Outbound Lead Generation Services: All to Know

Have you ever looked at the success of those innovative startups and asked yourself, "How did they get there?".

The answer has much to do with outbound lead generation services - which are essential to launching and maintaining successful business ventures.

Outbound lead generation is a cost-effective, time-saving approach that allows businesses to locate qualified leads quickly while freeing up valuable resources for other projects.

In this blog post, we will discuss everything you need to know about outbound lead generation services – what they are, why they're important, how to use them effectively, and more!

Keep reading to discover how making this small investment can make all the difference in your startup journey.

Outbound lead generation is the process of proactively reaching out to potential customers who may not be aware of your product or service. This can be done through various channels, such as cold calling, cold emailing, messages on LinkedIn, and social selling.

The outbound process often involves making outbound calls or initiating any other form of contact with a target audience to generate interest in the company. Once the interest is established, the lead can be introduced into the outbound sales funnel.

Usually, outbound lead generation is carried out either by the sales team, starting with the SDR doing cold outreach and booking meetings, and the AE having initial meetings and product demos. However, both teams must work together to get the desired results.

Having difficulty noticing a difference between an SDR vs an AE? Head on to that blog post.

Let's briefly look at each team's role in an outbound strategy.

Outbound marketing is a traditional approach to pushing the brand message out to potential customers.

Any marketing team working outbound facilitates the communication that helps companies reach potential customers and generate new leads. This team usually consists of the following two entities of marketers:

• Campaign marketers. These marketers are responsible for running promotional campaigns through various marketing channels, such as print media, TV, radio, and so on.
• Performance marketers. They manage paid advertising campaigns and brand marketing, usually on social media or search engines.

The outbound sales team goes through a similar process as the marketing team.

For them, the primary goal is to seek out the target audience and use outbound communication methods to strategically guide them through the sales funnel until they make a purchase.

This communication occurs through follow-up calls and emails, negotiations, demos, and attempts to close the sale. The idea is for the sales team to offer the prospect a solution to their current problem. Much of this is done by the Business Development Representatives of a company.

The sales team's goal is to turn potential leads into prospects. To do that effectively, the sales team has to be thoroughly educated on the product.

They must also be highly creative in their solutions to attract leads and turn them into customers.

In a report by HubSpot, it was found that the top priority for organizations was generating more leads. The same report also found that 61% of marketers consider lead generation their number one roadblock.

You can have an incredible business that provides remarkable services to its customers. But if you are not generating high-quality leads consistently, your efforts to expand may never reach their true potential.

If you feel your SaaS sales lead generation efforts aren't performing as you want them to, it might be time to think about hiring some experts and outsourcing your lead generation efforts to them.

In the latter part of this article, we will discuss how you can determine the best lead generation company for your needs.

For now, let's take a look at the different outbound lead generation services that your business can take advantage of.

Outbound lead generation is a team effort. If you want the best results, you must get the best team.

For example, depending on how your sales team is set up, you might want some people who can curate great cold emails or others who may be great on the phone. In some cases, you may even need individuals who can do both.

This can be done by picking the right outbound lead generation service. We will discuss doing that in the next section of the article.

It's also important that your marketing and sales teams are aligned. A lack of alignment between the two can be a major roadblock concerning outbound lead generation.

As your teams work to generate leads, keep track of their progress.

Is the monthly lead quota being met?

Which sales strategies are paying off?

How many calls are they able to make in a day?

What's the lead-to-customer conversion rate?

Keeping track of complex sales metrics can help you analyze the efficacy of your team. It will allow you to recognize the major players and those that are underperforming and can be helped to improve.

When looking to generate leads, identify your most valuable existing customers. "Successful" in this instance, means a client from whom you derive the most value and brings you the highest profit.

Next, recognize the core that defines your most profitable customer profiles.

In this step, you need to ask a lot of questions, such as:

• What is the size of the company?
• How many employees does the company have?
• What is the average revenue of the company?
• What are the titles of all their employees?
• Where are they located?
• What kind of social media platforms do they make use of?
• What is the average deal size that you get from them?
• How did they know about your business? How did they become your customer?
• How long have they been in business?
• What is their industry?
• Which sales channels will be more effective?

After asking the right questions and filtering for relevant data, it's time to start generating leads. You should search for more businesses with the same underlying core as your most successful clients and use varying outreach methods to contact them.

Thankfully, the sharpest outbound lead generation services know how to build a robust customer profile.

82% of buyers agree that they have accepted invites to meet with salespeople after a series of contacts made via cold calls. Cold calling and other outbound communication efforts still effectively convert strangers into prospects.

Both cold calling and cold emailing are cost-effective outbound lead generation techniques for B2B companies. It allows marketing and sales teams to build a list of prospects and effectively market to a large audience.

Additionally, social selling should also be used to connect with prospects. It is an affordable and quick way to reach your demographic through social media and build rapport.

Another outreach method includes using several providers that will sell you lists of emails, names, and B2B data. These include platforms such as LinkedIn, ReachHub, and LeadGenius.

Hiring an outbound lead generation service that manually finds leads for you can be a highly worthwhile investment for your business.

But how do you know you have picked the right outbound lead generation service?

It all comes down to asking the right questions before signing the dotted line.

While the actual planning doesn't occur until after you've hired the service, a reliable lead generation agency can clearly outline its process.

They are open and transparent about their approach from start to finish.

There is no shortage of companies that claim to have the "best" leads. Here's how you can tell hype from fact:

• Does the provider carry their own prospect research?
• How do they provide targeted customer profile data?
• How often do they update their lead database?
• Does the company use third-party data sources?
• How do they ensure data quality from sales tools?

An experienced lead generation service provider will have a set of tools to manage and optimize campaigns. These can include:

• CRM & other sales tools
• Analytics and reporting
• Email automation
• Call tracking
• And much more!
  

However, a litany of impressive sales tools won't do you much good if they don't fit with your business workflow.

This is why you should ask your potential provider about their system's integration flexibility and whether or not their service is right for your particular industry is crucial.

Any good agency would enable you to understand how their leads can help you generate sales. In fact, they will take full responsibility for their role in it.

In essence, your lead provider won't just provide the leads and call it a day. They will be with you through varying stages of the sales cycle.

Lead generation relies heavily on data and hard facts in order to make informed decisions.

For this reason, the quality of performance tracking and reporting is crucial when choosing a lead services provider.

Know the frequency of their reporting and their ability to customize those reports according to your business requirements.

The best outbound lead generation service providers will have a proven process and track record with testimonials and case studies to back it up.

Ask for a walk-through of their proven strategies and an explanation of their documented processes.

Outbound lead generation services are the best way to boost your business efforts and begin a conversation with key decision-makers in your industry.

You won't simply wait for new customers and then hope that they turn out to be a good fit. Rather, you get to decide who you are getting in touch with and how you want to communicate with them.

It is imperative to recognize that outbound lead generation is still very much an active part of the sales journey.

Therefore, making sure that you are working with the right outbound strategies and service providers can go a long way in solidifying your business's success and improving its bottom line.

If you're ready to grow your business but don't have the in-house capacity or expertise, contact us here and we'll get back to you shortly.