Are you just looking for more leads?... Or, are you looking for Growth?
In today's world of "content is kingism" and inbound marketing taking over traditional marketing, it's easy to get caught up in the wave of populism surrounding lead generation.
But not all lead generation companies are alike, and many are missing the most important part of the equation - sales.
Here are 5 of those big picture concepts that most lead generation companies are overlooking:
1. Synergy
While many don't see synergy as being part of a lead generation company's perview, I disagree. Synergy with sales and other marketing efforts will make or break your lead gen outcomes.
This is why we put so much up-front emphasis in aligning sales and marketing, which involves a collaborative approach to defining the following:
- Buyer personas
- Buyer profiles
- Deal stages (and their entrance requirements)
- MQL and SQL definitions
- Sales architecture (follow up and cadence)
- Lead hand-off procedure (who it gets to, how, and what tools we use)
By doing this, we get objective accountability standards that light the way for success, and help us solve bottlenecks in the sales cycle.
No more finger-pointing when sales quotas fall short.
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2. Internal control
Some lead generation companies prefer to just send you the leads, and not give you any control or ownership of the intellectual property involved. This means that if you shut off the valve, you lose all momentum they created.
But by putting the automation software in your name, putting your credit card on the paid ads, and insisting that you have visibility from the beginning, you'll be in the driver's seat. You'll OWN your investments in blogging, social media, SEO, and content creation.
And by owning and controlling everything, you'll see what's working, and take it to production and sales to grow your business how you want to grow it.
3. Sales technology
Like synergy, many lead gen companies don't put a lot of emphasis on what happens on the sales side. Once they generate the lead, it's off of their plate and onto yours. Ultimate success rides on your shoulders.
But at the end of the day, what does it matter if your service provider generates 10 leads a day or 100 if your sales team can't CLOSE them? And if/when they run into that problem, are you more likely to listen to your sales team or the lead generation agency?
By implementing a Modern CRM or moderenizing your existing CRM, you should be able to automate the hand-off and reminders to sales, as well as provide them valuable insights that shorten their time to research and ultimately close new deals.
Check out the CRM that 90% of our clients use.
4. Optimization
One of the best things about having a world-class growth hacker on staff is that we're constantly reinventing how to generate results.
One of the best ways to do this is to look backward, not forward.
By having alignment and a transparent sales tool that gets used (so the data is rock solid), we have the ability to objectively improve results through data-driven optimization (aka "growth hacking").
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5. Sales coaching
Again, we're back to sales... But the thing about lead generation, particularly inbound lead generation - is that your leads won't respond to the same tactics being used on cold leads.
It shouldn't be a surprise, since inbound leads:
- ... know when you discovered them (because they discovered you)
- ... have HIGH engagement within 5-minutes of interacting with your content
- ... provide insights about their interests
- ... gave you permission to market and sell to them
For many adopting a new source of leads, there is going to be a learning curve with how to most effectively connect with them. By offering sales coaching, your lead generation company can help you actually derive value out of them.
CONCLUSION:
Lead generation today requires a holistic approach if you are to derive value out of the service you're investing in. To learn more about how our wrap-around programs influence sales, visit our lead generation services page:
