Do You Need to Work with a Lead Generation Company?

Marketing teams spend all their time and effort to find the best sales leads for their company. While staying within budget, companies strategize to stay ahead of competitors and generate ROI.

Without leads, there wouldn’t be any sales, and without sales, companies would not achieve revenue goals. Brand management and demand generation leverage one another to be successful, these activities are the responsibility of the marketing team.

Outsourcing Marketing Qualified Lead Generation (MQL)

Marketing professionals know that not all leads are the same. Medium and enterprise level businesses have a lot of supporting departments. The pressure is on for the marketing and sales departments to turn over gross profit.

The sales and marketing departments have to produce far more in sales than what’s needed to pay for their salaries and commission. The marketing team gathers a high volume of sales qualified leads, it then becomes the sales department responsibility to close the deal. The marketing teams nurture MQLs into Bottom Funnel or Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). Allowing, the sales team to spend all its time doing what it does best, selling.

Outsourcing middle funnel lead generation to lead generation companies saves the marketing team a lot of time and effort.  They can concentrate on nurturing those leads to bottom funnel leads. It’s always an option to switch vendors if their leads are not converting as advertised. Knowing what leads to purchase improves the data for further analysis and budgeting.

Expanding to new unfamiliar markets is a challenging venture for businesses. Establishing a footprint in new territories is not easy even for big name brands. Going directly to lead nurturing is targeted and cost-effective. Having the marketing team concentrate their efforts on potential clients is better than trying to get the general public into top-funnel leads.

Benefits of Outsourced Leads

Medium and Enterprise level organizations spend a lot. The faster leads turn into sales, the faster expenditures are converted into profit. The company and more specifically the sales team preform at a higher standard with larger numbers of qualified leads.

The sales team can find leads on their own. Having them nurture leads through the entire funnel is fine for companies that offer large commissions such as real estate, automotive, and the defense industry. Sales teams spending a majority of their time nurturing leads instead of closing reduces sales production. It’s not a problem for big-ticket items, but for general consumption businesses, it’s an inefficient use of their sales force.

In the Information Technology space, competition is fierce. Tech giants to start-ups are all going after the same target market. It’s necessary the sales team concentrates only on SQL and the marketing team focuses on nurturing.

Launching sales campaigns to un-nurtured leads leaves a hard sell impression. Its important to nurture leads into middle funnel – going straight to sales when prospects are not ready to purchase will return in negative results.

Jumping directly from top-funnel to bottom funnel also needs a staggering amount of leads. A poor process can jeopardize the company by establishing negative perceptions in your target market.

Outsourcing generation and investing time nurturing leads is a more efficient move for smart marketing teams. Finding a vendor that can provide quality bottom funnel leads at reasonable price makes for a viable option. Running them with middle funnel leads on a different funnel will provide a good A/B testing scenario.

Funnel Analysis and Improving Conversion Rates

Each lead has the potential to be a sale. In reality, only a small minority of leads converts right away. There are several reasons, the first is the lead source. The quality of leads converting from different sources greatly varies. It’s smart to have a separate funnel for analysis purposes for each source.

Industry benchmarks are a good starting KPI, but your good marketing teams do what they can to beat their own numbers month to month.

The reasons why mid-Funnel leads are not converting to bottom funnel leads differs per company. However, the most common reasons are:

• Current product/service not a good fit
• Marketing and sales have different lead scoring systems
• Value proposition vs pricing
• Untrained sales staff
• Complicated sales closing procedure

The first three reasons indicate that the leads can be recycled after further nurturing. The last two common reasons indicate a problem with the sales team. Having the marketing team analyze funnel data can save money by increasing conversion rates and resolving issues by recycling nurtured leads. Sophisticated technology is needed to keep track of all the data. Third-party lead generation vendors usually provide this technology as part of their service.

The marketing team has three major tasks, lead generation, nurturing them to sales qualified leads, and funnel analysis. Outsourcing lead generation activities will allow marketers to manage marketing funnel efficiency and increase conversion rates.

Thinking it’s time for your company to start working with a lead generation partner? Working with a lead generation partner will fill your marketing funnel with engaged leads that are squarely in your target market. Learn about the 6 Things to Look for in a Lead Generation Partner in our free whitepaper.