Many B2B businesses these days know that a successful marketing strategy means a great MQL to SQL conversion rate. Also, it’s one of the crucial signs for successful B2B SaaS businesses since they know how to emerge powerful marketing tools, such as content marketing, and attract and convert potential customers.
This blog post is for those still unaware of the content marketing power and potential. With the properly targeted audience in mind, you can effectively convert MQLs to SQLs and drive revenue growth.
But, before we delve into the topic, we need to understand the terms MQL and SQL.
Table of Contents
What is MQL?
MQL is short for Marketing Qualified Leads, i.e., prospects interested in your offers but not ready to buy. They came to your website through various marketing channels, like social media or search results. But not everyone can be classified as MQL.
In general, MQLs are those who meet several criteria, like downloading an eBook or attending a webinar, with the potential to become customers. That means we need to work harder with targeting them through content marketing strategies in order to motivate them to convert.
What is SQL?
SQL stands for Sales Qualified Lead. These people are highly engaged with the sales team and always show interest in buying a product or service, i.e., their purchase intent.
You can recognize them by their clear demonstration of purchase intents, making purchasing decisions, or getting interested in pricing and better deals.
Knowing these differences, you can now focus on your content marketing and even encourage the MQLs to get more interested in your offers.
How to do that?
Focus on Creating Valuable and Relevant B2B SaaS Content
Value and relevance are key factors in making your content strategy work. Every B2B SaaS business must focus on creating such content to attract and engage potential customers. So, what to do? What format works best?
People love to get as much information as possible before purchasing something, and that’s true for your target audience too. You can deliver your content through various formats like blog posts, eBooks, case studies, podcasts, or webinars.
Make sure you properly address the pain points with your content strategy, provide solutions, and even demonstrate thought leadership to build trustworthiness and expertise.
Don’t Skip on The SEO Strategy for B2B SaaS
You can’t have an effective content marketing strategy if you skip SEO. Even though things are changing quickly, and AI-powered searches will probably put traditional SEO in the shadows, there are still valuable tactics you can rely on.
By using relevant keywords that match the lead’s intent, you create an eternal value or become a source in the industry. That way, even AI-powered searches spot your relevance and value and push you higher on search engines.
The keyword research will help you understand what your MQLs and SQLs are looking for in your niche, so you can easily target them through your content. And, of course, don’t ditch the old but proven methods of optimizing the meta tags, headings, and URLs, because they still signal to Google (and other search engines) that you put effort into ranking for the niche-specific keywords.
Implement Lead Magnets and Gated Content
To successfully convert the MQLs into SQLs, B2B SaaS marketers can leverage lead magnets and gated content. But what exactly does that mean?
Lead magnets are usually free, like trials, demos, or industry reports that encourage potential customers to sign up for something and provide contact information. The purpose of a lead magnet is to attract the attention of MQLs and entice them to willingly provide their contact information, such as name, email address, and sometimes additional details, to access the resource. That way, you provide something of value in return for the contact information.
And gated content, on the other hand, is high-quality content accessible only after the lead provides contact information. You virtually place them behind a gate that requires the user to provide access details. That way, you can give them exclusive access to content that is usually not available on the website, which is essential to keep the MQLs interested and nurture them until they become SQLs and customers.
Include Email Marketing in Your SaaS Content Marketing
Let’s say you already captured the contact information of your MQLs, and now you have their emails, names, or even phone numbers, depending on what you offered with the lead magnet. Now it’s time to utilize email marketing, as you can deliver personalized and targeted content to the individuals in your lists.
But what to do? What type of content do you need to deliver in order to nurture the MQLs and eventually motivate them to convert? For example, you can send them in-depth educational articles, valuable industry insights, relevant offers, and videos, invite them to webinars, and offer something for a great deal in order to build trust and lead them toward becoming SQLs.
Many think that email marketing is an outdated method, but there is no better way to deliver high-quality and insightful content to those who deserve it.
Converting MQLs to SQLs Conclusion
While content marketing is a powerful tool for B2B SaaS businesses, we must implement it properly in order to provide enough value and relevance. Don’t skip on the SEO practices, lead magnets, and gated content while leveraging email marketing for your business.
All the mentioned methods are great for improving the content strategy and aligning marketing and sales efforts while nurturing the most qualified leads. Ultimately, this integrated approach will maximize the return on the investment even in the highly competitive B2B SaaS market.
