What Is B2B Lead Generation as a Service?

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 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.

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).