A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has seen what you have to offer, and is the most likely candidate to become a customer. In Salesforce, data on MQLs is gathered by the various reporting tools, but where do you start when it comes to pulling reports? With a program as massive as Salesforce, it can all feel very overwhelming. Well, never fear! In this article, we’ve compiled some handy little tips that can bring your marketing strategy into focus, and alleviate some of that stress.

Get The Right Data Points

To get the best data from Salesforce, you’re going to want to make sure you’re collecting the correct data points. This is going to ensure that you’re getting the best marketing knowledge for your organization, and getting it consistently. You’ll want the date that a prospect became a MQL, the recycle date, the recycle reason, the date that prospects are rejected, and the rejection reason.
Once those parameters are in place, you’ll be able to pull reports that show how many MQLs you had this quarter, how long it takes for a lead to become a MQL, the average number of days it takes for a MQL to go into the recycle stage, leads by recycle reason, and MQLs who have been converted.

Add Targets

By using an “add summary formula” to the reports you’re pulling, you can actually calculate exactly how far off you are from your MQL targets. If you head to the chart settings, check the box for “Show reference line” and simply enter your target into the box!

Create a Dashboard

Once you’ve generated all the reports you’re going to need, your next step should be to arrange them into a dashboard. You might think you don’t need to do this, and technically, you might be right! However, to see all the information you were able to collect arranged in one place using easy-to-read graphs can give you a birds eye view of where you’ve been, and where you’re going.
