Outbound Lead Generation Services: All to Know

A sales lead generation process has two sides: inbound and outbound. While inbound marketing is often touted for its benefits, outbound lead generation tactics can sometimes be overlooked.

You will often find claims that outbound is old and outdated. However, that couldn't be further from the truth.

Outbound tactics, when combined with efficient sales processes, can be extremely effective in generating quality leads for your business.

In this blog post, we will take a look at what outbound lead generation is, how it works, and how businesses can pick the right outbound lead generation services to get more qualified leads.

Outbound lead generation is a technique of engaging with potential customers who may or may not be aware of your service or product. It's a way for companies to get their name out there, increase brand visibility, and get in touch with potential customers.

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

There are different modes of communication that companies rely on to reach their target audience. This could include phone calls, social media, emailing, direct mail, and more.

Usually, outbound lead generation is carried out either by the marketing team or the sales team. Mostly, however, both teams need to work in tandem to get the desired results.

Let's have a brief look at each team's role in an outbound strategy.

Outbound Marketing Team

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

Any marketing team working on outbound facilitates the communication that helps companies get to 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 the use of various marketing channels, such as print media, TV, radio, and so on.
  
• Performance marketers. They manage paid advertising campaigns, usually on social media or search engines, along with brand marketing.
  
  

Outbound Sales Team

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 process occurs through a series of 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 a problem that currently exists for them. Much of this is done by the Business Development Representatives of a company.

Put simply, the goal of the sales team is to turn potential leads into prospects. In order to do that effectively, the sales team has to be thoroughly educated on the product.

They also need to be highly creative in their solutions to truly draw the potential buyer in and turn them into a paying customer.

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 to be 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 as if your outbound lead generation efforts aren't performing the way you want them to, it might be time to think about hiring some experts and outsourcing your lead generation efforts to them.

We will talk about how you can determine the best lead generation agency for your needs in the latter part of this article.

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

1. Picking the Right Team

Outbound lead generation is a team effort. If you want the best results, you need to get the best team for the job.

For example, depending on how your sales team is set up, you might want some people who can curate great 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 when it comes to outbound lead generation.

As your teams work to generate leads, keep track of their progress. How many sales are they making each month? Which efforts are paying off? How many calls are they able to make in a day? What's the conversion rate for those calls?

Keeping track of hard numbers can help you analyze the efficacy of your team. It will allow you to recognize the major players in addition to those that are underperforming and can be helped to improve.

2. Identifying and Creating Customer Profiles

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

Next, recognize the core that defines your most profitable customers. 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 about your business? How did they become your customer?
  
• How long have they been in business?
  
• What is their industry?
  

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 get in touch with them.

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

3. Planning Outreach Methods

82% of buyers agree that they have accepted invites for meeting with salespeople after a series of contacts made via cold calls. This means that cold calling and other outbound communication efforts are still effective at converting strangers into prospects.

Both cold calling and 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 a cheap 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.

1. How Transparent Is the Lead Generation Service?

While the actual planning doesn't take place until after you've hired the service, a reliable lead generation agency is able to provide you with a clear outline of their process. They are open and transparent about their approach from start to finish.

2. How and Where Do They Get Their Leads?

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 ensure targeted organic traffic or PPC impressions?
  
• How often do they update their lead database?
  
• Does the company use third-party data sources?
  
• How do they ensure data quality from lead capture forms?
  
  

3. Does Their Tech Stack Meet Your Business Requirements?

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

• CRM tool
  
• Analytics and reporting
  
• Email automation
  
• Marketing automation
  
• Call tracking
  
• And much more!
  
  

However, a litany of impressive 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.

4. How Responsible is the Lead Provider?

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.

5. How Will Performance be Tracked and Reported?

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.

6. Do They Have a Proven Track Record?

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.