Outsourced Lead Generation
Imagine this: your business is preparing to roll out a new product or service. It’s a great idea, and you’re confident in its ability to succeed. So, how do you get it off and running? Easy – lead generation and lead generation services.
What are Lead Generation Services?
Let’s start by defining “lead generation.” Lead generation is the process of generating interest for a product or service with the end goal of converting that interest into a sale. In marketing, a lead is a person/potential customer who interacts with your business or brand. These interactions could be through search engines such as Google or Yahoo, social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, your business’s website, surveys, inbound calls, or cold calls. When it comes to online marketing, leads typically involve the collection of website visitors’ contact information via a web form.
The first step within every successful sales process is lead generation. However, this is quite a complex, time-consuming task, so it’s best not to subject your in-house sales team to it. Their talents can be better utilized elsewhere, like closing deals instead of chasing after potential customers. Lead generation services such as Gold Mountain Communications can handle that process for you. These services fall within the inbound marketing methodology – a specialty of Gold Mountain. It occurs after your business has attracted an audience and is prepared to convert that traffic into leads for your sales team.
Outsourced vs. In-house Lead Generation
As mentioned above, lead generation can be an arduous process. It can be challenging to handle all by yourself, and hiring an on-site sales team can be costly. For many businesses, outsourcing leads is the most efficient way to keep the sales process running as smoothly as possible.
Outsourcing lead generation has an excellent cost-to-effort ratio and is often believed to be the best option for businesses. Most find the benefits of hiring lead generation services greatly outweigh the costs. Outsourcing leads allows your brand to spend more money and time on other critical aspects of your business that require more in-depth and personal attention.
The benefits of outsourcing to a lead generation service include:
They will get you to the right people – Lead generation services can locate and contact potential customers in need of your products or services (not just random people on the internet)
You can focus on the things that must be done in-house – Outsourcing allows you to focus time and energy on other aspects of your business, creating efficiency that leads to tremendous success.
They efficiently deliver results – Lead generation services efficiently discover and contact potential customers, saving them time to reach more consumers and saving you money.
A cost-effective way of generating more leads – Outsourcing lead generation is cheaper in the long run than hiring an entire sales team to work on-site at your business.
Reduced burnout – Being a tedious, time-consuming task, lead generation often causes burnout among sales team members. Outsourcing to a professional lead generation service avoids that issue and keeps your staff motivated to close potential deals.
Lead Generation Services: Best Practices
Don’t BUY leads; GENERATE them
Money talks; there’s no two ways about it. Everyone, marketers and salespeople alike, want to increase sales and generate profits. The issue with this great desire, however, is the temptation to buy leads. Buying leads tends to be pricey, but it is easier and less time-consuming than organically generating them. So, what’s the problem?
The most significant issue with purchasing leads is that the ones you’ve purchased don’t know your business or brand. The consumers behind those leads have often “opted in” on some other website when signing up for something and didn’t agree to receive anything from your company. This means the marketing messages or calls you make to them are unwanted and seen as intrusive. If they never opted in to receive messages from your brand, there’s an increased chance they could flag your messages as spam. Once enough people flag your messages as spam, you go on a “blacklist” shared with other email providers. It is extremely difficult to remove your business from this blacklist once it is on.
Create a personalized customer experience
Many industry professionals believe personalized communication and offers will capture the attention of a business’s audience. Studies have shown that 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide suggestions and relevant recommendations. Lead generation services and contact centers consistently interact with customers directly. With the new technology and software available to track interactions and customer information, it’s easier for those services to remember names, specific requirements, interests, and previous interactions.
Define your best lead
The casual visitors to your website, skimming information and scrolling through, likely are not your best leads. A qualified lead could be someone who:
Fills out a form
Requests a callback
Downloads an ebook or other provided information
The best leads for your business are the consumers willing to trade information such as phone numbers and email addresses for something you provide (discounts, product information, etc.).
Go beyond the sale
Once you’ve gotten your interested consumer to act, continue massaging that lead by encouraging feedback and offering additional content. By building this relationship, you’ll find selling to an established customer easier than starting from scratch with a new one.
Stimulate the interest
Successful lead generation is not always about the final sale. That may be the end goal, but it’s not the key component. The most critical part of generating and converting leads is getting consumers to trust your brand enough to provide their information. In doing so, the potential customer is signaling a willingness to build a relationship and learn more about how your products and services can be useful to that individual. The gist of this thought is lead generation is more about business-consumer respect and less about aggressive marketing tactics.
Use the right metrics
There is no one-size-fits-all for metrics or KPIs (key performance indicators). Every business has its unique clientele with different customers and processes. These differences cause the approach to leads to vary. Before reviewing statistics and other data analysis, your business must consider its goals, target audience, and other processes. From there, your brand can figure out which metrics matter the most.
How Gold Mountain Can Help
Gold Mountain performs the highest-quality objective work regarding lead generation services. We can establish lines of communication between your business and potential customers – assisting with contact forms, customer service, and online chats. Contact us today to learn how our lead generation service can benefit your brand.
