The MQL to SQL Funnel is broken for most teams. Buyer intent is the only way to fix it.
The buyer journey has fundamentally changed. It is now 80% digital and content-driven. This means the traditional MQL to SQL funnel has to be completely redefined around intent identification, capture, and conversion.
Only about 10% of your buyers are in-market for your product or service at any given time. The rest are researching, exploring, or are not yet ready to buy.
Without a robust intent identification strategy, most teams end up wasting marketing spend and prospecting time on buyers who are not even considering becoming customers.
So what does a strong intent identification strategy look like? There are three big changes that every marketing and sales team needs to make.
Account Intent vs. Contact Scoring
Most marketing teams still score individual contacts. They track who downloads content, who stops by a booth, or who visits a website.
That’s useful; one person showing interest signals curiosity, not intent. It is accounts, not contacts, that are in-market to make a purchase.
You really need to see multiple contacts engaging from the same account and ideally at different levels of the organization. Multiple contacts suggest a buying initiative is forming.
Platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce now make it easier to combine contact scores into an overall account-level view.
Identify Individual Website Traffic
Some teams have invested in 3rd party intent data platforms like 6Sense or Rollworks. That’s helpful, but not nearly as valuable as knowing who has engaged with your website and your content.
One approach to identifying individual website traffic is to invest in tools that de-anonymize website traffic, such as RB2B or Warmly.
Pair this with personalized landing pages built for key personas or segments, and you can accelerate the capture of both contact and account information from the start.
Behind those personalized landing pages, you need a clean, well-built database with accurate segmentation and contact augmentation.
Thought Leadership Across the Funnel
Finally, in a very competitive marketing environment, buyers want to know early on what unique insights and differentiated expertise you bring to the table.
Build eBooks, white papers, customer stories, and webinars that highlight what makes you different. But don’t expect your buyers to consume thought leadership at the top of the funnel. Give them easy access through snippets, social posts, and webinars.
Webinars are especially powerful. Even if prospects do not attend live, they engage with recordings later, providing valuable signals of interest.
By shifting from contact scoring to account intent, identifying individual website visitors, and extending thought leadership across the funnel, you have made a powerful first step in closing the MQL and SQL gap.