B2B Lead Generation: Industry Analysis
The following is a brief synopsis of the major categories of B2B Lead Generation firms:
B2B Telemarketing / E-Mail marketing
Such firms focus on "Top of Funnel" marketing lead development. These firms often combine electronic e-mail campaigns, data mining technology, or outsourced call center resources (overseas) to develop contact information for prospects that have a general interest in your products or services. Companies whose products have a lower price point and that utilize inside sales teams to close opportunities benefit most from these services. The focus is to drive traffic and create demand, rather than prospecting for high revenue and longer term sales opportunities.
Executive Introduction Firms/Boutique Industry Experts
These firms are often founded by former executives within a specific technology or vertical sector who leverage their Rolodex to set up "executive introductions" on the client's behalf. Frequently, these firms are focused on product positioning, however, they may also facilitate funding options, partnership opportunities, etc. They are limited in scope (to the size of their network), and as a result, can not scale. These firms are most effectively used by start-ups that need to secure a small amount of "marquee accounts" in order to establish market brand and credibility.
Appointment Setting
These firms are focused on getting face to face meetings for their clients. The meeting is the focus, objective, and goal. When the meeting occurs, they are done. Their sole motivation is to schedule as many appointments as they can, and bill as much as possible, while engaged with a client. Per the Aberdeen Study: The Buyers Guide to buying B2B Services, there is a major flaw with this model. They state, "While an appointment setting methodology is highly desirable, with top performers selecting it more than all other definitions combined, the act of scheduling a meeting or conference call for a sales team itself carries absolutely no value, unless the provider organization validates the appointment with qualifying data regarding the target companies personnel, competitive challenges and other related business intelligence. ...companies often are challenged with receiving to many leads and need to balance lead quantity with lead quality."
Cost per appointment model locks in a "cost-per-lead" number which can be appealing to a CFO. However, clients are often forced to pay appointments regardless of quality, as stipulated in the contract. In actuality, the cost-per-lead is often substantially higher in this model, as you factor in the cost of travel, and the reality that fewer of these leads convert to pipeline and forecast.
Since the motivation is to schedule appointments with interested prospects, and not facilitating a diagnostic business discussion, appointments are most often scheduled with evaluators, rather than decision makers; which can slow the sales process. Lastly, these firms provide little or no insight into the companies and contacts that did not agree to an appointment. This critical and real-time market intelligence can dramatically improve future direct marketing efforts using highly targeted and segmented messaging.
AG Salesworks: B2B Teleprospecting
AG Salesworks offers B2B teleprospecting services to develop fully qualified sales opportunities for technology solutions. Our expert teleprospecting teams utilize phone, email, and supporting technology to navigate through large organizations, facilitate diagnostic business conversations with key decision makers, and transition fully qualified sales opportunities to our customer's sales team.
We act as a partner organization by delivering a turnkey teleprospecting engine that combines proven methodologies, highly skilled personnel, and a supportive infrastructure. The result is both immediate and lasting improvement to revenue generation efforts.
Our team operates with a focus on "quality over quantity" while developing a measurable, scalable solution for clients to identify high revenue sales opportunities within strategic accounts. Our closed loop process allows us to track the opportunities sent to our clients so that our performance can be measured against the value of pipeline we deliver to your forecast.
AG Salesworks has demonstrable success and extensive experience working with complex technology solutions and the many vertical markets they sell to.