Lead Generation Archives

Which problems are you trying to fix right now?

Changes take time, and only the most pressing business issues provide the incentive and motivation for it. Asking prospects about the challenges they’re attempting to address might help them dig deeper to figure out what’s not working right now. Inquire about why they want or need to address the problem, as well as the suffering it is bringing them.

What solutions have you tried before?

Try to address your prospect’s problem. And if you do, you also wouldn’t want to propose something they’ve previously tried and failed at. It’s critical for the prospect to come to their own conclusions about what didn’t work, so that they’ll be more open to your solution and why your solution is best fit for them. Start out by looking at their previous attempts to solve the problem, as well as the flaws that these solutions left behind.

What piqued your interest about us?

This is essentially the same as asking them “How did you hear about us?” but it elicits a few more facts that may lead to more conversions.

Brand is king for certain customers. A company’s brand communicates a lot about the quality of its products, its values and goals, and what buyers may anticipate. Customers are ready to spend more for a better customer experience, so prospects who are passionate about your brand are less likely to let price stand in the way of doing business.

If a potential customer is unfamiliar with your brand or organization, you should make it a priority to educate them. They’re not simply buying a product; they’re investing in your entire company.

What do you look for the most in solutions?

Companies seek solutions for a variety of reasons. Some businesses seek out alternatives to their present procedures in order to save money. Some aren’t receiving the results they desire, so they’re seeking a solution that will help them enhance their job quality, even if it’s not inexpensive.

Never assume that all organizations have the same goals as you as a salesperson. Inquire about your prospect’s top priority — it may be to save money, become more productive, or create higher-quality work. You won’t be able to solve all of their concerns at once, so start with the most pressing issues.

What could be a possible deal-breaker for you?

Knowing what the prospect’s deal-breakers are up front might help you figure out what they’re not looking for or can’t accommodate. There are many variables that may cause a transaction to go apart and some can even be completely beyond your control, but if you can figure out early on that you’re not a good fit, you’ll save a lot of time and effort.

What is your timeframe for visible results?

Implementation, onboarding, and ramp-up time may all impact how soon the problem is handled once the client has made the purchase. They may need to make a decision right away if they need to see outcomes in a few weeks. However, if they don’t have a set deadline, they might not be ready to buy. Their response will give you an indication of how soon you must reply. You may utilize their timeline to assist them figure out when they need to make a choice and set reasonable expectations for the solution’s execution.

What could be a possible deal-breaker for you?

Knowing what the prospect’s deal-breakers are up front might help you figure out what they’re not looking for or can’t accommodate. There are many variables that may cause a transaction to go apart and some can even be completely beyond your control, but if you can figure out early on that you’re not a good fit, you’ll save a lot of time and effort.

When will you be able to make a decision?

Prospects who are serious about making a choice, whether with your firm or someone else’s, are the most qualified. They’re trying to find a solution, and they’ve probably set a deadline for when they’ll have to buy something and put it into action. It also demonstrates their dedication to finding a solution. And the tighter the deadline, the more time you’ll need to devote to them.

Takeaway

Knowing what the prospect’s deal-breakers are up front might help you figure out what they’re not looking for or can’t accommodate. There are many variables that may cause a transaction to go apart and some can even be completely beyond your control, but if you can figure out early on that you’re not a good fit, you’ll save a lot of time and effort.

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

October 6, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Contacts database building isn’t easy.

It requires access to good information, expertise and a considerable amount of time to perfect.

However, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

In this guide, we take a closer look at why companies struggle with contacts database building, and what they can do to improve their lead generation situation.

The Lack of Target Customer Profiles

One of the biggest reasons that contact database building – and sometimes even lead generation – fails is the lack of concrete goals.

In lead generation, this is usually determined by your target customer profiles or the ideal prospects that you want coming in.

Having target customer profiles helps an organization stay focused on the types of leads that they should be bringing in. This makes lead generation much more efficient as it allows marketers to focus on the prospects that matter.

The Lack of Lead Generation Tools

Technology has allowed the average marketer to leverage platforms such as LinkedIn, email and other databases to look for potential leads However, not every organization has access to proper tools that their specialists need.

Take for example, a simple lead generation tool such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, for a small monthly fee, subscribers will have access to a robust suite of lead generation tools that allow for more expanded searches for prospects on the LinkedIn network.

This tool allows for advanced filtering and even provides suggestions for new leads based on the searches that a user makes on the platform.

The lack of the proper tools can render any “great” marketer ineffective when it comes to building contacts databases for their organizations. They need tools that will help them search for the right prospects and data that can enrich their entries.

The Lack of Training and Lead Generation Systems

Sometimes the problem isn’t the lack of tools, but rather training and systems for onboarding new clients.

Lead generation, qualification, and research are all essential contact database building skills, and if your marketers aren’t trained in the proper processes, not even the best tools in the world can help them build a good list of prospects.

Investing in infrastructure is only one part of the challenge when it comes to lead generation, marketers have to be trained in lead acquisition as well.

This means being able to do proper searches in industries to look for their ideal customers, qualifying and segmenting these leads, enriching the information that they have on the prospects to get contact information, and building proper lists afterwards.

You need to make sure that your team is well-versed in the fundamentals of lead generation, and that they have training in the tools that they need. Also, don’t forget that they should be led by people who have experience to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

Another option is to hire a third-party lead generation company that can leverage their expertise and experience to build a contact database for your organization.

The Lack of Inbound and Passive Campaigns

Companies can’t just rely on their outbound efforts when it comes to building a contacts database, they need inbound and passive campaigns to make the most out of their process.

Inbound campaigns are efficient ways of adding to your contact list because they are non-invasive, customer-centric, and add in a layer of prequalification since people who come in through these campaigns usually have the intent of learning more about a company.

It doesn’t just end there.

Inbound campaigns are also more efficient since a bulk of the effort in setting them up only occurs at the beginning of the campaigns, once everything is up and running, it’s just a matter of periodic monitoring and small updates.

Startups can benefit the most out of this since it allows them to maximize the limited resources that they have.

The Lack of an Outbound Strategy

Lead generation is dynamic, and you won’t be able to build a list of contacts if you don’t have a proper strategy in place.

From the moment that you start with your research to the ways that you can leverage your initial lists to bring in additional clients, you need a strategy in place to make sure that leads continually come through.

Outbound strategy goes beyond thinking of what types of campaigns you should be running, you still need to pay attention to the way buyer journeys are created, referral programs, remarketing, retargeting, replicating your efforts in new markets, and possible means of expansion.

People often mistake outbound strategy as, how to call and who to call, but it isn’t like that at all. It’s a more holistic process that covers the entire relationship with your prospects.

Building a contacts database starts internally, organizations have to understand that this isn’t simply trying to add names and contact information to a list, but rather a way of connecting with your prospects and building real relationships.

That’s the essence of contact database building.

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

September 29, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Quickly deploying lead generation strategies might seem daunting for a lot of marketers, but not a lot of them have to be complicated and difficult.

We’ve listed six of our favorite lead generation strategies that you can easily deploy and maintain in a week or less!

Optimize All of Your Profiles!

All your profiles, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, are actually passive lead generation tools, and they’re not too complicated to set up.

By simply filling out all the information that they require of you, making visual elements look pretty, adding CTAs that lead to your website, and creating proper marketing copy, you can make sure that you’re bringing in leads that happen to land on your profiles.

If you don’t have a lot of accounts online, consider getting more.

Each social media profile page acts as a landing page, so this means that you need to start converting people who end up landing on them.

If you’re regularly posting content on social media, then it’s time to take this to the next level using gated content. However, this isn’t your regular form of gated content.

Gated content always gets a bad rep since it’s often used to get people to subscribe to bad newsletters on websites, but there are plenty of ways of engineering it to work well in your favor.

First of all, you want to start with valuable content, this is content that is actionable and can yield results for your prospects. You want to use giveaways such as templates, whitepapers, designs, case studies, etc.

Once you have that figured out, your gatekeeping method should be something simple like:

“Leave a reaction so that we can send you a link”
“Comment here to receive the file”

This makes it more organic for the prospect to receive your link and it eliminates having to fill out a form since that can get too personal.

Once you send them something directly on social media or have them interact with you, this opens the door to future conversations with the prospect, especially if your content is valuable.

This non-invasive method of lead generation can work wonders with social media.

Retargeting

One of the quickest ways to generate leads is through retargeting ads via platforms such as Facebook.

All you have to do is throw in the list of emails into a custom audience and that particular audience will be fed ads within the course of a week.

What we love the most about retargeting is its versatility. You can combine it with an existing email campaign to create a two-step lead generation process and you can even use it as your first step before sending out emails to “prime” prospects for your cold email.

If you do decide to use Facebook, then you can even show the same ads to a lookalike audience, which uses their algorithm to show ads to people who match the same characteristics of the same list that you uploaded.

LinkedIn Lead Generation

LinkedIn is one of the best sources of leads online because almost every professional with a computer and internet connection has a profile on the platform.

Creating a lead generation campaign on LinkedIn might be difficult, but starting one doesn’t have to be so hard.

You can take a week to start prepping your profile – optimize, like what we mentioned earlier, build connections, and get your outbound message templates ready for the people you want to reach.

Referral Program

If you have an existing list of clients, you can use them to create more revenue for your organization through a referral program.

You can give out free credits, trials, or special benefits for your existing clients who refer a friend to your organization.

Referral programs have always been one of the easiest lead generation strategies that you can deploy, and they’re pretty affordable considering that your clients have already been marketed to.

Speak with a Third-Party Lead Generation Agency

Third-party lead generation agencies might seem expensive, but they’re actually cost-effective in the long run with a lot of large companies opting to take advantage of the services that they offer.

They draw from an extensive background in numerous industries and they probably already have existing lead lists that are waiting to be marketed to.

Due to these advantages, they’re also able to deploy their services quickly and efficiently, resulting in ready leads in about a week from onboarding.

There are different types of third-party lead generation agencies, some specialize in voice and email, others in social media, and there are those who do multidimensional DFY marketing.

As you can see, lead generation doesn’t have to be difficult and time consuming, all you have to do is be creative with the way you deploy your marketing tools and make sure that you have the right target customer personas.

Do you need help with your lead generation? Speak with Callbox today!

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

How to be a Tech-Savvy Outbound Sales Specialist

September 22, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Being a tech-savvy outbound sales specialist isn’t exactly difficult as long as you know what you’re aiming for.

In this guide, we take a look at the steps you need to take to supercharge your lead generation and ensure better relationships with your potential clients!

Personalize and Adapt

All B2B sales have to be personalized.

This is why the ABM (account-based marketing) approach is the most highly favored strategy for all B2B sales.

It starts with determining the target customer profiles that you have and ensuring that you’re using the right tone to make sure that your communications resonate with them.

After that it’s adapting everything from the content that you send out to your sales discovery/triage call scripts that you’re using.

By adapting to your target prospects, you are more likely to make sure that your campaign does the job at getting them to convert and you get to understand them more.

How Do You Fit in Their Ecosystem?

You have to do your research.

A lot of tech buyers will already have existing systems in their organization that you either have to replace or complement, and you need to know what they’re already using to find out how your specific solutions fit into the overall picture.

If they’re looking to replace a technical system with your current solution, it has to be worth it for them. The current solution that you propose has to solve more bottlenecks, create more opportunities for their growth, and be cost-effective at the same time.

If you’re selling complementary solutions to whatever they already have in place, you need to find out what apps, systems, procedures, etc. are going to link up with your system.

There are a lot of stories of tech buyers getting their hands on cutting-edge solutions, only to find out that they have to spend more money trying to get it to fit into their overall scheme of things.

Tech-savvy outbound sales specialists need to know their market, the products that their competitors are releasing, and what their prospects are currently using.

This will provide a lot of leverage for them to use when attempting to make a conversion.

Sell to the Organization Not Just the DMU

The DMU might be buying the solution that you’re offering, but the majority of its users are the rest of the organization.

This is why it’s critical that the sale is not focused on converting the main decision maker, but rather the entire organization.

To do this, outbound sales specialists could speak with marketing to retarget other members of the organization that you’re trying to get at. Whether it be through brand awareness campaigns or full on marketing campaigns, they need to be in on the action.

Also, think about it this way, the more you target the organization, the more likely it is that there will be internal talks where they can help you sell.

They could speak with the DMU regarding your solution and how it can benefit them.

It doesn’t just end there.

Take it a step further when you speak with the DMU and focus on the benefits it has for the teams that are going to be relying on your tech solution. Appeal to their leadership role and tell them how it will make lives better.

Get Technical

If you want to be tech-savvy, you’ve got to be technical.

It’s true that most decision-making tech buyers aren’t going to want to hear about the technical side, but for those that do, preparation is key.

This doesn’t just mean knowing the ins-and-outs of your product, but it also means knowing how you stack up against the competition and the future benefit of your tech.

Now, sales specialists can take this a step further and offer to provide a demo to the technical teams that will be implementing the solution. This is a common B2B technique that allows an organization’s own teams to do the selling on behalf of you, provided that you have a good solution that’s worthy of their time.

Make Your Follow Ups Worth It

Don’t just follow up with your tech buying prospect, you need to send them follow ups that they can do something with.

Concentrate on adding value to your follow ups by providing them with content that is actionable and useful to their business.

For example, if you’re going to send them an email make sure you’ve attached a case study that references another company in the same industry. Then, you can hit them up with a voicemail referencing this email.

At the end of the day, it’s all about making great connections with your prospects.

You need to understand them, know what their pain points are, and provide them with enough value to buy into your solution.

Do you need help with your outbound tech sales? Let Callbox know today!

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

How to Calculate Your Outbound and Inbound Lead Generation ROI

September 9, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Good lead generation means getting consistent results, but great lead generation means getting consistent results while being efficient with marketing resources.

Making thousands or millions in revenue might sound great, but it won’t make sense if you spent the same amount to bring it in.

In this guide, we take a look at how we can calculate outbound and inbound lead generation ROI depending on the channels that you’re using so that you can assess if you’re being efficient with your marketing.

Let’s dive right in.

Terms You Need to Be Familiar With

Before we get into computations, it’ll help if we familiarize ourselves with a couple of terms.

The most basic is TMC or Total Marketing Costs, this is applicable in any channel and refers to the total amount of money spent on marketing for a specific campaign. (You can also use it for a group of campaigns if you want to)

This is the most general term that you can use to group all your expenses.

TR or Total Revenue generated, can be represented in different letters or in different terms. For the sake of simplicity, we will just refer to it as TR. This is all the revenue you generate in a campaign or group of campaigns.

For other computations you can look at L or Leads is the number of leads generated from a campaign. They don’t have to convert just yet. You can break this down in SQLs and MQLs, or adjust the lead quality depending on your internal parameters.

The Easiest Way to Compute Return on Investment (ROI) and Cost Per Lead (CPL)

The simplest way to compute any ROI is to take the total revenue generated and subtract the costs involved in marketing, take the answer and divide it by the costs, and then multiply it by 100.

For example, say you spent $1,000 generating $5,000 in revenue on a social media campaign.

5,000 – 1000 = 4000
4000/1000 = 4
4 * 100 = 400% = ROI

This is the easiest way to compute any ROI, but it doesn’t paint an overall picture and is too simplistic to be used for efficiency computations.

Computing for CPL (Cost Per Lead) is fairly easy as well. Just divide TMC by L.

Total Marketing Costs divided by Leads equals Cost per Lead

However, just like ROI, it doesn’t show you everything.

The problem with a basic ROI computation is that it doesn’t show you the time factor.

This means that with slower campaigns, you could be facing a lower ROI compared to campaigns that have been ongoing for longer periods of time.

Releasing new campaigns also becomes trickier since you lower beginning ROIs could be deceiving to marketers.

Also, it doesn’t show you the ROI when it comes to new clients being onboarded.

You could have 30 clients coming in with a really high LTV but with small initial purchases compared to only 2 clients with lower LTVs but high initial purchases skewing your ROI data. You need to take into account how many leads are coming in as well.

Computing Email Marketing ROI

First you want to start with how much revenue was made from the campaign and minus all your marketing spend.

Spend examples:

Writing the emails
Specialized software subscriptions
List building
Verification services

Once you get the answer, divide that with marketing spend.

Now just like the example in the beginning, multiple the number by 100 to get the percentage.

(Revenue – Cost) / Cost = ROI

Computing Facebook Advertising ROI

For social media or digital advertising, the term Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is used instead of ROI.

To compute it on Facebook, you need to set up Facebook Pixel for your website. Purchase Value has to be tracked in order for this to work.

Once you’re done you need a custom reporting column on Facebook. Choose to show only the main metrics that you need.

Go to the “Conversions section”, and click on “Standard events”. You’ll find an option to include “Purchase ROAS (return on ad spend)”. Click on the tick box.

Add your time frame and you should be good to go.

By default, it should show you both 1-day and 28-day views.

Computing Google Ads ROI

Screenshot of Google Ads reports dashboard

The return on investment for Google Ads is highly contingent on what your ads do. You can track conversions, CTR, imports, local actions, installs, etc.

They’ll provide you with a tracker in your Google Ad manager interface, and all you have to do is take your total ad spend and divide it by the number of actions a user took.

However, if you’re looking at total revenue, you need to follow the same computations we’ve shown you above.

Takeaway

Computing outbound lead generation ROI is an essential part of ensuring if marketing dollars are being utilized well. By tracking ROI, organizations can be more flexible to changing needs and adapt accordingly.

However, computing ROI does have its limitations, so make sure to use it with other calculations as well.

Using Your LinkedIn Profile as a Lead Generation Tool

August 26, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

One of the most powerful tools in your disposal is your LinkedIn profile.

It gives you access to the largest professional social network in the world where most of your leads maintain their own accounts.

In this guide, we want to take a look at the ways you can use your LinkedIn profile as a lead generation tool, and why it’s so powerful.

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How Do You Use Your LinkedIn Profile for Lead Gen?

The first thing that marketers have to understand about a LinkedIn profile is its use as a landing page.

People will run into your profile via:

The posts that you’re putting out
Articles in LinkedIn publishing
Outreach through InMail or organic connection building
LinkedIn search

Once you’ve aroused their curiosity, they’ll want to get to know you more and they’ll click on your profile and check it out.

This means that your profile should market your solutions, build trust, and include a call-to-action that will get prospects to reach out directly to you.

In effect, you should consider your LinkedIn profile to be a passive lead generation tool that continuously converts for you as long as it’s up.

Optimizing Your Profile

The first step is optimizing your profile.

Now there are plenty of ways to do this, but there are a few elements that you shouldn’t miss out on.

Headline

Your headline should communicate what you do, build trust, and stand out from regular LinkedIn headlines. Instead of telling people about your position and company, you can include an achievement, your personal vision, and where you were featured. Another consideration is LinkedIn SEO, it still has to be keyword rich to make sure it’s visible in LinkedIn search.

CTA Elements

The message or connect button shouldn’t be the only things that you have to get people to convert. Adding a meeting link or your contact info to the summary, placing your social handles on your cover photo, and genuine CTAs that get people to move are always encouraged.

Trust Elements

Building trust using a static profile might seem difficult but there are a lot of techniques you can use. You can add the logos of the companies you’ve serviced via your header image to build trust by association, you can mention where you’ve been published in your summary, and you should always add one achievement in your headline as mentioned earlier.

Featured Section

This is a relatively new section on LinkedIn that allows you pick images, videos, posts, and even, links, that you can showcase to people who land on your profile. If you’re using creator mode, this will appear first to help you create a curated list of things that you want first time visitors to see.

The list of profile sections and elements that you need to optimize goes on and on, but these pointers should be enough to get any marketer started.

Connecting with People

Next up is building a following on LinkedIn. This is critical because it allows more people to see what you’re posting – helping more people land on your profile, and people with more connections and followers tend to have more implied trust.

There are three ways to do this:

Aim to be a Thought Leader – which requires a heavy investment in content and reliance on passive leads. You also need to disable your LinkedIn connect button in favor of a “Follow” button.
Aim to be a Power User – which means connecting with a lot of people, and launching directed outreach.
Do a Little Bit of Both – which is relying on a lot of directed outreach while slowly establishing yourself as a thought leader.

The more followers or connections that you have, the wider your reach so marketers need to work hard in extending their network.

Leverage Content

Content is king – even on LinkedIn.

Once people see that you’re releasing content that is both inspiring and valuable, they’ll have a higher tendency not only to follow or connect with you, but also to be your customers.

Valuable and actionable content are the keys to making sure you keep people occupied, it helps with both generating new leads and nurturing the ones that you already have.

You can even turn content into lead magnets by having prospects do things before they’re given access. Think infographics, worksheets, templates, guides, etc.

When people like your content, they’ll want to visit your profile, and if you’ve optimized it well, they’ll probably want to work with you.

Don’t underestimate the power of your LinkedIn profile with a little tweaking you can easily turn it into a lead generation machine that consistently brings in leads.

The beauty of LinkedIn is that everyone’s on it, and it’s time that you took advantage for the sake of your lead generation.

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

How to Find Your B2B Lead Generation Target Market

August 11, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Before you start your lead generation campaign, you want to make sure that you’re creating a campaign that caters to a specific audience. You don’t want to market to just anybody as that is not going to guarantee that every prospect is going to be a qualified lead.

So, first and foremost you need to know how you can find your target audience first. Here’s a list of our top ways of how you can identify who your ideal audience is going to be.

Understand what problems your product/service solves

Obviously you know what your service/product is capable of, and when pitching it to your prospects, it’s easy to get a little overzealous talking about all its details. Those details are all fine and dandy, but what your target audience is more interested in is knowing how your service/product is going to solve their problems.

Focus more on understanding what specific problems your service/product solves, and then use that to scout out which of your target audience are faced with those same issues. Remember that it’s more about how your audience can benefit from you rather than just knowing about their features.

Know your Competitors

Studying your competition is an essential part of improving your marketing campaigns as well as knowing who your ideal target audiences really are. Your competitors will target the same audience as you are. If they aren’t, then they’re not your competitors to begin with and you might’ve been targeting the wrong audience all along.

Take the time to do a deep dive into your competitor’s SEO to see which keywords they are ranking highly for. That will give you a great insight as to who they are targeting and if it’s the same people as on your own list of target audiences.

Analyzing your channel traffic

Don’t take your social media channel’s analytics for granted. All your social platforms can give you insight to your analytics to see who visited, what content they’ve checked out, what solutions they’re looking for and whether or not they’ve reached out or not.

If you see a consistency in engagement with your content but are not buying for some reason, than you can take that as a sign to start a marketing campaign.

Audience Segmentation

Now that you’ve gathered a good understanding of who your audience is, it’s time that you can start segmenting your target audiences into different groups. The reason why you should do this is because it will make it easier for you to run campaigns that are more specifically targeted. When it comes to B2B prospecting, it’s best that you split them according to target personas, their job titles, location, and other specific sales triggers.

Takeaway

These are simple methods, but they are going to take you a long way and surely save you the stress of targeting the wrong audience. Rest assured that by implementing these steps in finding your target audience, it will not only save you time, but most importantly resources as well.

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

Top Goals You Should Set When Outsourcing Your Lead Generation

August 6, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Partnering with an outsourced B2B lead generation team is a big decision that cannot simply be made overnight. By hiring a lead generation team, you’re letting an outside team inside your operations and giving them access to your data and analytics. So, it’s only fair that your goals are made known to your future partner.

Before you scout for your possible lead generation candidates, you want to make sure that you have set concrete goals for yourself. Below, we’ve listed our top goals that every company should consider before hiring a team.

Industry Proficiency

Proficiency is one of the top things you want to set your eyes on when going on your B2B lead generation journey. You should set your expectations for your lead generation team to have an in-depth understanding of not just how to do lead generation but more importantly of your industry in order to set high-quality appointments.

You want to work closely with your lead generation team in order to educate them about your industry, what past experiences you might have had, what you expect when you partner with them, and how you can do things differently together. In order for them to achieve the proficiency that you want, you have to diligently provide them with case studies of your own or intensive educational trainings to ensure that your team will meet your expectations.

Business Relationships

Although part of what you want to achieve with lead generation is closing sales and consistently filling your funnel, you also want to make sure that you build lasting business relationships with your leads. You have to continuously nurture them even after they’ve converted into sales.

As much as possible you want to connect with them. Given the global climate we are in right now, meeting in person is much trickier than it used to be, but that shouldn’t deter you from meeting with them. Amazing alternatives are meeting them online through online conferences, online meetings, and webinars. The key to a successful business relationship is by closing the distance between whether it’s through in-person events or over the internet.

Excellent Communication

You don’t want a partnership where everyone just does their own thing but no one communicates intimately with one another.

You want to have a partnership that allows you to communicate directly and intimately with your lead generation team. Allow them to send you weekly data or even daily if it’s feasible for them. It’s much better to receive quantitative information as much as you can rather than no data at all. Your lead generation team should become an extension of you and your business, almost as if they are part of your business themselves.

Multichannel Expertise

Expertise in using multichannel strategies when doing lead generation puts you heaps ahead of your competition. When you combine this with your sales and marketing strategies, it will make pursuing high-quality accounts much easier. So, be sure that your lead generation team knows the ins and outs of producing excellent content for all your channels. This will allow your team to develop great relationships and close sales all while giving your prospects a great experience.

Top-of-the-Line Customer Service

Last but not least, aim to give your customers nothing but the best customer service experience. Whether they’re in the early stages of their buying journey or are already a loyal customer, it’s important that you keep providing them with service that goes beyond what they expect. So, taking the initiative to come up with fresh, new strategies, and content to keep things fresh is of utmost importance.

Customer service goes beyond just offering help when your customers need it, but it’s also in the many little initiatives that you take to reach out, offer them solutions to their problems, providing educational and fun content that keeps them on their toes.

Takeaway

The next time you’re in the process of hiring a lead generation team, keep these goals in mind and make sure that you’re both on the same page. It’s important that both of you are moving towards the same goals in order for your journey to be a smooth one.

5 Reasons Why Companies Struggle With Contacts Database Building

6 Lead Generation Strategies You Can Implement Within A Week

How Sales Development Outsourcing Can Get You Better Software Leads

July 27, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Getting a consistent stream of qualified leads is critical for B2B software and SaaS, but sometimes doing things in-house isn’t always the best option.

In today’s guide, we take a look at why outsourcing sales development could be the answer your organization is looking for to bring in better leads and increase revenue.

Outsourcing Gives Clients Leverage

One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing is leverage.

Clients get access to specialized teams that already have the experience and tools necessary to bring in new leads and nurture them to conversion.

This is what gives a lot of sales development providers a lot of edge.

When organizations are trying to penetrate new markets or buff up their existing sales operations, they need experts who already know how these markets operate.

Plus, given that sales development and lead generation agencies maintain a roster of clients from almost identical industries, they can bring down the costs of expensive prospecting technologies allowing clients to access technology that’s too expensive to deploy for one company.

This creates a technological leapfrog effect where smaller clients can get access to expensive technology while only paying for a fraction of the cost.

Outsourcing Opens the Doors to New Ideas

A lot of companies often experience a rut where there aren’t a lot of new clients coming in or lead generation and nurturing have grinded to a temporary pause.

This is normal even with larger companies, there always has to be some innovation to drive growth and at times bringing in a new pair of eyes always helps.

An outsourcing agency can act as a consultant and analyze where the company could do better, and what new best practices they should adopt.

This can lead to fresh ideas being adopted and allow teams to have a breather and start innovating once more.

Outsourcing Gives Clients Access to Experience

Creating a new sales development division in your organization or hiring new experts won’t bring in the same experience as using the service of people who are specialized in what they do.

Experience isn’t something that new hires or departments can gain with a workshop or a couple of seminars, it takes time and a lot of effort.

By buying into outsourcing, organizations also buy into the third-party’s experience and this can mean a lot especially to organizations that are pretty new or just starting up.

This also gives members of the organization an opportunity to train and gain knowledge from the third-party.

Outsourcing Allows Companies to Focus on Product Development

Marketing will always be essential to drive growth and revenue, but a lot of companies just don’t have the time or the money to devote valuable resources solely to marketing. They’re better off focusing on product development and creating new services to benefit their customers.

Outsourcing allows organizations to focus on what they do best while leaving integral departments like marketing to real experts.

Since outsourced marketing agencies specialize in bringing in sales, it gives organizations access to the best of both worlds.

From an economics perspective, this leads to specialization which is the foundation for maximum efficiency, and with efficiency comes growth for all those involved.

Outsourcing is Cheaper

Another great thing about outsourcing sales development is the cost savings that organizations reap.

A common misconception is outsourcing is expensive, but in reality it’s not because it effectively lowers the cost of sales given that agencies are specialized.

Sales development is a highly specialized process that requires investments in software and infrastructure especially for firms who want to realize rapid growth.

However, it doesn’t just stop there, experts also have to be recruited, onboarded, trained and familiarized with how the business operates. This costs time and money, and for startups this can be difficult given restrictive budgets.

By outsourcing you forego most of the initial costs and reduce barriers to entry.

A lot of companies even offer DFY (Done For You) services that do all the heavy-lifting for their clients.

Faster Deployment

Since third-party agencies already have the infrastructure and the necessary experience, deploying sales development and lead generation for their clients is a lot more efficient.

This helps with clients who are looking for quick results or want to quickly fill their calendars with additional leads to feed to their sales teams.

There is no need for internal departments to spend time familiarizing themselves with new markets or training, as everything can be easily handled by specialists who have been doing sales development for years.

The main reason why outsourced sales development has grown rapidly over the years is because of efficiency. For a lot of companies, getting access to specialized services means that they can focus on their own specializations while a third-party can take care of their sales development needs. This allows for better product and sales pipelines that are consistently full of leads that one to close making it a win-win for everyone.

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What Is B2B Lead Generation as a Service?

July 23, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Using B2B lead generation services are slowly becoming a strategy of choice for a lot of firms, even those with dedicated lead generation teams.

The reasoning behind it is simple.

Third-party B2B lead generation services offer an efficient way of leveraging resources to bring in targeted leads that bring in a lot of revenue.

In this guide, we take a look at how B2B lead generation functions as a service.

What is Third-Party B2B Lead Generation?

A lead generation agency is a company – like Callbox – that you can outsource your entire lead generation and nurturing services to.

For full-service companies, they can handle everything from creating target customer profiles, building lists, doing outreach, nurturing leads, and delivering the prospects to their clients’ companies ready for closing.

Who Is It For?

There is a common misconception that B2B lead generation is only for companies with no lead generation departments, but that’s false.

Over the last decade, even the most established companies with internal lead generation have been hiring the services of third-party firms because of the specialization and industry experience that they bring to the table.

Most third-party B2B lead gen firms have a lot of experience in specific industries, and companies get to benefit from the fresh systems and ideas that they can provide.

For smaller companies who want to specialize in their product or service, hiring a lead gen firm can free up valuable resources and manpower. The companies can focus on creating a great product while a lead gen firm can focus on bringing in customers.

What Will They Do for You?

B2B lead generation firms differ in the way they conduct business, but it usually revolves around these particular steps:

Initial round of client meetings
Intake of necessary documents from the client
Contract signing
Creation of target customer profiles
Campaign building
Testing
Targeted outreach
Monitoring and feedback
Lead nurturing
Transfer of qualified leads to sales team of client for closing
Reporting

This is an oversimplification of what they do per client, but think of it this way: they bring in prospects that are just one-step away from being customers without you having to do anything.

What Channels Do They Use/Specialize In?

No B2B lead generation firm, that is half their worth, uses only one channel to reach out to their client’s potential leads.

They usually adopt a multichannel approach using platforms such as:

Email
Telemarketing
Text Messaging
Voice Messages
Outbound Chat Campaigns
Physical Mail and Letters
Event Marketing
Targeted Ads
SEO and Organic Marketing
Content Marketing
Video Marketing
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
TikTok

Each B2B lead gen firm will have a couple of specializations and will combine other channels to achieve their goals for their clients.

Is it Expensive?

Not necessarily.

The pricing that lead generation firms have depends on the difficulty of the industry that is being targeted for leads.

However, if you take into account savings in training cost, gaining experience, equipment, systems, processes, reporting, staffing, office space, and admin, the costs of hiring a B2B lead gen firm drop from average to cheap.

The reason that firms like these can charge clients lower rates is because of their roster of clients and the specialization that they have in some industries.

While companies will need time to set up new systems or procedures for certain market segments, this is not a problem for B2B lead gen firms.

Can I Hire a Lead Generation Service Even Though I Have an In-House Team?

A lot of larger companies do this if they’re launching a new product or entering a new market segment.

There are many who also hire lead generation services to bolster their current efforts and ensure that their teams succeed.

Having extra hands to help out is never a problem, especially with lead generation.

Some might complain that it might introduce issues or conflicts between in-house and third-party teams but this is rarely the case. Most lead generation firms have key systems in place to prevent this.

They even offer CRM integration!

How’s the Reporting?

One thing that’s guaranteed – apart from leads – is regular reporting. Some lead generation agencies will give clients their own dashboard and even show live leads coming through to your sales teams.

The frequency of these reports can be tweaked and they are integral for testing and monitoring.

A lot of lead generation companies run on a data-backed approach so they need to monitor what they’re doing for your campaign to make sure that they’re efficient.
B2B lead generation services are a way to take your growth to the next level. They can integrate well and can bring you a consistent stream of leads. With competition growing in just about every B2B industry, they might just be the leverage that you need.

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Telemarketing in Today’s Digital and Multi-channel World

July 14, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

Telemarketing might be dismissed as part of the old ways of doing sales, but it’s still relevant even with the rise of multi-channel marketing and other trendy lead generation tactics today.

However, the telemarketing that people are familiar with is the telemarketing of the past. A lot has changed and there are plenty of innovations with this particular channel.

In today’s article, we take a look at the relevance and the uses of telemarketing in today’s digital and multi-channel world.

Telemarketing is Still Powerful

People who say telemarketing isn’t powerful don’t really understand how it works.

A lot of things have changed and telemarketing isn’t simply calling an entire list of numbers without any purpose.

It’s gotten a little more sophisticated than that.

The reason telemarketing still remains relevant is due to the human connection that it entails. Let’s take for instance email.

Email’s – through testing – can be designed with messages that resonate well with their recipient, but it’s still impersonal, no matter how much you personalize or tweak it.

Telemarketing on the other hand involves a real person reaching out to a prospect to form a human connection.

This personal rapport can’t be replicated by any other technology available to us right now. Even live chat cannot replicate a real conversation with inflections, tone, etc.

It Doesn’t Work Without ABM

The old ways of telemarketing won’t work anymore.

People don’t entertain calls from people that they don’t nor do they appreciate getting calls for a general service.

This is why ABM is becoming an integral part of telemarketing.

Like with all campaigns, it first starts with determining the exact customer profiles that an organization is trying to target. Once this step is done, additional segmenting is done to make sure that targeted lists are made.

These lists are then used to create spiels and scripts that resonate well with these audiences.

Only then can a telemarketing campaign begin its run.

However, it doesn’t just end there, you still need to be able to create flexible campaigns.

It Involves a Lot of Testing and Monitoring

Just like social media content on social networking platforms, there is no guarantee that a campaign that has been greenlighted will be efficient enough to bring in leads.

There’s a lot of testing involved and, naturally, monitoring.

Even the best telemarketing campaigns run through stringent monitoring to make sure that they’re effective at convincing prospects to take the next step in the funnel.

A/B testing with spiels and scripts are becoming commonplace amongst telemarketing experts.

This system of switching out campaign mechanics or content in favor of better ones allows for more flexibility in a campaign.

Clients don’t have to waste money on campaigns that don’t work and they closely resemble what usually happens with email or social media campaigns.

It Integrates Well with Multi-channel Campaigns

When people think about telemarketing, they usually view it as a standalone campaign. Although it can be run by itself, no lead generation marketer runs a singular campaign and expects to get results. It doesn’t work like that.

In this day and age, multichannel campaigns are the only way to go because audiences are usually reachable on different mediums.

The great thing about telemarketing is it can be easily layered onto existing campaigns as a touchpoint.

For example, if a company started their first touchpoint with ads for custom audiences for brand awareness, they can then schedule calls to be made to these prospects for the first contact instead of email.

Telemarketing can also be used as a lead nurturing channel after the initial batch or prospecting emails are sent out. It can be combined with sales discovery calls to create more personalized campaigns.

Leverage Telemarketing Technology and Services

Telemarketing has also begun to rely heavily on technology with most of its processes leveraging tech to be more efficient.

Lead generation agents now have access to entire calling systems that allow them to look at information about the people that they’re talking to, create notes, lead score, integrate new data into a CRM, and access resources in the middle of a call.

Agents can look at a dashboard and their performance at a glance, and they can easily determine how close they are to hitting certain KPIs.

If you’re not confident about running telemarketing on your own, a lot of lead generation agencies – like Callbox – offer appointment setting and telemarketing as a service.

This allows for automated, DFY campaigns that the client doesn’t even have to handle directly. They are just fed with an automatic supply of leads that are ready to close.

Adding telemarketing to your lead generation toolkit is one of the best things that you can do to your marketing strategy today. If you lack the resources to set it up yourself, consider going with a telemarketing provider such as Callbox.

We provide specialized lead generation and appointment setting.

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The Most Effective Sales Cadence for Technology Companies in APAC

July 7, 2021/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

B2B tech selling is a hyper competitive market space with many players and sometimes, longer sales cycles.

However, a lot of companies have been finding success with proper ABM and the right sales cadence.

Today, we examine the most effective sales cadence for tech selling, and what marketers can do to improve their conversion rates.

The Three Key Ingredients of Sales Cadence

Personalization

Account-based marketing stresses on the importance of personalization, and it’s helpful in building good sales cadence.

By personalization, rapport can be built quicker and, as a result of that, a more personal connection.

However, personalization requires an initial bout of research and continuous tracking of the prospect’s behavior.

Spacing

The second most critical part of cadence is spacing.

This deals with how long you should send a follow up or a nurturing email.

What’s important is that a salesperson gets to follow up with a prospect without oversaturating their space or pushing for a hard sell.

The worst that could happen is for a prospect to get sick of the constant barrage of reminders and phone calls.

Following up every couple of days is alright, but if negative responses are being recorded all throughout, there should be an option to slow down the follow up rate.

On the flip side, is setting the spacing to wide and causing the prospect to lose interest in the offering.

Options

Sales cadence should always be planned while taking to account the buyer’s journey and mapping out possible objections or actions that they can take.

When sales can predict how a prospect can react and how they can reply to the reaction, it allows for more personalized campaigns that make for more efficient lead generation.

Sales should have different cadence flows depending on prospect reactions at every step of the main sales pipeline.

First Touchpoint (Day 1)

There are several ways to plan out the first touchpoint.

An outreach email
A phone call
A LinkedIn InMail or connection request

Alternatively, you can use brand awareness as the first touchpoint so that you can take advantage of pre-suasion, which essentially means starting the move to persuade the prospect without directly reaching out to them.

The effect of this is that a prospect will already be familiar with what a seller has to offer and make it easier to get one foot through the door.

Second Touchpoint (Day 3)

Now if a prospect responds to the first touchpoint, that’s essentially good news and a sales rep can move onwards to more frequent touchpoints and reminders afterwards.

The goal is to get the prospect into a sales discovery as quick as possible, so they can schedule on the second touchpoint.

If the prospect fails to respond on the first touchpoint, this is a good time to do a follow up using the same medium. Sales teams can also opt to try and follow up using a different medium, e.g. if they started on email, they can now try LinkedIn.

This creates more “spread” in the campaign and allows for an omnipresent experience.

Third Touchpoint (Day 5)

If the first or second touch points were successful in getting the attention of the prospect, then a call should take place on the third touchpoint.

Sales teams can also add a voice message in the afternoon thanking the prospect for the call or send an email within the minutes of their meeting.

In the first week, sending a piece of valuable content along the prospect’s way is a great way to enrich the experience of the prospect. This should create value or help solve a challenge that they are facing.

If the campaign is still a failure, then it’s advised to widen the spacing a little bit more – say a four-day gap – and then hit up the prospect with another reminder or follow-up message.

However, if the sales rep feels that a reminder message is too pushy, they can forego this and go straight to sending out a piece of content.

Fourth Touchpoint (Day 7)

This can be another piece of content or an email.

For prospect’s that still haven’t responded at this point, it would make sense to try and call them up or send them an offer.

Fifth Touchpoint (Day 10)

This is the point where a sales rep has to continue the relationship with the prospect, they can like or engage with their posts on LinkedIn, make a phone call to touch base, or even send a quick voicemail.

Other Touchpoints

There are touchpoints that reach 10-15 different steps with different variations at each stage. This just serves as a general guide at the most effective way to plan out sales cadence, especially for technology companies.

Takeaways

For a lot of companies, this can be a lot of work, but it does pay off in the long run. By planning out an extensive sales cadence, B2B tech companies will be able to leverage their resources and create more effective campaigns. Alternatively, they can reach out to lead generation specialists with readymade sales cadence steps that they can personalize for their industry. In this way, there is no need for them to stray away from product development while an agency takes care of the sales pipeline.

Which problems are you trying to fix right now?

What solutions have you tried before?

What piqued your interest about us?

What do you look for the most in solutions?

What could be a possible deal-breaker for you?

What is your timeframe for visible results?

What could be a possible deal-breaker for you?

When will you be able to make a decision?

Takeaway

The Lack of Target Customer Profiles

The Lack of Lead Generation Tools

The Lack of Training and Lead Generation Systems

The Lack of Inbound and Passive Campaigns

The Lack of an Outbound Strategy

Optimize All of Your Profiles!

Gated Content on Social Media

Retargeting

LinkedIn Lead Generation

Referral Program

Speak with a Third-Party Lead Generation Agency

Personalize and Adapt

How Do You Fit in Their Ecosystem?

Sell to the Organization Not Just the DMU

Get Technical

Make Your Follow Ups Worth It

Terms You Need to Be Familiar With

The Easiest Way to Compute Return on Investment (ROI) and Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Computing Email Marketing ROI

Computing Facebook Advertising ROI

Computing Google Ads ROI

Takeaway

How Do You Use Your LinkedIn Profile for Lead Gen?

Optimizing Your Profile

Headline

CTA Elements

Trust Elements

Featured Section

Connecting with People

Leverage Content

Understand what problems your product/service solves

Know your Competitors

Analyzing your channel traffic

Audience Segmentation

Takeaway

Industry Proficiency

Business Relationships

Excellent Communication

Multichannel Expertise

Top-of-the-Line Customer Service

Takeaway

Outsourcing Gives Clients Leverage

Outsourcing Opens the Doors to New Ideas

Outsourcing Gives Clients Access to Experience

Outsourcing Allows Companies to Focus on Product Development

Outsourcing is Cheaper

Faster Deployment

What is Third-Party B2B Lead Generation?

Who Is It For?

What Will They Do for You?

What Channels Do They Use/Specialize In?

Is it Expensive?

Can I Hire a Lead Generation Service Even Though I Have an In-House Team?

How’s the Reporting?

Telemarketing is Still Powerful

It Doesn’t Work Without ABM

It Involves a Lot of Testing and Monitoring

It Integrates Well with Multi-channel Campaigns

Leverage Telemarketing Technology and Services

The Three Key Ingredients of Sales Cadence

Personalization

Spacing

Options

First Touchpoint (Day 1)

Second Touchpoint (Day 3)

Third Touchpoint (Day 5)

Fourth Touchpoint (Day 7)

Fifth Touchpoint (Day 10)

Other Touchpoints

Takeaways

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