How Do You Find The Right B2B Lead Generation Company
Surveys show that 85% of B2B marketers point to lead generation as their biggest challenge (source). This is concerning because leads are the lifeblood of a business. Without new leads coming in, there are no new sales. That’s why hiring a top B2B lead generation company is crucial.
That being said, how do you find the right company for your business? You’re about to discover a simple guideline to help you do that.
Know Your Goals
Before approaching any B2B lead generation company, you need a clearly defined goal. Setting goals is like putting in your destination on your GPS. Without it, the B2B lead generation company won’t be able to know how they can help you.
Savvy business owners and managers use SMART goals to keep their campaigns on track. If you’re not familiar with it, SMART goals are:
- Specific – Instead of setting a goal of generating leads, insert a specific number. For example, 30 new leads per month.
- Measurable – This is a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that is important to you when it comes to measuring the success of the campaign.
- Attainable – Goals shouldn’t be easy, but they must be attainable. Let’s say your typical sales cycle is 6 months. Even the best B2B lead generation company can’t bring you new sales within 3 months of working together.
- Relevant – Your goals should be in line with your bigger business goals. For any business, clearly getting a predictable stream of leads is congruent with your goals of increasing sales.
- Timely – SMART goals have a specific timeline attached to it.
Plan Your Lead Acquisition Budget
Marketing campaigns to generate leads is an investment for your business. This is fine as long as you’re making a return on your investment (ROI). Here are some calculations that will help you plan your budget
- How many new leads do you need to hit your revenue target?
- What is the average cost per lead for your industry?
- What is your leads-to-sale conversion rate?
- What is your customer lifetime value? Customer lifetime value = average customer lifespan x average annual customer value
These questions will help you understand your business better. And it will make discussing with lead generation agencies easier.
You will find that the top B2B lead generation companies will charge more compared to less reputable ones. They typically have a proven marketing strategy to generate leads for you.
That’s why it’s essential that you know your numbers first. You’ll know if it makes sense to pay a higher price.
If you’re getting a good return on your investment, then why not go with them. By outsourcing the lead gen to a specialist, you free up resources in your team. They can focus on closing the deals and fulfilling the orders.
Understand The Target Market
The lead generation company you work with must work to know your target audience. In B2B, they could be different people in multiple departments.
One can be an engineer who wants to know specific details of how your product works. They want to know detailed hardware requirements, specifications and how to use them.
Another audience could be the decision makers who may not be technically savvy. They will be overwhelmed and confused with that level of detail. Instead, they’re more concerned about the costs, getting a good return on investment and safety of the product.
It’s important the B2B lead generation company you work with knows your ideal client. That way the agency knows their concerns and can communicate it in the marketing messages.
How Leads Are Generated
There are many ways to generate leads online. There’s content marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, social media, and many more.
These strategies are all great and have a place in the overall B2B lead generation strategy. They complement one another when you integrate them all seamlessly. They fill each other’s gaps.
For example, organic keywords may take longer to rank on the search engines. You can run paid search for those keywords that you aren’t ranking high for yet. You can also incorporate social media to engage your target audience and join the conversation where they are hanging out.
B2B buyers today go through a long sales journey, where they twist and turn throughout the process. By having a presence in all the different channels, it increases your chances of getting noticed.
But having to deal with multiple agencies who handle different parts can be a nightmare. It will be difficult to coordinate and cause delays in the project. Moreover, your messaging won’t be consistent.
Therefore, it would be a great advantage to work with a B2B lead generation company that provides all of the service. Everything is in one place and you just have to liaise with one person.
1. Establish Clear Communication
In any business relationship, clear communication is a must. This has to be set up the moment the project is launched. So, ask the agency what their onboarding process looks like.
Having a thorough onboarding process means that everything will be laid out and everyone will be on the same page. There’s no back and forth which will delay the start of the project. This will save a lot of time and get your project moving faster.
You also want to know who the point of contact will be. You want someone who is reliable. They need to be easy to reach when you need them. And find out what is the best channel to communicate. The last thing you want is to spend days waiting for a reply from your lead generation company.
It’s a good idea to schedule regular updates. You can monitor the KPI and make sure the campaign is running on track. This will help you have a successful lead generation campaign.
2. Create Content That Stands Out
There are many B2B lead generation companies out there, but only a few that do content right. Every lead that you get will be because of a piece of content that you created.
And for you to get high volume and high-quality leads, you must have stellar content. Content that is relevant, compelling, and addresses your target audience’s pain points is a must for any lead generation strategy.
The best lead generation company will understand your business and stakeholders in and out. They will come to you with suggestions on how to fill your content gap and then create high-quality content to fill that gap.
This content can be in the form of case studies, brochures, product videos, white papers, and more. A good lead magnet will be a piece of content that your buyer persona wants to download and is willing to share information for.
A few basic tactics in a good content strategy are creating a content calendar mapped by themes and clear timelines. View content as a long-term strategy and evaluate your lead generation companies accordingly.
3. Send Good Emails
Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools available to any marketer right now. It is a direct channel to your prospect and customer and there is no limitation, like the one imposed by social media channels.
Any good outbound marketing strategy will have an email marketing strategy as well. This just goes to show how important it is for a lead generation company to know how to send good emails.
The ability to convert potential customers via email is an art form that must be mastered. Backed by knowledge of your buyer personas, the right B2B lead generation company must be an expert in email marketing.
Moreover, email marketing goes beyond just reaching out to potential customers. It plays a crucial role in lead nurturing prospects and customers as well.
A top lead generation company should have segmented audience email lists, personalized email content, and deep analytics into how your emails are performing.
4. Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation
Your website is where all your lead magnets reside. It is also where all your marketing campaigns and channels lead to. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of having a website that is optimized for lead generation.
An optimized website will do great on SEO parameters while ranking top on the search engine results page. It’ll also be optimized for both mobile devices and desktops while having fast load times and intuitive navigation.
You might have a stellar email marketing and content strategy but if your website has a clunky user interface with a lot of friction, you’ll lose customers even before they download something and become a lead.
Therefore, lead generation companies with a solid background in website optimization are a great choice.
Not only will they be able to look at your lead generation campaigns holistically, but also suggest improvements in areas that might not seem directly related to generating leads but will definitely have a great impact!
Get Customized Lead Generation Service
Choosing the Best B2B Lead Generation Company
Bringing in a top B2B lead generation company can take some effort initially.
But by doing your due diligence and homework up front, it will increase the chances of bringing a reliable partner onboard resulting in successful campaigns.
Look at the previous work of the company you’re evaluating, and the breadth of services they offer. If they offer both inbound and outbound lead generation services and have a solid tech team, they might be worth considering.
Most importantly, enquire how they will customize their services to meet your marketing program objectives. Have clear and agreed-upon criteria of performance metrics.
A good lead generation company should be able to identify a problem and offer sound data-backed recommendations to fix it.
Remember, you are not just after any lead, but high-quality leads. These are leads that are primed for conversion and your Sales teams find easier to sell to.
Having a predictable stream of new leads is critical for any business. Get in touch to fill your pipeline with warm and qualified leads.
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