WORKWEEK

Why should you care about unconverted MQLs?

• Pressure is on to generate pipeline
• Unconverted MQLs can be an easy source of capturing demand
• They can provide insights to help convert top tier accounts

How do I find them?

To find your unconverted MQLs, you (or marketing +/or sales ops) can build reports or views that show any prospects who have:

• Downloaded marketing content 
• Registered for an event
• Attended an event
• Filled out a form
• Hit MQL status based on engagement behavior on digital properties

📓 Note: Each company will likely have their own, unique taxonomy for categorizing these kinds of leads. Partnering with your marketing ops, demand generation and/or sales ops team to find these leads can make it way easier to quickly find these leads.

How to work them?

There are some sales leaders and managers who believe you need to ALWAYS have highly personalized emails and messaging for unconverted MQLs. 

But, I believe there is some nuance to it depending on who you’re reach out to and their role/ level in the organization.

If targeting non-decision makers / below the line prospects

For folks who actively engage with your content but aren’t decision makers or who are too low in the organization to influence decision makers, your reps can take a more generic re-engagement approach.

Here’s a template I’ve seen work really well in generating responses over email and LinkedIn:

If targeting decision makers / above the line prospects

If you see decision makers and above the line prospects in your reps’ lists of unconverted MQLs, I’d recommend adding in some level of research and due diligence before re-engagement attempts.

Here’s the formula:

1. Review which marketing assets these prospects engaged with, focusing specifically on which problems were outlined in the assets
2. Research the company to identify what, if anything, may be top of mind for the organization 
3. If there is a correlation between problems highlighted in marketing assets and what’s happening at the company
4. Craft a message connecting the dots between the two

For example, if your reps see that a prospect account from their list of unconverted, decision maker MQLs is growing and/or hiring a lot, use that information within the email and connect that to an inferred problem from the engaged content.

Once they done that, they might come up with messaging that looks / sounds something like…

Other Suggestions

• Prepare your reps to handle objections like “I was just researching”, “take me off your list”, “not a priority” and “I’m not the right person”
• Consider having a cadence for re-engaging with unconverted MQLs on a quarterly basis
• If your reps see multiple unconverted MQLs from the same account, consider having them prioritize that account as a top target
• If you have an ABX and/or field marketing team, partner with them to create programming and campaigns to target and convert highly engaged accounts and/or accounts that had high engagement