What is a product qualified lead?

Have you always wondered about how to use product qualified leads to drive more sales? Well, PQL is quite effective in increasing sales for your business. Did you know that the PQL model can help the sales team identify your company’s most significant sales opportunities?

If you are confused, then it is quite natural, and to understand these leads, you need to understand the little details about PQL. Still, confused? Let’s start with the basics here for your reference:

About Product Qualified Lead

The entire concept of PQL is still relatively new in the market. And only a handful of experts are well-versed with using this technique for increasing sales for the companies. Among them, a prominent name is Bruno Estrella, a growth manager at Webflow.

He defines PQLs as leads that fit your ideal customer profile and have experienced your product’s core value. Since the entire concept is still fresh, you might come across different definitions that might agree on some common ground points.

A product qualified lead would refer to a user who might have experienced the SaaS product value through a free trial or a freemium account. And due to such experience, the customer can become loyal and paying one for your company, which can present sales opportunities to your company reps.

Before you understand the details, you need to be clear about the PQL definition, which comes with two different aspects:

If a person needs to qualify as a PQL, he or she needs to:

• Match Company’s Ideal Client Profile: That means one needs to become a PQL only when he has used the product successfully. Instead, it is also about matching the demographic attributes of your target audience. Please note that the company size, technology, employee count, and such varied factors can affect whether a user matches the company’s ICP or not.
• Identify and Take Actions Related to Buying Intent: Actions are crucial for your business. It could be anything from logging to performing specific tasks as per the requirements. Take actions to develop the intent of buying and focus on particular product usage patterns.

In simple terms, a product qualified lead can combine the customer’s experiences regarding the product, meet the specific company’s model client profile, and have also expressed the intent of buying by taking any particular actions.

How to Become a PQL Pro?

If you intend to become a PQL Pro, you need first to understand the fundamentals concerning this concept. Once done, you need to join an accelerator program that can help you develop the skills to build and scale a successful and profitable product-led business. No matter if you are a founder or a product manager, you need to brush your skills to connect with smart peers to develop the right strategies for your business.

Building Pathway

Every professional needs to gain the right skills and confidence to generate a product-led business right from scratch. And the pathway would consist of a series of courses aimed at assisting the professional in learning the necessary skills, appropriate strategies, and the right frameworks to confidently lead the changes from any sales-led strategy to the product-led ones.

And this happens through step-by-step processes. Remember, it should not be restricted to specific experts only. Instead, encourage every professional in your company to get on board and adopt this product-led, customer-focused mindset to help the business avoid some of the aching bottlenecks made during the transition.

Along with that, you get to confirm the appropriateness of the right product-led model that can drive profitable results for your organization.

How Important Are These PQLs For Long Term Success?

You must be concerned about the benefits of using PQLs for long-term success for your business. Entirely focused on the basic concepts of PQLS. Remember, these create the base for the happy customers.

The time and resources spent by any company in getting the clients on board are pretty less. Here are recurring revenues along with a better opportunity for upselling as well as cross-selling and retention. And to ace the product-led growth and development strategy for the company, it is quite critical for the business owner to focus on cultivating the PQLs.

Why? Well, you need it to improve sales and ensure customer success as well. You also need to listen to your clients and understand their specific requirements to excel in customer retention.

Also, it helps you focus on improving the products’ specifications, which eventually assists in increasing the sales chart for the company. Thus, the product-led strategies can ensure customer retention for your company and thereby help in the conversion of the footfall to potential sales.

Top Steps to Consider for Identification and Acting on PQLs

Now that you are clear about the benefits of utilizing the PQLS for your company, you need to identify and act on PQLs. Confused? Find out more about these below:

• Track the Product Management

A customer likes your product. But how much? That is a question you need to know about both your customer and the product.

Start identifying the product qualified leads and score and rank these based on area, usage, and other factors.

• Accounting the Scoring of Product Engagement

If you are selling to other organizations, then these are accounts for your business. And to understand how your services or products are performing in the market, you need to keep a close tab on the product management and aggregate the scores that can improve the prospects of identifying PQLs.

• Identify the Engaged Users

Next, you need to be cautious about how many users are engaged with your product. And to identify them, you need to track your clients’ usage patterns along with their accounts. The more you track these, the better data you collect related to PQLs.

• Track Activation Rates

The next action you need to take is tracking the customers’ activation rates during the free trials. You need to follow all relevant information like account details, signup information, usage ways, comments, etc.

Conclusion

Finally, once you have all the relevant data and information about your company’s product management, pass these to other specific teams. The sales and marketing teams would utilize them to curate appropriate strategies to increase your company’s customer retention plan.

As these would help you increase the sales and customer engagement for your company, invest in the right tools to save time and resources. Remember that these tactics can be profitable for your company’s business, and make sure to choose the right ones at the right time without failure.

source https://www.jbklutse.com/what-is-a-product-qualified-lead/