metric is a true “north star” whether it be an MQL, SQL, or something else.

Especially in the SaaS space, identifying which metric to align your marketing and sales goals is key to avoiding budget burn. Depending on which SaaS marketing strategy you choose to employ, your objectives may shift.

Which metric you end up choosing primarily depends on what point in the funnel you’re focusing on.

While these aren’t the only metrics out there,  they are the most reliable options of SaaS marketers today. And let’s be clear, choosing any random north star metric (NSM) to guide your growth campaigns is not an option. So understanding the difference between MQLs and SQLs is important if you want to make the right choice.

Yet another part of the problem that many people fail to account for is the discrepancy of actual end buyers in this already complicated journey.

Not only do you have to account for the messy and seemingly never-ending life cycle of your target SaaS account. You also have to consider the fact that the so-called “lead” you just converted isn’t even the end-buyer that your sales team needs to connect with.

“Go ahead and ask your sales team what they really think of an MQL that comes from downloading an eBook and whether or not they like those calls. The negative answers you receive should be enlightening.” – Garrett Mehrguth | Directive, CEO

Aligning your focus towards legitimately qualified sales opportunities is much closer to the mark. And isn’t that the point of a north star metric, after all?

The core difference between MQLs and SQLs boils down to how closely they correlate to the actual growth of your business. The truth is that, despite growing your MQL list you can still fail to grow revenue at the same pace. Why is this? Because the fact is that the Marketing Qualified Lead – when you really look at it – is not that “qualified” of a lead.

In the mind of an MQL focused marketing, you may see an increase in email signups and lead form submissions and think you’re flooding your sales team with gold. But, the reality looks a bit more like this:

The SDR has a handful of marketing qualified leads to follow up with each day. They go down the list and give each person a call. Some answer, most don’t. The next few days are spent following up and trying to get a hold of these people to schedule a qualifying intro call.

Out of the initial list of leads, the SDR only books calls with a few of them. Out of those few that do take a call, an even smaller number of them are ready to move forward in the sales process. From there, it’s highly unlikely that all of the leads who move forward will become customers.

The people that were unresponsive or uninterested can be placed in a marketing nurture sequence in the hopes of keeping them engaged enough to become SQLs down the line.

It may hurt to hear it, but the time of the MQL has come and gone. Vanity metrics such as these only play to the egos of marketers and lead to blind optimization and budget burn.

It’s time we move past the vanity metrics of both Demand and Lead Generation. Today’s SaaS buyers are educated, tech-savvy, scrutinizing buyers that you can’t afford to waste budget by sending useless follow-up emails or content promotions.

Think about it – when was the last time you were truly interested in a sales conversation after filling out an online form? Why do you think that the same old strategies will work on your audience instead?

It’s time we all evolve past the old tenants of B2B Demand Generation into the new age of SaaS marketing. Properly aligned strategies such as these that focus on SQL marketing and growing actual revenue fall under a new field of SaaS marketing.

We are now entering the era of Customer Generation.

The SQL stands at the backbone of the most successful marketing strategies. Which is why it’s no surprise SQL marketing is so important to Customer Generation.

The beauty of the SQL, as opposed to its earlier-in-the-lifecycle counterpart, is that it can be leveraged in financial modeling. What exactly does this mean? It means that SQLs represent a consistent and scalable lever that grows revenue. You have an actual causal correlation to work with here, which gives you financial modeling and goal setting that much more powerful.

It also allows you to better allocate your marketing budget between unique campaigns. Understanding which campaigns are generating SQLs and revenue as opposed to disinterested MQLs makes pivoting budget that much easier.

It’s fair to say that knowing which lever to pull to consistently scale revenue and growth is the dream of every marketer. – Sean Thomas Martin | Directive, Marketing Manager

Customer Generation – as the name implies – is a marketing methodology that delivers on the promise that Demand Gen forgot about.

While demand generation strategies prioritize MQLs and then have you cross your fingers for an increase in revenue, Customer Generation aligns your marketing and sales, your NSMs, and your strategies towards what really matters: customers.

Let’s take a look at the core principles of Customer Generation and how it delivers on the promise Demand Gen forgot about. Here we’ll dive into how it exactly counters each of the five primary pain points of traditional SaaS marketing.