Over the past several years, the lines between sales and marketing have been blurred. This is especially true when it comes to qualifying B2B leads. As an outsourced sales and marketing company, we see both good and bad B2B lead qualification processes. And with the new digital buyer, we believe that the most successful path to qualify leads is now a combination of sales and marketing working together to get the most from your sales and marketing budget. We believe this is one area where considering an outsourced team may make sense. Here is how outsourced sales and marketing qualify leads.
Call B2B Leads Immediately
We all know that there are huge advantages to following up immediately. Buyers have short memories, so you need to strike while the iron is hot. If a call is made instantly after a webinar or a form fill, the buyer may not be ready to buy, but they will be more likely to answer a handful of initial qualification questions about time frame, budget, and why they’re interested. The added bonus is, if the buyer is ready to start evaluating vendors, the first several vendors to reach out will be at the front of the line and the likelihood of getting on their short list increases dramatically.
It is also important that when you get and inbound lead or generate an outbound lead, you immediately drop it into your marketing automation platform. This will keep you top of mind and allow the buyer to learn more about your company (and brand your company) on their own time – not on your caller’s time.
An outsourced sales and marketing company can provide the staff to help you stay on top of all inbound leads.
Understand who you’re qualifying
Do your homework. Research shows, only 2 out of 10 callers take the time to do even a minute or two of research prior to making a qualifying call. Take the time to understand whom you’re qualifying and what the company does.
This is especially true when calling senior executives. The more you demonstrate your knowledge about their company and industry, the more likely they’ll share information about their needs and challenges.
An outsourced sales company will already have the necessary tools and the trained staff to make researching the buyer easier and more cost efficient.
Be Smart About Whom You Call
Building a buyer persona and an ideal customer profile is now critical to getting the most out of your marketing and sales budget. If you hit the mark targeting the right industries and companies, you’ve already qualified for the first level of fit.
Calling is the most expensive part of B2B lead qualification, so you need to focus on buyers and influencers most likely to buy. Today, you absolutely need to separate the buyers most likely to buy, so you can focus your time on these buyers first, and the easiest way to do this is to use your marketing automation platform to score the buyers most engaged with your digital content.
Outsourced sales and marketing qualify leads faster because they will have a blended team in place that can target correctly, acquire databases faster, and have the automation best practice expertise to help you use your marketing automation to score leads more effectively.
You No Longer Need to Qualify Immediately
BANT is dead. If a potential buyer doesn’t have the budget and authority immediately, it doesn’t mean the lead is dead – it simply means it may take more time to qualify. If a prospect has the need, you can now drop them into your automation campaigns, and over time, as their interest starts to grow, the timeline and budget will start to appear.
Not to state the obvious, but new leads need to be prioritized, but only 10% of qualified leads convert into immediate sales. Granted, there is tremendous gratification in that, but 90% of your B2B leads now take time to develop, which often requires a combination of continued marketing and occasional phone calls. Keep leads in your system until they opt out.
About Gabriel Sales Outsourced Sales and Marketing
Gabriel Sales build modern sales and marketing operation for small businesses and startup. We use best outsourced sales and marketing practices and modern sales and marketing to qualify leads and run intergrated sales and marketing campaigns to build a consistent flow of quality leads.
To learn more about our outsourced sales and marketing and decide if this may be the right approach for you please visit our new approach to outsourced sales page.
