B2B Technology Marketing Dictionary of Terms

Campaign - A specific set of communications intended to move an individual from one stage of the buying process to the next.


Demographics - Demographics are the characteristics of an individual.  Demographic characteristics that are pertinent to B2B tech marketing can include: First Name, Last Name, Company, Role, Phone, Email, Country, State.  Demographics establish the Authority out of BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timescale).

Firmographics – the characteristics of an organisation, as opposed to the characteristics of a person .  Examples of firmographic characteristics include: Company size, number of business sites,  location of headquarters, industry sector, number of IT people, incumbent solution and other data items depending on your target market.  Organisations should identify firmographic profiles that will fit their offerings in order to target marketing activities and qualify in/out leads.  Firmographics establish the Budget, Need and Timescale of BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timescale).

Marketing Anonymous Lead (MAL) - An unknown person who has had some sort of contact with your marketing organisation – e.g. visited your website or booth, or had contact with one of your marketing campaigns without reaching a conversion point by which you are able to positively identify the prospect.

Marketing Identified Lead (MIL) - A ‘known lead’.  Somebody who has given their contact information as part of an enquiry or in exchange for a whitepaper, webcast or other resource.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) - A lead which meets specific, objective criteria indicating the lead is sales-ready.  Essentially, this is a lead which is deemed by the lead scoring criteria to be ready for sales to develop a personal relationship.  If marketing have done their homework and implemented a lead scoring system in close conjunction with sales, then these leads should be just what the sales team are looking for.

Mickey Mouse Lead – Somebody who uses false contact details to access ‘gated content’  e.g. a whitepaper that is protected by a web form in order to generate leads.  Many users wish to protect themselves from email marketing and sales calls.  These may also manifest as ‘asdasdf’, as these are the keys on the keyboard that are usually directly under where the left hand rests.  Always irritating; sometimes amusing.

Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) - If the lead is accepted, it will go into a queue of leads to be called by inside-sales/telesales in order to qualify.  If a MQL passed over to sales is not accepted by sales on first sight, or rejected after a qualification call, it should be passed back to marketing (PBM) where it will be re-classified as a Marketing Identified Lead and included in a lead nurturing program to keep it ‘warm’.

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) - A lead which has been qualified by inside-sales/telesales as a viable new business opportunity (e.g. Budget, Authority, Need and Timing are all there).

Tire Kicker  - A casual browser of information, with no intent to purchase - therefore being of no immediate value to the organisation.  However, today’s tire kicker might turn into tomorrow’s lead, so there’s always some value to be had – particularly towards the brand-awareness end of the spectrum.  If a tire kicker has an interest in information now, they may be looking for ideas or seeking to work in the field.  Remember that one day that tire kicker might be the CIO of a company in your target market, so any positive exposure to your brand might pay dividends down the line.  Tire-kickers may not bring in revenue, but they share content with their peers who are in the market for your products.  Provide them with good content and a mechanism by which to share with their peers and you might have some viral content on your hands.

Turn-back  - Sales sending a low-quality lead back to marketing so that it can be nurtured until sales-ready.  AKA Pass-back-to-marketing (PBM)