What Is B2B Lead Generation as a Service?

As competition grows fierce, the need to gain market share becomes more and more important. Every business wants to be the top provider in their market for the service(s) that they offer, but this isn’t an easy task. To become a well-known business that generates leads, you have to cold call prospects, nurture relationships, keep up with your social media, and develop a great website. Basically, you need to focus on different B2B lead generation strategies that will generate the most opportunities for your business so that you can grow.

Every business wants to generate more opportunities, but not every business realizes how beneficial it can be to outsource lead generation. So, what exactly does outsourcing lead generation look like, and why should your business want to do it?

B2B Lead Generation Services—Why Outsourcing Is Your Best Option

Companies of all sizes across various industries have heard of lead generation services; however, they’re not exactly sure what it looks like or how it can be beneficial to their business. B2B lead generation as a service is the delivery of lead generation services by an expert that specializes in sales and marketing activities that generate leads.

Outsourcing B2B lead generation can save companies time on a number of activities involved in the sales process. When you outsource, a team of professionals is prospecting, identifying the most qualified leads, nurturing those leads, and scheduling appointments on your behalf. These B2B appointment setting activities can be extremely beneficial because it allows your team to focus on serving current customers and delivering detailed sales pitches while an outsourced sales team handles the leg work.

The Components of an Outsourced Sales Program

Now that we’ve established that B2B lead generation as a service is essentially outsourcing your B2B lead generation efforts, let’s take a close look at each component of a B2B lead generation program. Understanding each component will help you to see why lead generation as a service is becoming a more favorable alternative to keeping efforts in-house.

Prospecting and Identifying Qualified Leads

When you outsource to a B2B lead generation firm, you have an entire team dedicated to prospecting and identifying qualified leads on your behalf. Acquiring the team and tools to do just this activity in-house would cost more than an entire lead generation program.

Sales prospecting as a service is a part of any lead generation program. A B2B lead generation company will offer the following services:

Understanding your target customer. At the beginning of your program, your lead generation partner will gather a bit of information from you about your ideal customer. For example, if you’re an HVAC company, your partner may want to know things like the typical size of companies you like to work with (how many square feet)? They’ll also ask what geographic areas you’d like to target (maybe you only work with companies in your city and surrounding cities—this is important for your lead generation partner to know). Once your partner knows your ideal customer, they can use HVAC lead generation and growth strategies to run a successful program.

Using top tools to build lists. Once your partner knows the criteria that make a prospect a qualified lead for your business, they’ll begin building a list. B2B lead generation agencies use industry-leading tools to find hundreds of prospects so you can win more business in your market.

Collecting data. Business development professionals who prospect aren’t just responsible for finding a name and an email address. When they build a list, they’re gathering tons of data on prospective clients so that they can effectively qualify leads.

Scrubbing lists. Once all data is collected and a list is built, your outsourced sales development team will scrub the list. Data scrubbing is a quality control measure in which a business development specialist looks at a list closely to ensure all potential leads are qualified.

Once all of this is done, the appointment setting process can start.

Lead Nurturing and Qualification

Lead nurturing and qualification is an activity that sales representatives are in charge of. It involves calling and emailing with the goal of gathering information to further qualify leads. The ultimate goal is to nurture leads that are qualified and, eventually, schedule an appointment for another sales rep to deliver a more detailed sales pitch.

Nurture campaigns are an important part of any lead generation program. The more you nurture prospects, the more opportunities you’ll generate. However, most companies simply don’t have time for this activity. Companies across all industries have enough on their plate; new product development, serving their current customers and taking care of their employees to name a few. But, even if a company has time to cold call prospects on a daily basis, lead nurturing is a whole different beast. This requires a top-notch CRM to keep track of activity, a killer email marketing campaign, and multiple touchpoints with a customer across several months. Plus, if your salespeople don’t have the skill to talk to people and extract the necessary information, a lead nurture program is no good. It’s better to leave this activity to the professionals.

Marketing Services (Inbound Lead Generation)

Last but not least, marketing services are an important aspect of lead generation as a service. Most B2B lead generation agencies will offer a variety of inbound marketing services in an effort to drive leads to a business online. Inbound marketing generates leads just like outbound marketing; however, the difference is that inbound marketing drives potential customers who are already looking for what you offer to your website and converts those visitors into leads.

Take the following for example:

If a business needs their roof inspected after a storm, they’ll probably search for “best roofing companies near me” on Google
If a new business is growing quickly and realizes they need a commercial cleaning company, they might search for “commercial cleaning companies near me”
If a company needs managed IT support, they might perform a search for “IT consulting services” or “IT support”

And so on; you get the picture. The point is this: no matter what sector your business is in, it sure would be nice if your business showed up first on a search results page when a user searched for the services you offer. Inbound marketing services can help you achieve this.

There are many different services a B2B lead generation company can provide to help you generate more inbound leads, including:

Website design and development
Search engine optimization (SEO) services
Content marketing (blogging and website writing)
Social media marketing
Video production

All of these in some way shape or form can help you generate more inbound leads (aka, companies who already fit the mold of your ideal customer and are looking for what you offer).

When you choose lead generation as a service, you’re choosing a business growth model that provides you with the team and tools to grow. If you look at all components of a lead generation program, B2B sales outsourcing is the option that makes the most sense. It saves you time and money while allowing you to focus on your core business.

If you’re considering outsourcing your lead generation efforts to a team of experts, look no further. Abstrakt Marketing Group is an experienced B2B lead generation agency. We’re committed to growing small and medium-sized businesses through a variety of inbound and outbound lead generation tactics. For more information or to start your program, contact us today.