How to Outsource Sales to help with Lead Generation

How to Outsource Sales to help with Lead Generation

by | Feb 1, 2017

Time is money-the time to outsource sales is now!

Lead generation is the critical first step in sales. A great sales person highly skilled at closing business may not have the time, and in some cases the skills to generate leads. In most cases it is not worth their time or effort to focus on many of the daily tasks required to generate leads. That is especially true in this day and age when the majority of buyers prefer to learn about new products and services with a quick call and a follow up email that explains the problems your company helps the buyer to solve. Hiring a company proficient in outsource sales could prove extremely beneficial.

Below are the four ways you can outsource marketing and sales to help you generate more leads in 2017.

One – Craft a comprehensive approach

Far too many small businesses do not have a systematic approach for producing new leads. Most small businesses sporadically send out emails and have their sales reps make phone calls when they have the time. The result generally gives credence to the old adage – Fail to plan and plan to fail. Success now requires a systematic and comprehensive strategy for generating leads.

An outsource sales and marketing company will be able to help you craft a repeatable and systematic process that will help build a consistent flow of leads into your closers sales funnel. At Gabriel Sales, our  lead generation solution typically entails a combination of email marketing, cold calling, follow up call, google campaigns and social media out reach.

The most effective lead generation approaches allow you to reach the buyer multiple times. This requires multiple tactics, and you need to build a plan and then stick to the plan.

Two – Lead generation require content

According to multiple studies, the majority of buyers that are not immediately looking for a solution now prefer to learn about a new product or solution through a quick phone call followed up by an email that shares educational content. You now need content for effective lead generation.  This content doesn’t need to overproduced, but it should be professionally done and it should be educational. Early stage lead generation should not sell. It should educate. Then, you need to support the development of the lead with additional content.  Here is a link to a blog post that explains the type of content you will need and how it should be used. This explains the graphic below in a little more detail. You can start a successful lead generation program with as little as two or three simple, well done and educational pieces of content like checklists, webcasts, blog posts and explainer videos. An outsource sales and marketing company can help you to quickly product them.

Three – Use multiple tactics

As we touched on the topic above, you need to use multiple tactics. The days of throwing bodies at the telephone to just smile and dial are over. You can no longer depend on just one tactic to generate leads.

Once you have your content created there are multiple ways to reach out and share that content. We recommend that you keep it simple, but that you also use multiple approaches simultaneously. The goal is to get that educational content in front of as many buyers as possible multiple ways. An outsource sales company will be able to help you do this with emails, phone calls, mailed packages, Google retargeting campaigns and social platforms. We typically recommend using 3 to 5 approaches. When you use multiple approaches, you will triple your chances of getting your message to buyers.

We also recommend that you use a marketing automation platform to score buyer engagement. You can learn more about how and sales and marketing outsourcing company can help you do that that in this quick blog post .

Four – Set realistic goals and stick to your plan

Unrealistic goals can quickly destroy your momentum. When you work with an outsource sales and marketing company they will be able to help you benchmark what you can expect. Then, you need to set a 90 degree strategy and stick to it. Lead generation is a grind, but it is worth it. It is also a discipline that is like training for a sport; you need to do the same things daily and weekly to produce results. An outsource sales and marketing company will ensure that these daily and weekly blocking and tackling takes place and they will measure and report on results with regularity

Gabriel Sales specializes in help SMBs and Start Ups launch modern sales and marketing operations and to build successful and custom best practice strategies for lead generation. To learn more about our outsourced sales and marketing services we invite you to visit our outsource sales and marketing services page.

How an Outsourcing Sales and Marketing Team Build Buyer Trust

by | Jan 30, 2017

Developing trust with your buyer early in the buying and selling process is one of the top reasons to consider outsourcing sales and marketing. Outsourcing sales and marketing to build this rapport and trust with potential buyers early in the sales cycle can save you both time and money because building this trust can create a significant time drain on your senior resources. In addition, this can quickly increase your cost of sales percentage if your most senior resources are dedicating too much time to this task.

Here are 5 Ways Outsourcing Sales and Marketing Can Help you Build Trust with your Buyers:

  1. Follow up with inbound lead immediately – Senior sales resources and executives are busy, in meetings, running operations, managing accounts and leading the company. Outsourcing sales will ensure you are focused on potential needs when the buyer expresses them with an inbound request. Outsourcing sales will help you get to the buyer faster. And as multiple studies continue to explain, the first person back to the buyer has a 50% advantage closing that deal over competitors.
  2. Producing thought leadership content – Most outsourcing sales and marketing companies will have frameworks to help you create thought leadership content in the form of webcasts, videos, blog posts and checklists. This digital content can act as a surrogate for your senior talent early in the sales process. Your “digital thought leader” can demonstrate and share their expertise early in the sales conversation and build trust without needing to engage in early stage sales conversations.
  3. Distribute that thought leadership content – Outsourcing sales and marketing companies will have the technology, the capability and capacity to share that thought leadership with potential buyers. An outsourcing sales and marketing company will be able to do warm, friendly, and helpful calls to buyers where they will share your thought leadership.
  4. Implement a marketing automation solution to score leads – A sales outsourcing and marketing company will have the necessary technologies in place to automate email marketing to a list of potential buyers. They will also have the ability to track those buyers, score their interests, will follow up to be even more helpful, and ask intelligent probing questions. And if it makes sense, they will introduce your senior sales team if the buyer is interested.
  5. They will recap and share what they have learned from the buyer with your senior rep – Your outsourcing sales rep and marketing team will be able to communicate what content your buyer has digested digitally and will also share what they have learned about the buyers needs so your senior sales resource can quickly recap and confirm the buyers needs and understanding. This saves both your buyer and the seller time and builds trust in your entire team’s professionalism

In conclusion, creating this initial positive impression early and building trust is a requirement for almost any sale, and this is one area where outsourcing sales and marketing can help you build this trust and generate more sales qualified leads at a lower cost.

Gabriel Sales helps businesses build modern sales and marketing operations and then supports those operations with a variety of sales outsourcing and marketing services.  To learn more about our approach we invite you to check out our outsourcing sales and marketing services page.

Quick Tip Prior to Outsourced Sales and Marketing Lead Generation

by | Jan 27, 2017

Gabriel Sales provides outsourced sales and marketing services.  Our outsourced sales and marketing solutions help small businesses and startups build repeatable sales and modern marketing organizations.  When we work with our clients we also help them to implement the right technology stack to help them benchmark every stage of their sales process so data can be leveraged for continuous improvement at every stage of the buyer’s journey.  Once the lead generation engine is built and productive we can then quickly and simply transition a client’s  outsourced sales lead generation to the company for continued self-management or we can continue to scale the effort.

What follows are several tips for companies that are just starting to consider if an outsourced sales lead generation and marketing solution is right for their business when they are specifically considering an outsourced lead generation function.

Know who you want and need to target. The first step for success when you engage in outsourced sales and marketing lead generation is to define the market you need to target.  The better your targeting the better the results.  You should expect your outsourced sales partner to work with you to define both your ideal organization and the ideal roles within that organization for you to target.

Outsourced sales and marketing lead generation should be used to scale not invent.  Before getting started with a fully outsourced sales and marketing lead generation program you should have your  prospecting process written down and tested internally first.  If you have not fully documented this process or have not yet run your own lead generation program you should expect your outsourced sales and marketing partner to work with you on a preliminary sales consulting project first to help you define and document a sales prospecting process.

You need educational content and collateral for a successful outsourced sales and marketing lead generation program. 70% of buyers prefer learning about a new product or solution with a quick conversation and/or an email that links them to educational content.   And then depending on your industry 20% to 90% of prospects use digital content to short list the vendors that they want to engage with for deeper sales conversations.  You will need to provide your outsourced sales lead generation team the content  they need to engage and interest buyers.  You will need email templates, FAQs, blog articles, educational assets and features and benefits sell sheets.  If you do not have this material your outsourced sales and marketing company should be able to work with you to create this content.

Agree to success metrics.   Prior to getting started you will need to define what success will be measured on.  You should not expect your outsourced sales lead generation team to close deals for you.  If this is your success criteria you will need to engage your partner for more than lead generation.  However you can expect your outsourced lead generation team to qualify leads if that is agreed to in advance.

Have a plan in place to transition leads.  If leads are not followed up with on a timely and consistent basis you will just be wasting your outsourced lead generation investment.  Before pulling the trigger on an outsourced lead generation program have a plan and at least one sales rep to transition the leads to.

How Gabriel Sales Can Help

If you are an outsourced sales lead generation program Gabriel Sales has developed a turnkey Sales Ready Lead and Sales Automation Starter Package

As a B2B outsourced sales and marketing company, we understand that ROI is important so this package includes a free preliminary assessment to see if outsourced sales is the right solution for your business.  To learn more about our approach you can also visit the About Us page.

How Landing Pages Help Outsourced Sales Teams

How Landing Pages Help Outsourced Sales Teams

by | Jan 24, 2017

Here’s how Gabriel Sales Outsourced Sales Team can help

When you have outsourced sales and marketing, one of the tactics your partner may manage will be creating content or organizing content. Creating a streamlined production of content so you should expect your sales partner to be able to manage landing pages or you should be prepared to offer this support.

Understanding the difference between your home page and a landing page or the difference between a landing page and a microsite is important. Using these different type of pages is important for outsourced sales and marketing success because they all you to address the buyers needs at different stages of the buyer journey. In this age of digital buying every page needs to have a goal to help generate business for your company. Here is the content framework we use.

How does a solid home page help you outsourced sales?

Your home page is the front door to your house. A buyer will use it to quickly get to know you. If they can understand what you do and start to understand how you can help them you will have accomplished your goal. You simply want to make a solid first impression. In face Google and Microsoft Research both report that most people will look around for between 10 to 15 seconds or less and make a decision to leave or to look deeper into your website.

So, the buyer needs to quickly understand that you understand their needs and problems and how you could potentially help them. This needs to happen quickly.  If your home page engages potential buyers quickly this will help your lead scoring and your outsourced sales team.  successful your lead scoring

How are landing pages leveraged by your outsourced sales and marketing team?

Landing pages are pages that continue the sales story. They will typically contain information about 1 topic or one issue that proves to the buyer that you understand their pain. Landing pages are also used for inbound lead generation and content offers. So you need to design landing pages to be used by both your sales reps to share individual pieces of information like white papers, checklists of infographics. But it is also important that you design them to easily embed forms. So the copy should be short and succinct. The major goal for all your landing pages is to turn site visitors into leads or to turn cold call leads into sales accepted leads as they engage with content.

How outsource sales and marketing use microsites?

Microsites are designed to organize your content to make it easy for your buyer to buy. They are used when buyers are moving from problem identification to evaluating your solution. You are simply trying to make it easy for this buyer to have this conversation with you digitally. Think about organizing content on your microsite to provide access to all three stages of content on this page. When you do this, they become very powerful for lead scoring and automation technologies. If you are not familiar with lead scoring you can learn more about that in this blog post What is Lead Scoring?

Gabriel Sales provides outsource sales and marketing services to start ups and Small and Medium Sized businesses. We specialize in helping companies build modern sales and marketing operations. To learn more about the areas Gabriel Sale can help you launch an outsource sales and marketing effort we invite you to learn more about us on our outsource sales and marketing services page

 

Outsourcing Sales Can Accelerate Lead Nurturing

Outsourcing Sales Can Accelerate Lead Nurturing

by | Jan 18, 2017

Outsourcing sales can rapidly increase lead generation

Lead nurturing is quickly becoming a staple of modern sales and marketing operations and outsourcing sales and marketing is a solid way for some SMBs to accelerate their volume of qualified sale opportunities.  Here are some statistics from the 2016 Lead Nurturing Benchmark Survey of mid-market companies:

  • Lead nurturing programs are now being tested by over 89% of B2B companies.
  • The remaining 11% are planning on nurturing in 2017
  • 42% of mid-market organizations are now moving into their third year of nurturing

 

In this new sales paradigm where content marketing and your sales team now need to work side by side to generate a sustained flow of leads educating buyers digitally, small business without internal resources and expertise can struggle to compete. Once you have made the business decision to commit to a sustained lead nurturing strategy, a sales and marketing outsourcing company could be a great solution to accelerate your organization’s ability to execute this strategy successfully. Below are the advantages an outsourcing sales and marketing company can provide your team to accelerate your lead nurturing program:

Automation platform selection

Marketing automation technologies are a critical tool to successful lead nurturing.  Companies now have dozens of marketing automation technologies to choose from.  And this choice can quickly become overwhelming with prices ranging from monthly costs of $200 to $2000 for companies just getting started.    Add to this that terms can range from quarterly commitments to 2 year commitments and this business decision is a great deal to wade through for most small businesses.   An outsourcing sales and marketing company will have a process in place to be able to work with you to make sure you pick the right solution based on your needs, current state of maturity, short term ROI needs and long term business goals.

Improve speed to market

 

Time is money.  And a lead nurturing program takes between 6 months to 18 months to provide a sustained return.  Slow speed to market gives the competition an advantage.  A sales and marketing outsourcing company can help to minimize that advantage and tilt the playing field in your direction in the following ways:

 

  • If you do not have a database of opt in leads to nurture an outsourcing sales and marketing company will be able to generate those opt in leads for you quickly and cost effectively
  • A sales and marketing outsourcing company will be able to implement your technologies in weeks
  • A company adept in sales outsourcing will be able to create the first wave of sales automation and marketing content to launch your nurturing program
  • This type of company will be able to staff the calling resources or train your calling resources how to convert early stage leads into sales qualified leads

Set benchmarks and keep you focused on best practices 

An outsourcing sales and marketing company that has implemented multiple lead scoring programs will already understand what early success looks like.   Automation technologies give you visibility into a buyer’s digital footprint.   An outsourcing sales and marketing company will be able to work with your team to help you understand what the early data and trends mean so you can use your customer insights faster to scale your investment in lead nurturing appropriately.

Stay prioritized

Lead nurturing requires a commitment to a process.   Once your lead nurturing program has been launched it needs to be sustained.  In some cases this means increasing your budget, but for many small businesses we have seen that long term success simply requires:

  • Building a database of your core target market
  • Track the content that has been of most value to your early stage buyers
  • Simply remain focused on the buyers highest educational priority and continue to create that content on a regular basis creating more customer friendly content

The days of simply throwing more money at sales and marketing is not always the right solution.   An outsourcing sales and marketing company will help you stay prioritized on the closest to the dollar activities to help you get the best return from your lead nurturing investment.

To learn more about Gabriel Sales’ approach to  outsourcing sales and marketing to decide if we can help you to quickly modernize your sales and marketing operations we invite you to check out our About Us page.

New Approaches with Sales Outsourcing and Marketing

by | Jan 16, 2017

As a sales outsourcing company that has been providing B2B sales outsourcing services for over a dozen years we have seen a seismic shift in the rules of selling. And many of our clients come to us because throwing more callers and closers at sales is no longer working. But what exactly are these new sales and marketing rules and how are they different from the traditional and historical approaches of B2B sales and marketing.

New Approach – Our sales outsourcing approach now focuses on the buying process

Buyers now have 24/7 access to digital information.  And this access to information in almost any industry means the buyer now controls the sales process. And when a buyer has a need that can have a positive impact on their business the fact is that they like to buy. And they can now buy without  being “sold”.  So as a sales outsourcing company we now customize our clients approach to helping the buyer buy and have shifted away from selling and hard closing.  You need to build a sales outsourcing process that helps the buyer to buy (especially early in the decision making process) and then sell the buyer once they are educated and ready to be closed.

New Approach – Your content and website should do the heavy lifting for early stage buyers

According to all the data from 2016, after the initial contact is made and a buyer is aware of your product or solution, buyers now do a majority of their short listing of companies by using your website to educate themselves digitally. In fact depending on your industry this can range from a low of 20 percent to as high as 90 percent.  And this ratio is just expected to grow over the next several years.

This means you need to focus on using content and your website to make it easy for your buyers to buy.   Jobs that used to be the exclusive domain of inside or outside reps now need to be done by your content as well.   In many cases, as a sales outsourcing and marketing company, our job is to now to clone what works for your early stage buyer education process and digitize it.  Below is the content framework we use.

New Approach – Don’t hide your information

Historically many companies were reluctant to share too much information.  There are two main reasons for this:

  • Competitors could steal the information
  • They were worried prospects would build on their own

But the truth is, there is typically going to be a fair amount of information about your business domain out there online and if your buyers don’t find it from you they will find it from your competitor. If you want to help buyers buy then do it.  The more you share the more you will get back in return.

New Approach – Nurturing is critical to sales success

As a sales outsourcing company we will always prioritize inbound leads.  But 3 years of data and other research has shown that once a client engages with your content there are just as many prospects that will buy in the short term (within 90 days) as there are that will buy in the long term (after six months or more). These buyers considered themselves qualified so you need to stay in touch and share relevant content on a periodic and regular basis because these will be your buyers six months to a year from now.  If you don’t, as a sales outsourcing company, we can guarantee that your competition will.

Gabriel Sales provides sales outsourcing services to help small business quickly adapt to the new rules of sales and marketing.   To learn more about how we help companies transform their sales and marketing operations we invite you to check out sales outsourcing services page.