Is marketing giving your hotel sales team MQLs or SQLs?

Today, we’re talking about…
The difference between Marketing Qualified and Sales Qualified Leads.

Let’s be clear.

Every lead is a good lead.

But... let’s be honest.

Some leads are better than others.

That’s typically the difference between an MQL and an SQL.

i.e. Marketing Qualified Lead vs Sales Qualified Lead.

What the heck’s the difference?

Ask any seasoned sales professional and they’ll tell you that it’s likely the difference between a good target and a real buyer.

Definitions, please!

MQLs are qualified targets for whom you’ve got a name and an email. These might be great prospects, but they still need some convincing. SQLs, on the other hand, have expressed buyer intent in some way, like filling out a form on your website. In short, MQLs are lukewarm leads. SQLs are hot leads.

In a perfect world, marketing would generate SQLs all day long.

This would keep your sales team fat and happy with a pipeline of great opportunities to chase down.

In practice, however, it looks more like this.

Marketing provides sales with a list of meeting planners. These aren’t exactly hot leads. These are more like... targets. They might be good targets, but nobody knows if these folks are buying, shopping, etc... Classic MQL.

Or it looks like this…

Marketing buys a lead list from a bridal publisher. You might know that these "leads" are recently engaged, but none of those “leads” specifically selected your property, which means they haven’t shown real buyer intent for your product. It's a good starting place, but your sales team has a lot of work ahead of them. Classic MQL.

True SQLs come inbound.

Typically through the website. Leads that come inbound directly through the hotel or venue website generally close at a higher rate. 

Why?

If marketing does its job correctly, their digital journey already pre-qualified them. They might have searched wedding venues or meeting venues, clicked on an ad, went to your website, and filled out a form. That means that lead already took 3-4 actions before it got to your sales team.

Leads don’t often get more qualified than that.