Tips to Improve Mql Conversion Rates

Marketers, we need to talk. If your GTM plan starts with “Let’s run pushing stories & ads” and ends with “Why didn’t they convert?” - we have a bigger problem than just low CTRs.  Truth is, 90% of marketing flops because we’re skipping the actual strategy.  Not the buzzword kind - the kind that makes your messaging click, your audience nod, and your offer convert.  So here’s the cheat code I’ve seen work across startups, enterprises, and everything in between 👇  --- ✅ Start with the WHO Your audience isn't “mid-market companies.”  It's *Product Ops leads in fintech who’ve been burned by bad data and hate Excel.*  Nail their pains, goals, and firmographics like your pipeline depends on it (because it does).  Use STP - Segment → Target → Position  ✅ Then sharpen your edge What do you stand *against*? What makes you different beyond “great service”?  If your positioning can’t pick a fight, it won’t win a market.  Find your enemy, define your category, and *own the narrative*.  ✅ Now, speak human    Don’t just list features. Translate them.    Instead of “AI-powered insights,” try; “Know what your customer wants before they do — without hiring a data team.”  Value = Benefits + Proof + Tone of Voice  ✅ Finally, make your offer frictionless No one wants a mystery box. Show the timeline, deliverables, guarantees and make the ROI obvious.  If they’re scrolling, skimming, or squinting - you’ve already lost them.  Here’s the kicker - You don’t need #more content. You need the #right content, with the right message, for the right audience, in the right frame.  And yes, it takes work. But so does fixing bad MQLs. 💬 Curious which step your team usually trips on? Drop it below - I’ve seen (and survived) them all. #GTM #Messaging #Strategy #ContentThatConverts #Marketing #Leadership #Positioning #ValueProp #NoFluffFrameworks

"Our funnel is completely clogged, and our CEO and investors are starting to panic," shared a CMO from a $375MM SaaS firm. The other Huddlers sympathized, noting they were facing similar challenges. Sound familiar? The old playbook of flooding the funnel, scoring MQLs, and handing off to sales isn't just broken; it's toxic. Here's why your funnel is clogged and what actually works now: 1. Your data is a disaster. The average customer contact database health score? A pathetic 47%, according to research from BoomerangAI. More than half of B2B companies haven't updated their database in six months—or ever. Bad data isn't just an operational issue. It erodes every layer of your funnel. Fix this first. Assign database ownership cross-functionally. Tie enrichment to your GTM motions. And please activate alumni contact programs. Only 12% of companies have formal programs for contacts who left employers, yet they're gold mines. 2. You're still pitching tours when buyers want tools. Recent TrustRadius research shows that 52% of buyers say prior experience is their #1 decision input. Only 13% say a demo "blew them away." 3. Stop the demo obsession. Launch website-based product exploration tools. Add pricing guidance. Create modular content for AI summarization since 90% of buyers who see AI-generated summaries click through to cited sources. 4. The MQL addiction is killing you. As one CMO put it: "MQLs are problematic... we’re trying to figure out how to get fewer, better leads." Track conversion quality at each funnel stage. Hold weekly demand gen and sales alignment meetings. Ditch vanity metrics for outcome-based KPIs. 5. You're pitching spend instead of displacement. Few CFOs are greenlighting net-new spending, but they will approve reallocation when the ROI is crystal clear. Reframe your pitch: "Invest in this → reduce spend on that." Connect to CFO logic, not just user pain. 6. You're making promises instead of proving value. Buyers want proof in 120 days or less. The "trust us, it'll pay off eventually" era is dead. If you have the data, create 120-day value realization case studies. Use prospect data to build "speed-to-value" narratives. Lead with time-to-value, not feature lists. The companies unclogging their funnels aren't working harder—they're working smarter. They've ditched the old playbook for data-driven precision. Your move. PS - For a longer look at this issue, please check out my May 2025 #HuddleUp newsletter.

Here's how I treat MQLs from a webinar or a white paper download. Separate the MQLs into Handraisers and Learners. Handraisers = looking to evaluate solutions (they're asking for a call/demo) Learners = looking to learn root causes of problems (they're not asking for a call/demo) We WANT learners to learn with us. We WANT to shape their demand by influencing how, what, and where they learn about their business problems. But, when they attend a webinar to learn and we send 30 follow up emails offering a demo, they think twice about learning with us again. We risk losing our ability to influence their learning journey. Instead, try feeding them "learner" content as follow up. Here's one example for a webinar attendee (it's nothing earth-shattering): Sara, Here's something we didn't cover on the discovery webinar today. It's the 5 questions Betty uses to quantify the buyer's pain. Not sure if you are rethinking discovery. But, if content like this helps, I can share what the CRO at ACME did to get their AEs to stop asking surface-level disco questions. Either way, thanks for joining us. Jen PS - looks like Tom James in Enablement joined, too. Some things to keep in mind: - No mention of our solution (we have no idea yet if there is a problem worth solving) - The "give" doesn't require opening an attachment or a link (keep it helpful, but low-effort; add below your auto-sig) - Spark curiosity at the end with a meatier give. If they ARE teetering on the handraiser ledge, it's one way to open the door to a purposeful convo. - Don't waste prime real estate with "thank you for joining our webinar today". it eats up your preview text. readers assume the rest of the email is like the other 500 webinar follow up emails they receive and hit delete before reading. - Use unsure tonality whenever sharing a hypothesis about them (just because they attended doesn't guarantee they have a problem) - No ask for time + low pressure close ("either way" has worked wonders for me to avoid sounding desperado) - Use the PS to show there are others in the business interested in the problem, too

🚨Meta Ads Lead Generation is not as simple as it looks. I recently audited an IVF clinic’s meta ads account. IVF leads are costly. But what really hurts is calling people who were never ready. On the dashboard, everything looked fine. Plenty of leads. Decent CPL. But when I spoke to the counsellors, the reality was different. Most leads were just exploring, not planning treatment. So we changed one thing first: We stopped chasing volume and started filtering for intent. What we did (very simply): • Rebuilt lead forms to ask the right questions • Qualified leads using real IVF signals like age, TTC duration, past treatments • Built audiences from people who actually booked consultations • Changed creatives from discounts to trust, care, and reassurance • Took weekly feedback from counsellors and fed it back into Meta What happened next (in 90 days): → CPL dropped by 34% → Lead-to-MQL conversion improved by 46% → MQL to SQL moved from 19% to 37% → Consultation bookings went up by 39% → Cost per booked consultation fell by 41% Big takeaway for me: IVF marketing isn’t about hacks or aggressive optimisation. It’s about empathy, clarity, and meeting people at the right moment. #HealthcareMarketing #MetaAds #LeadGeneration #PerformanceMarketing #DigitalMarketing #MarketingStrategy

If your July was a little soft and you have some catching up to do to hit your Q3 number, here's a couple moves you can make: [1] REVISIT YOUR AGING MQLs: Typical MQL follow-up is a few emails and a call or two from a BDR - maybe a week of concerted follow-up. Then those hand-raisers get dumped into a nurture campaign (which is usually just your company newsletter sent ~1x/month) and kind of forgotten about. Not exactly inspiring. People who were taking a hard look at you 3-6 months ago deserve more love. So, as Mike Troiano likes to put it, "knock with your feet" and show up with something valuable. Share your best-of content from the last few quarters. Send them a case study and a quick blurb of the "from-->to" you helped create at a company like theirs. Earn the right to ask if anything's changed. Don't count on your nurture sequence to scare up pipeline for you. Creating a system to revisit the "maybe's" your marketing team scares up is worth the extra effort. Especially when you're playing catch-up. [2] RUN AN EXPANSION BLITZ: This is where I focus most of my efforts in the first 6 months of a new investment. Software companies are bad at asking "what else can we do for you?" So pull a customer list of who uses what. Cross off the customers who need to be left alone. Focus on the ones with whitespace. The ones who you think could be doing more with you. Then give the sales team a couple weapons and talk-tracks for how to ask what else they're focused on. My portfolio companies have built millions of dollars of pipeline this year running this play alone. [3] WRITE A LETTER FROM THE CEO: The most under-used tool in marketing. People want to hear from the person who runs the company they send money to every month. So help your CEO craft a personal letter. One that sounds like it was written by a human. One that summarizes what you're seeing out there, what you noticed at that trade show, and what success you've helped create for that recent client. Include a link to the CEO's calendar in the email. Then get ready to have a bunch of "what else can we do for you" conversations. We run this everywhere - especially after big conferences and events. It's the easiest thought leadership you'll ever do. [4] LOOK FOR OLD CUSTOMERS IN NEW ROLES: Run a LinkedIn search for old customers who have changed jobs in the last 24 months. Call them. Pretty simple. Almost no one does it. [5] RUN A CLOSED-LOST CAMPAIGN: This is the one everyone forgets about. Which deals did you lose in the last 9-18 months? Can you get back in there with the ones who went with the bigger competitor? (The competitor that you know a lot of people aren't that happy with?) Chances are you can - if you're willing to call them and ask how it's going. I'll post a few more "reheatable pipeline plays" in the comments a little later today. ...But how about you? Any tactics you use to play "pipeline catchup" after a light first month of the quarter?

If sales and marketing are arguing over what "qualified" means, your pipeline’s already in trouble. We’ve all seen it: - Marketing hits their MQL numbers, pats on the back all around. - Sales gets the “qualified” leads… and half of them are tire-kickers with zero urgency. Now the pipeline’s stuffed, win rates are tanking, and everyone’s pointing fingers. Here’s the real issue: Most of these leads aren’t bad. They’ve got pain points. They’re even “qualified” on paper. But they lack urgency…and sales is left trying to manufacture it out of thin air. You can’t build a healthy pipeline on hope and hypotheticals. Here’s how to fix it: 1) Pre-pipeline holding zones Not every lead deserves pipeline status. Create a pre-pipeline stage for deals with latent pain but no clear timeline. Sales can nurture them without clogging up forecasts. Bonus: Your QBRs will stop looking like a graveyard of stalled deals. 🕺 2) Urgency-based lead scoring Stop relying on surface-level qualifications. Score leads on intent and timeline, not just “right company, right title.” - Active Need: They’re shopping now. - Latent Need: Pain exists, but no immediate plan to fix it. 3) Sales-led nurture playbooks Give AEs tools to move latent pain into active need…without wasting cycles. Think cost-of-inaction decks, ROI calculators, and strategic drip touchpoints. 4) Align KPIs across teams Marketing’s job isn’t to stuff the pipeline - it’s to accelerate it. Sales shouldn’t be judged on bloated pipelines either. Align KPIs around pipeline velocity and win rates, not just volume. A bloated pipeline isn’t a sign of success. It’s a symptom of a broken process. Fix the gaps, align teams, and turn “qualified” into closeable.

The Pipeline Problem: A First-Principles Look at Real GTM Solutions “We don’t have enough pipeline” remains the top GTM challenge in my conversations. My question - What are we going to do about it? Previously, I used First Principles thinking to highlight flawed pipeline assumptions. Today, I would like to share how a First Principles mindset can provide a solution to those problems. Spoiler alert - the content here represents the building blocks of a First Principles Pipeline Generation framework that I’ll be sharing soon. First Principles means stripping away inherited beliefs - “that’s the way it has always been done” - and focusing on the core truths about buyers, their pain points, and how they want to buy. Instead of more low-quality MQLs, think about creating a GTM machine that consistently produces revenue‐ready mid-stage pipeline. I would love to hear your thoughts on the five First Principles solutions below to common pipeline problems: 1) Discard Volume‐Only Thinking -Fundamental Truth: Not all leads are created equal. -Solution: Shift from raw lead volume to conversion efficiency and revenue impact. Track pipeline velocity, win rates, and ICP fit, rather than fixating on MQL count. 2) Identify True Buying Signals -Fundamental Truth: Buyers who feel urgent pain will actively seek solutions. -Solution: Replace MQL‐centric scoring with Problem‐Qualified Leads (PQLs)—prospects who exhibit strong intent signals. 3) Design Around the Buyer -Fundamental Truth: Buyers move nonlinearly, self‐educate, and engage on their schedule. -Solution: Map your pipeline stages to actual buyer actions, not just internal sales steps. Track signals like demo requests, consultation requests, or event triggers. 4) Make Pipeline a Team Sport -Fundamental Truth: Silos lead to “pipeline leakage.” -Solution: Align marketing, sales, and Revenue Operations on the same ICP, the same metrics (pipeline velocity, CAC, conversion rates, and unit economics), and continuous feedback loops. 5) Adopt a Buyer‐First Mindset -Fundamental Truth: A genuinely customer‐centric approach drives better conversion and loyalty. -Solution: Prioritize trust‐building, value‐focused content, and ongoing engagement with your ICP over quick‐hit lead generation. Thanks for reading! My question to you. Are these five First Principles “mom and apple pie” or do they form the foundation for a future GTM machine that can manufacture qualified, revenue‐ready opportunities? I’ve also included an updated version of Winning by Design’s Data Model, which helps visualize where to optimize and invest for improved pipeline performance #firstprinciples #GTMexecution #WinningbyDesign

You don’t need to double MQLs to double pipeline. How we grew pipe 300% this year while keeping MQLs relatively flat. 🗑️ Eliminate the junk After inspecting MQL conversions, we found that some just never convert. So, we stopped counting the following leads as MQLs: - Product signups who used a personal email (cut MQLs by ~33%) - Stopped counting reg for webinars as MQLs (conversion was sub 1%) - Paused our gift cards for demo program (worked for booking demos, but most didn’t progress beyond that) Important change in our funnel here: To help our handraisers get in touch with sales immediately, we implemented Chili Piper to book meetings directly from forms, which has been a no brainer --- 📶 Shift SDRs to signal-based plays Eliminating low-quality MQLs freed up time for SDRs to run signal-based plays on high-fit prospects. Some of those plays that convert waaay higher (like an order of magnitude) than the eliminated MQLs above: - High-value page visits (think pricing, terms, security) from economic buyers - Ideal prospects engaging with highly relevant LinkedIn posts - Product activity from users at high-fit accounts And ofc we use Common Room for all the plays above --- 📈 Right-size rep capacity Last quarter (in July), we found ourselves in an AE capacity trough—i.e. there weren’t enough AEs to efficiently field demand. So we did the following: - Hired a world-class leader (s/o Matt Kroon) - Tripled the team while keeping the bar very high by verifying demo and pitch skills BEFORE extending an offer - Shortened ramp by standardizing training and demo certification ---- How much juice left to squeeze? Hard to say but as we grow MQLs going forward, we can do so with confidence knowing we’ll scale efficiently.

Anyone saying "MQLs are dead" is missing an important nuance. The problem isn't really MQLs, it's: Crappy MQLs that sales are forced to follow up with. If your "MQLs" only = handrasiers (demo, contact us, etc), then they are fine. No one can argue with that. BUT, if you are sending handraisers AND low quality "leads", try this: 1. Tier your MQLs • Tier 1: Handraisers (demo requests, contact sales) • Tier 2: Everything else (content downloads, webinars, etc) 2. Only fast-track the handraisers to sales with tight SLAs • These buyers explicitly asked to talk • They're actually ready for sales follow up • Sales wants these 3. Use everything else as signals • Use as account/buyer signals for sales to look through • Enable sales to run their plays when it makes sense • Don't force immediate follow up 4. Review the conversion % to Meetings and Pipeline • Tier 1 will likely convert way higher than Tier 2 • Dig deeper into Tier 2 and determine if there are channels/campaigns you should stop sending to sales 5. Keep fine-tuning to improve conversions (consider turning off tier 2 completely) • Drive sales efficiency • Give feedback to channel owners on low converting signals Bonus: Rename the stage to "Sales Ready" or "Ready to Work" • Acronyms are confusing • "MQL" has too much baggage now _______________________ ps. steps 4 and 5 require that you are able to track conversions from Sales Ready to Meeting and Sales Ready to Pipeline. Which is easier said than done. A Salesforce custom object method to track your buying stages is a great option as it'll tie the data across the multiple objects (Lead, Contact, Opportunity, Campaign, Account) for much better tracking and easier reporting.

Recently, I had a fascinating conversation with a marketing leader at a promising tech startup. They came to me wanting to expand their ad budgets to increase top-of-funnel leads, a common request I hear often. But as we dug deeper, some red flags emerged: ❌ They weren't confident in their email nurture strategy ❌ They could only track lead sources through self-reported data (which is notoriously inaccurate) ❌ Their current nurture sequences weren't providing leads with enough information to progress I had to deliver some tough love: They weren't ready to scale ad spend. Here's why: Pouring more leads into a leaky funnel is like filling a bucket with holes. You're essentially burning money on every lead that doesn't convert. This reminded me of a client I worked with, Omar Robotics, where we faced a similar challenge. When I started, only 10% of MQLs were progressing to the next stage. Instead of asking for more ad budget, we focused on plugging the leaks first. I implemented strategic email nurture sequences that gave leads the information and confidence they needed to move forward. The result? Within months, we jumped from 10% to 16% progression rate. That 6% increase translated to $160K in additional quarterly revenue – without spending a single extra dollar on ads. The takeaway: In today's economy, where we need to do more with less, fix your funnel before you fuel it. Every lead you acquire deserves a fighting chance to convert. Don't let poor nurturing turn your marketing investment into expensive lead waste. What's your experience with funnel optimization vs. increasing ad spend? 👇