With so many outsourced B2B lead generation services on the market, you may be wondering which one is right for your organization. This article will help you choose a lead generation service that will effectively build brand awareness, boost the top of your funnel, and increase revenue.
The service you choose should be based on your specific needs. How qualified do your leads need to be? What gaps do you have in your lead generation process? How much time or money are you able to invest in an outsourced service? As you reflect on these questions, you’ll be able to better choose the right type of service for your business.
In this post, we will cover 3 different categories of outsourced B2B lead generation services and things to consider when choosing which one to invest in:
- Outbound sales lead generation services
- Demand generation marketing services
- Lead database services
We’ll dive into outbound lead generation services first.
Outbound sales lead generation services
Outbound B2B sales lead generation services involve sales development reps reaching out to prospects in your target audience and promoting your solution. A primary benefit these services offer is direct outreach that is tailored to each prospect.
Let’s take a closer look at a few common types of outbound lead generation services.
Cold calling & appointment setting services
Outsourced cold calling and appointment setting services’ primary objective is to schedule sales meetings and qualify leads through cold calls and emails.
By outsourcing cold calling and appointment setting, you gain an SDR team that will build relationships and nurture leads at a fraction of the cost of building an in-house department. This service offers the most qualified leads compared to other lead generation services due to its ability to warm up prospects until their sales ready.
As you choose the right vendor, be mindful of the firm you select and how much control you’ll have over the process. Some firms offer a pay-per-lead service, but we recommend partnering with a vendor that offers time-based contracts. For example, we offer month-to-month contracts for our appointment setting services.
This ensures you’re getting quality leads instead of a large quantity of poor leads. Pay-per-lead firms are incentivized to provide volume, regardless of quality, while firms that rely on renewals must continually provide value to retain clients.
Also, consider your outsourced partner’s location. Working out of significantly different time zones or through a language barrier can add another level of challenges you don’t want to face.
If you’re looking for the most qualified leads, we highly recommend outsourcing your cold calling and appointment setting efforts because of the sales-ready leads you’ll receive and the money you’ll save.
Social selling services
Social selling services use social media to generate leads and feed your sales funnel. Reps achieve this by performing targeted outreach through direct messages on social media. For B2B social selling, LinkedIn is the primary social media platform used.
There are 3 main benefits that come from this service:
- Increased brand awareness
- Personalized 1-on-1 conversations
- Access to accurate prospect information
Unlike cold calling and emailing, social selling can be difficult to succeed with because prospects don’t often agree to purchasing a product over social media platforms. This service is better for building brand awareness than creating sales-ready leads.
Remind yourself what you want to get out of your outsourced lead generation service. If you want highly qualified leads, then social selling may not be the best option.
If you’re more interested in building your brand awareness, then this service could be a great opportunity.
Outbound content syndication services
Outbound content syndication services provide reps who reach out to prospects with the goal of getting them to download a piece of content, register for a virtual event, or agree to be sent more information.
Consider these factors to help decide if this service is for you. Outsourcing this service gives you reps who typically go through a very large list of prospects. This allows for a larger audience to be reached at a cost-friendly rate.
However, these large lists are often not strictly targeted, so your results may vary. Depending on which vendor you partner with, they may be reaching out to people who don’t match your buyer persona and aren’t likely to purchase.
You may end up only receiving a few qualified leads. Other leads may not be a good fit for your solution or may need much more nurturing. But if your goal is volume and brand awareness, this type of service may be a good choice for you.
Learn what it takes to identify prospects, get in touch with decision makers, and set more meetings for your sales reps.
The type of outbound sales lead generation service you choose depends on the quality of leads you want and the goals you have for your pipeline.
Demand generation marketing services
As the name suggests, the purpose of demand generation marketing services is to drive awareness and demand for your product or service. Marketing services help you generate inbound leads — leads who initiate contact with your company. These leads are already warm by the time they speak to a rep because they’re already familiar with your brand.
There are a lot of different types of B2B marketing services out here. For this post, we’ll highlight a couple of the most common ones.
Email marketing automation services
Outsourced email marketing automation services provide tech-savvy marketers who help you build email campaigns and manage your marketing automation platform.
A major benefit of outsourcing email marketing is gaining access to experts who already understand the ins and outs of your platform and are familiar with marketing automation strategies and best practices. Additionally, these experts come at a much more affordable cost than hiring email marketers internally.
Aside from building email campaigns, these firms can help with segmenting prospects for account-based marketing. Many can also help with setting up your platform to automatically score and qualify leads for your sales team to follow up with.
With so many benefits, there are still some things to consider. You’ll need a partner who understands your audience, your database, and your messaging. You should also look for a firm whose marketers are certified in your chosen platform to ensure the process is as seamless as possible.
Finally, keep in mind that email marketing is meant to influence prospects to “raise their hand” by engaging with your brand. But your SDRs or sales reps will still need to nurture them further to convert them into a customer.
If you are trying to build initial awareness and fill the top of your sales funnel, email marketing services could be the right choice for you.
Content marketing services
When you outsource your content marketing, you gain access to specialized marketers who create and distribute engaging content that attracts and converts leads. Content marketers are able to craft targeted, SEO-friendly content that leads website visitors to fill out a form to contact you or receive gated content.
Some examples of work a content marketing partner can help with include:
- Blog articles
- eBooks
- Email copy
- Website copy
- Ad copy
- Sales collateral
- Social media posts
The right firm will provide skilled marketers whose content increases website traffic and establishes authority and trust.
But be aware these results aren’t immediate. Content marketing can take some time to generate traffic and leads. If you’re looking for quick wins, you may need to supplement this service with outbound efforts.
If you’re looking to outsource your content marketing, then take these factors into consideration. You’ll need to find a firm who can create content specific to your industry, who understands your audience, and can position your solution effectively.
Some vendors can even handle all aspects of content marketing — writing the copy, designing graphics, and publishing content on your website.
EBQ is one of these providers that is equipped to handle such a robust task. Our marketing specialists can create, design, and manage your content to increase engagement and keep your brand top-of-mind.
A Step-by-Step Guide
Learn how to create a strategy that generates, qualifies, and converts marketing leads and increases sales.
The type of demand generation marketing service you choose ultimately depends on how it will fit into your overall lead generation process and your required timeline to achieve results.
B2B lead database services
The overall goal of B2B lead database services is to help you build out and maintain a database of leads. These services typically provide cold leads who will need nurturing and qualification, but can lead to potential customers down the line.
List creation services
List creation services deliver a built-out list of prospects to market to. You specify your prospect criteria — such as industry, location, and job title — and receive a list of contacts that match your target market.
These services save your organization time because your team won’t have to manually find relevant contacts themselves. However, data accuracy is an extremely important factor to consider when choosing a provider. Without accurate data, your team may end up wasting time instead.
When choosing the right vendor, be aware that many of the big data vendors you may have heard of often sell outdated contact data. This can waste your money and your sales reps’ time as they try to reach contacts from this obsolete data.
Look for a list creation vendor that can offer a human element with hands-on processes that ensure more accurate data. This allows your reps to find more success reaching out to prospects based on up-to-date information.
Outsourced data validation
As the name suggests, outsourced data validation is a service you can use to make sure the contact information you have — such as prospect phone numbers and emails — is accurate.
There are a couple versions of this service you may come across. One involves reps manually calling through a list of prospects to confirm their information is accurate. The second is a more data-centric service that involves scrubbing your prospect data, often utilizing automation, to detect and correct any inaccurate records.
No matter which approach you choose, a data validation service is meant to improve the accuracy of your data which leads to less time spent on bad records.
Keep in mind that this service doesn’t move leads further along in the qualification process. It only confirms whether or not the data you have is accurate.
Intent data services
Another type of lead data service is intent data services. These services identify companies that are showing signs of active interest in a solution.
Since these prospects are actively looking for a solution, search intent data services enable you to gain insight into their buying habits and allow you to promote yourself as a solution at the opportune time.
Intent data vendors identify these organizations through search data, artificial intelligence, and public signals of buying intent — such as RFPs or job postings. When choosing a vendor, consider whether they provide first-party data gathered through their own website or rely on third-party data only for their offering.
We often find the accuracy of intent data services can be questionable, so it’s best to take the information with a grain of salt. For example, a prospect may not be looking for a solution anymore by the time you receive their details or they performed an action that signaled intent but were not actually looking to buy anything.
B2B Sales Data Management
Learn everything you need to know about collecting contact data and maintaining the health of your database.
Lead database services may be the right choice for you if you need a strong foundation for lead generation or have concerns about the health of your existing lead database. If you’re looking for a partner that can manage all aspects of your prospect database, our expert data services are here to help.
Outsourced B2B lead generation to drive funnel growth
Whether you’re looking to receive more qualified leads or just need more reliable prospect data, outsourced lead generation services are a cost-friendly, efficient way to boost the top of your funnel and generate brand awareness.
Understanding what each outsourced service brings to the table enables you to choose the best service for your company.
With years of experience working for thousands of companies, EBQ can be the effective partner you’re looking for with lead generation services spanning sales development, marketing, and data.
