Introduction

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are among the most used qualification methods in B2B organizations for determining a prospect’s initial purchase intent and fit for their solutions.

However, despite being widely-adopted, MQL-based models often fail to route prospects that are truly in-market to sales teams.

Often, this can result in organizations targeting prospects that are actively engaging with their brand but are not viable buyers, based on them scoring as an MQL. This stems from definitions for what constitutes an MQL becoming largely arbitrary due to the reliance on pre-determined and unactionable criteria, rather than observable buyer behavior and data.

Although long a popular topic of debate, the inefficiency of MQLs has resurfaced as a key challenge, often holding back growth. This comes as marketers navigate the pressure to support sales teams and demonstrate marketing value in the face of diminished budgets and increasingly defensive buyers.

As such, this dilemma has prompted the need for a new, more flexible qualification system that is buyer-centric, adapting to reflect the true behavior of B2B buyers.

Here, we discuss how to replace MQL criteria with a more effective, in-market prospect qualification process designed to enable your teams to accurately assess where your buyers are in their journey.

“Buyers are more independent than ever. Forcing prospects into a one-size-fits-all MQL category is ineffective as the buyer’s journey becomes intricate and self-paced. We need to rethink prospect qualification, focusing on actionability and data that reflects buyers’ true in-market readiness.”

Dan Freeman
CRO
INFUSE

How to phase out MQLs for in-market buyer qualification: 4 steps

The following steps suggest a proven approach on how to replace MQLs with actionable criteria that can be leveraged to assess prospects as qualified and in-market.

The goal is to pinpoint the specific data points your organization requires to accurately determine sales readiness and enable your client-facing teams to deliver seamless, personalized buyer experiences.

Important note

The iterative approach explored in this guide is designed to provide granular insights that your revenue teams need to drive performance. However, to ensure your strategies accurately align with your specific buyer needs, the frameworks explored below must be regularly optimized in order to yield the best outcomes.

#1 Collect signals that identify a prospect as in-market

In this first step, the goal is to establish the key criteria your organization will use to identify  prospective buyers as in-market.

Assessing this criteria requires a broad range of data insights, and will vary depending on your industry, as well as the key preferences and behavioral trends of your key buyers.

What does in-market mean?

In-market prospects:

Are knowledgeable of the brand, its solutions, and unique benefits
Have addressed most or all of their primary knowledge gaps and pain points via buyer-led research
Have budget available and are exploring options with the objective of purchasing a new solution within this sales cycle or the next. This distinction will determine the longevity of strategies that are activated to drive engagement

Below is a process for organizing this data analysis that can be custom-tailored to your needs:

In-market prospect qualification framework

Demand intelligence

1st-party data on your prospects (pain points, technographics, budget, etc.)
Lead scoring according to behavioral insights and predictive analytics
Account data sourced via partners

Learn more in our demand intelligence article

Intent data

Signals that demonstrate the current interest of buyers:

Informational:
Interaction with informative content
Navigational:
Searches for a particular brand, seeking more insights
Investigational:
Comparative research on multiple providers and their solutions
Transactional:
Searches that indicate interest in a purchase

Learn more about intent activation in our guide

Historical data

Ideal Client Profiles (ICPs) and buyer personas, with insights on the common characteristics of high-value clients
Account-level insights into the buyer’s journey of clients similar to current prospects

The goal of this process is to orchestrate and analyze your data insights. This will enable your teams to clearly define when prospects can be considered as qualified and in-market for your solutions.

While achieving this is a challenge, the framework above can be used to continually refine your criteria until it aligns with your organization’s goals and empowers your teams to interpret buyer behavior efficiently.

Discover the key differences between lead and demand generation

“In-market signals tell a story—a buyer’s journey and their knowledge, intent, and purchase readiness. Companies that successfully interpret these signals can accurately respond with precise demand activation of in-market buyers and accounts. This helps to establish their brand as a valuable partner and supports stronger, client relationships.”

Mukesh Rajpurohit
VP of APAC Sales
INFUSE

#2 How to identify the best qualification criteria for your prospects

Accurate qualification is a challenge for many B2B organizations, particularly as buyer’s journeys have become increasingly non-linear.

As a result, qualification methods and sources of intelligence should be constantly tested to better understand which accounts within target audiences are qualified and in-market.

The process below simplifies the testing process to identify the best criteria for pinpointing the fit and in-market status of your prospects.