Appointment setting is a simple process, but it’s not easy. It takes a significant amount of time to build an appointment setting strategy and put it into action. Even if you have an appointment setting process built out, this doesn’t mean that it’s sustainable for the long haul.
Additionally, internal appointment setting is costly and can cause a dent in your company’s bottom line. Since many small businesses are already tight on funds, they often outsource appointment setting services to keep costs low.
Think that’s all the benefits of outsourcing appointment setting services? We’re just getting started because there’s plenty more where that came from. Many small to medium-sized companies outsource appointment setting services to:
- Generate Qualified B2B Sales Leads
- Nurture Significant Business Opportunities
- Acquire High-Performing Appointment Setters
- Access Sales Tools and Technologies
- Optimize Their Lead Generation Process
- Set High-Converting Sales Appointments
Generate Qualified B2B Sales Leads
Many internal appointment setting teams can set sales appointments, but very few result in closed business. More often than not, this is because leads aren’t qualified for their company’s product or service offerings.
When hiring an outsourced appointment setting company, sales teams are trained to qualify leads before scheduling appointments, ensuring each appointment set is likely to result in a close business deal. Before leads are qualified, they are referred to as prospects.
Each potential buyer that enters the sales pipeline is initially referred to as a prospect because a sales development representative (SDR) hasn’t had the opportunity to determine if the prospective business meets the company’s ideal customer criteria. Once an SDR qualifies the prospect and decides they meet their expectations, they become a lead.
Lead qualification looks a bit different for each company, depending on their business model and the industry they serve. To qualify a lead, SDR teams must verify the following:
- Decision-maker name
- Decision-maker job title
- Decision-maker email address
- Name of the prospective company
- Location of the prospective company
- Number of full-time employees
Lead qualification is essential for a successful and sustainable appointment setting process because it ensures that each appointment set by SDRs is with the individual responsible for making financial decisions. It also makes sure that a potential customer meets the company’s customer qualifications, therefore resulting in a positive ROI.
Nurture Significant Business Opportunities
Internal sales teams often have a lot of tasks on their plate, leaving little to no time to nurture high-quality business opportunities. When B2B companies outsource lead generation services, they have a team of sales experts responsible for building and maintaining relationships with leads in the sales pipeline, guiding them to the end of the sales funnel.
In a perfect world, each lead would agree to a sales appointment after the first point of contact. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, so sales reps need to practice lead nurturing to build brand credibility and trust potential customers.
During the lead nurturing stage of the sales cycle, outsourced SDRs are tasked with routinely connecting with leads in the sales pipeline to learn about their pain points and decision-making process. Sales teams can nurture leads in the sales pipeline by sending warm emails or making warm phone calls to potential buyers.
Lead nurturing emails should be filled with content relevant to the potential buyer, such as their wants, needs, interests, and the industry they serve. These emails should include content marketing materials such as infographics, sell sheets, case studies, blogs, and more to help them make a purchasing decision.
On the other hand, lead nurturing phone calls should reflect previous conversations an SDR has had with the potential customer. When making warm phone calls to leads, SDRs should prioritize learning about the lead’s pain points and using those to their advantage.
For example, let’s say that you’re an MSP and an outsourced SDR cold calls a lead with an ongoing IT contract. However, they’re not happy with their response times, and they’re looking at other options within the next three months.
After three months, the SDR can call the lead back and refresh their mind about the previous conversation. During this conversation, an SDR can share a story about a similar business in the same scenario and how your company has been able to provide relief to their situation. Since the outsourced SDR provided context and established credibility, the lead feels comfortable about what your IT company has to offer and is open to hearing more.
Acquire High-Performing Appointment Setters
Lead generation outsourcing allows growing businesses to acquire a team of high-performing appointment setters skilled in every area of sales development. When companies outsource appointment setting services, they get a team of SDRs and the following:
- Implementation manager: This individual is responsible for onboarding new clients into the outsourced appointment setting program. They make sure the client is in good hands when the account is passed onto the appointment setting experts.
- Data and operations analysts: These sales experts are responsible for implementing new prospects into the sales pipeline. They find prospective businesses for appointment setters to qualify using sales tools and technologies like ZoomInfo and D&B Hoovers.
- Sales training specialists: Since appointment setting best practices are constantly changing, sales training specialists are responsible for ensuring SDR teams follow sales development procedures that yield the best results for a client’s program.
- Client success managers: After the implementation period, new outbound appointment setting accounts are transferred to client success managers to make sure clients are happy with their lead generation company’s services. If any concerns were to arise, they are discussed with these individuals so they can take action where it’s needed.
Read our blog here to explore why you should consider hiring appointment setters for your B2B lead generation efforts.
Access Sales Tools and Technologies
In addition to a team of high-performing appointment setters, outsourcing lead generation gives growing companies access to all the necessary sales tools and technologies for an optimized sales process.
With hundreds of prospects and leads in the sales pipeline, it’s essential to have a way to streamline each lead to send them the right materials for their interests and stage in the sales funnel. When companies outsource, they have access to an extensive sales stack that allows SDRs to do their jobs quickly and more productively.
Outsourcing appointment setting services gives growing businesses exclusive access to sales tools and technologies like:
- CRM software: Customer relationship management (CRM) software is essential for organizing each lead in the sales pipeline. When using CRM software like Hubspot or Salesforce, leads can be prioritized based on their lead score and how likely they are to agree to a scheduled sales appointment.
- Contact databases: Data and operations analysts use contact databases to find prospects to put into the sales pipeline. In these databases, sales experts can find potential business opportunities in your service region for appointment setters to contact, nurture, and set sales appointments with.
- Email automation tools: Email automation tools are essential for small businesses to get the most out of an outsourced sales and marketing strategy. Routinely sending email drip campaigns to each lead in the sales pipeline allows SDRs to focus on securing a sales appointment with more pressing leads.
When you add up the extensive sales stack, these tools can get pricey when practiced in-house. Outsourcing appointment setting services allows small businesses to access a variety of sales tools and technologies for less than the price of a single internal sales development rep.
For a complete look at the true cost of B2B appointment setting, read our blog here.
Optimize Their Lead Generation Process
Outsourcing appointment setting services enables small businesses to optimize their overall lead generation process.
Many companies have the misconception that they need to choose one lead generation strategy over another, whether it’s outbound sales development or inbound marketing. However, they actually work best when paired together. Outsourcing with an all-inclusive lead generation provider allows growing businesses to maximize their business growth efforts, consistently adding new leads to the sales pipeline from various directions.
When companies outsource appointment setting services, they often get potential buyers into the sales pipeline through contact databases. While this is an effective way to generate leads, another great way to find leads for the sales pipeline is by optimizing inbound marketing content to align with the target market’s wants, needs, and buyer personas.
For instance, if interested users see value in what the company has to provide, they can enter the sales pipeline by entering their contact information on their website to receive company newsletters and other sales and marketing materials. Once a lead receives several of your newsletters and is ready to make a purchase, they can reach out to schedule an appointment meeting with one of your sales executives.
Looking to create a more predictable B2B appointment setting process? Learn how you can achieve a more sustainable process here.
Set High-Converting Sales Appointments
Hiring outsourced appointment setters ensures that each sales appointment set meets a company’s ideal customer criteria and is likely to result in closed business.
Since internal sales teams don’t have to worry about building and maintaining a sales pipeline, sales and account executives can spend more time crafting the perfect sales presentation that aligns with the potential buyer’s industry, pain points, and buyer persona.
A sales presentation tailored to a potential customer’s needs encourages them to listen because everything the sales execs explain aligns with their needs. Crafting a sales pitch that aligns with the potential buyer is essential because they’re more likely to feel heard by the company and shows that the company genuinely cares about the success of their business.
Key Takeaways
As we mentioned at the beginning of the blog, appointment setting is a simple process, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. For an appointment setting program to be successful, a team of sales experts must know how to effectively move leads throughout the sales pipeline and guide them to the end of the sales cycle.
Many small businesses outsource their appointment setting services because it’s a much more time-saving and cost-effective way to find new business opportunities. Additionally, outsourced appointment setting services providers have a tried and true way of generating leads, saving your internal team from experiencing trial and error.
At Abstrakt Marketing Group, our cold email marketing specialists are well-equipped to find prospects, convert them into leads, and nurture the relationship until they’re ready to schedule a sales appointment with a member of your internal sales team.
When you’re ready to optimize your appointment setting process, contact the lead generation experts at Abstrakt!
