👋🏼 Hey Hunters, First, the story of why the resource came to be… I was researching an article for a B2B SaaS client of ours two months ago. As you’d expect, I visited good ol’ Google, scanned several me-too SEO-obsessed pieces on the search engine result page, before I managed to find something that looked promising. Lo and behold, I was FORCED to submit my email before I could access the info. I needed the info, so I did. Despite all the trouble of surrendering my email, I didn’t spend up to 3 mins on that ebook. It didn’t contain any groundbreaking info worthy of being locked for innocent website visitors to surrender their emails. But that’s the small part. One hour later, I got an email… “Thank you for your interest in XXX…” Me? "No mate, I only gave you that email to access your ebook, which I didn’t use, by the way." ❌ Delete! The next week or so? More of such unsolicited emails. Delete❌! Block😡!! Report spam⚠️!!! Sounds familiar? B2B marketers (maybe you included) are slamming MQL tags on forcefully-acquired emails. Then, use the feel-good metrics it produces to tag their marketing ‘successful,’ expecting SDRs to perform magic. That’s why most B2B marketing don’t impact sales. Wake up to reality! Talking about reality, savvy marketers ditched MQLs long ago. Instead, they’re executing marketing plays to funnel people into their products, directly impacting sales, and making their salespeople’s lives easier. They’re doing this by acquiring Product-Qualified Leads, PQLs. PQLs are people who have experienced your product’s value, not arbitrary metrics used to defend wasted investments washed down the drain in the name of ‘marketing.’ Rand Fishkin, Sparktoro’s CEO (former CEO of Moz), is on this train. You’ll see his approach to acquiring PQLs and customers directly from his new marketing plays in this book. Alongside four other strategies leveraged by modern B2B marketers. But you can’t just jump and start acquiring PQLs. That’s why I start the book by defining the concept of PQLs, show why you should ditch MQLs (or email accumulation), and how to lay a PQL-acquiring foundation. It’s all in this book. But more importantly, you’ll see how Product-Led Storytelling helps you acquire PQLs at scale & profit, so your marketing can directly impact sales across all four PQL-acquiring strategies detailed. Oh... you won't surrender your email (like I did) to enjoy this one 😎. Questions? Comments?? Inquiries??? Please, shoot 🤗!

@jonasbrother if you take 2 mins to look at the intro alone, I'm sure you'll get the gist. But basically, Product-Qualified Leads (PQLs) are people who actually used a product - freemium or trial users or demos. They've experienced some value doing so. So their activities in the product gives sales teams relevant, contextual info on how best to nudge into becoming paying customers. On the other hand, MQLs - or marketing qualified leads, which most marketers still obsess with, are mere email subscribers. Like, people who gave out their emails to access an ebook or join your webinar. In worst cases, people who visited a certain number of pages on your website. How would you feel if I suddenly asked you to buy my product because you 'just' gave me your email to access info I don't know if you even read? This book is about showing B2B marketers how others like them are making the switch to acquiring PQLs. Because, if they do, they'll start bringing people more likely to become customers - - again, because they've actually tested the product's value. We showed how you can do this via Product-Led Storytelling too (a concept we coined). Clear?

Victor Eduoh

Ditch MQLs!

Maker