Marketing and sales on a call: whose lead is it
Call, Thursday
Marketing Three hundred and twenty MQL this quarter, CPL down to nine hundred. Every one of them is in the CRM.
Sales They're in. Twenty-six made SQL. The rest are students who downloaded the checklist.
Marketing The checklist casts wide, that's what a lead magnet is for. Then three weeks of lead nurturing, a drip campaign, and only then do we hand over.
Rep They reach me after the first email. I call, and they don't remember downloading anything.
Sales Look at the lead scoring. Two downloads and they're an MQL. Job title weighs nothing.
Marketing It weighs something. Not much. We haven't opened the buyer persona together in six months.
Sales Our customer has a quarterly budget and the authority to sign. Everyone else is top of the sales funnel, and we don't call the top of the funnel.
Marketing Then only the report stays gated content and the checklist opens up. Segmentation by job title, and we reweight the scoring.
Rep And a field in the CRM for where the lead came from. Before I dial, I want to know what they read.
Sales Deal.
Both sides use the same words, and it doesn't help: behind the word "lead", marketing and sales are picturing different people. Half an hour goes on admitting that.
An argument about leads ends at the buyer persona
It opens with numbers: how many handed over, how many taken. The words about emails and magnets explain where the numbers came from. And the whole thing hinges on one question — who counts as ours.
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)MQL (lead calificado por marketing)
A lead marketing judges ready to hand to sales based on interest and fit.
Once someone downloads two guides, they become an MQL.
The number marketing reports, and the number sales' complaint starts from. Three letters, an argument that fills the call.
CPL (Cost Per Lead)CPL (coste por lead)
The average cost of generating one lead from a campaign.
The webinar ads brought a lower CPL than the ebook ones.
Marketing is proud of it; sales never see it. Mixed up with CPA: there you pay for an action, here for a contact who hasn't done anything yet.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)CRM
Software that stores customer contacts and history so teams can manage relationships.
Every call and email lived in the CRM, so anyone could pick up the thread.
Where the two sides meet — and where it turns out the lead was handed over with the "source" field empty.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)SQL (lead calificado por ventas)
A lead that sales has vetted and accepted as worth actively pursuing.
Sales confirmed the budget and marked the MQL an SQL.
Sales' number against marketing's number. The gap between them is what the call is about.
Lead magnetLead magnet (imán de prospectos)
A free resource offered in exchange for a visitor's contact details.
The checklist worked as a lead magnet, trading a PDF for an email.
The start of a path that ends in "they don't remember downloading anything". Mixed up with gated content: one is the bait, the other is the door.
Lead nurturingNutrición de leads
Building a relationship with prospects over time until they're ready to buy.
Lead nurturing kept the brand in mind until the budget finally opened up.
Marketing's word for the weeks sales call "the lead went cold". Both sides mean the same three weeks.
Drip campaignCampaña drip
A preset series of emails sent automatically on a schedule or by trigger.
New signups dropped into a drip campaign that taught the product over a week.
What nurturing looks like from the inside. Mixed up with a newsletter: a newsletter goes to everyone at once, a drip goes to each person on their own clock.
Lead scoringLead scoring (puntuación de leads)
Ranking leads by fit and behavior to show which ones are worth sales' time.
Lead scoring pushed the hottest signups to sales the same day.
The formula every call like this argues over: what a download weighs, what a job title weighs. Whoever writes it decides who gets called an MQL.
Buyer persona
A profile of a typical target customer used to guide marketing choices.
The buyer persona reminded the team they wrote for busy founders, not students.
Where they end up once the numbers stop helping. A document both sides signed off once and haven't opened since.
Sales funnelEmbudo de ventas
The path prospects follow from first awareness down to purchase.
Most leads entered the sales funnel but dropped off before checkout.
"Top of the funnel" is the polite name for the people sales won't call. Mixed up with the conversion funnel: that one counts steps on a site, this one the road to a deal.
Gated contentContenido cerrado (gated)
Content locked behind a form that asks for details before granting access.
The report was gated content — no email, no download.
The form in front of the file is how students end up in the CRM. Removing it is the first thing suggested when nobody takes the leads.
SegmentationSegmentación
Splitting an audience into groups so messages fit each one better.
Segmentation let the team email lapsed buyers a different offer than regulars.
The compromise the call ends on: not fewer leads, leads sorted into shelves. Mixed up with the buyer persona: there is one persona and many segments.
The next call is a quarter away
The scoring gets reweighted, the persona gets reopened, the CRM gets its field. In a quarter, the same words will show which of those actually happened.
Questions and answers
What about the rest of the marketing words?
On the deck page, all of them. These twelve are the ones that came up on one call.
Why is there Spanish on the card?
MQL, SQL and CRM keep their letters in Spanish; lead nurturing turns into "nutrición de leads". Both forms sit on one card, so you can find either one.
Where do the definitions come from?
From the Digital Marketing deck — the same cards as in the app.
On the next call there will be a different twelve.
The Digital Marketing deck holds the rest — in the app they come a few a day.
