For many businesses, lead generation is the only real bottleneck to growth and scaling. Yet, building lead generation in-house is expensive, time-consuming, and often, not that effective.
Lead calling services, also known as telemarketing companies, bridge that gap.
Here, you normally get an outsourced telemarketing service. It likely includes research, market targeting, lead verification, and cold calling.
Depending on the provider, a lead calling service may also just be about calling already existing leads.
In other cases, your lead calling service may be one aspect of a full outsourced lead generation company. In this case, you might be able to outsource every aspect of your lead generation pipeline.
For example, inbound marketing (PPC, website content, social media, SEO content, etc.) and outbound content (calling, lead verification, email, advertising, etc.).
However, in most cases, lead calling services mixes inbound marketing to help you find leads. Then, they add outbound marketing and cold calling to move those leads into your pipeline.
The extent of services can vary quite a bit from lead calling company to company. For example, from “outsourced telemarketing office” to “outsourced lead generation”.
Topics
Types of Lead Calling Services
Lead calling services can vary quite a bit.
Some organizations offer everything you need to build a list of leads and connect with them. Others require that you or another provider supply leads for them to call.
This means you’ll have to pay attention when hiring a lead calling agency. Understanding your needs and what your provider offers will help you make a better hire.
Lead Generation
Many lead calling companies also offer full lead generation services. Depending on the organization, this may include differing things. For example, generating lists of relevant contacts from LinkedIn and other business resources.
It may also include creating inbound marketing content. This could include websites, sales funnels, and optimized content to help you drive leads to your business.
Lead generation is a relatively broad niche. Your lead generation company can use any number of strategies to find leads. Finding more qualified leads will cost more and will take more time.
So, you can hire anyone from a company that filters through social media to find your target group, to outsourced inbound marketing to find people who will sign up for your content.
Lead Qualification
Whether you’re outsourcing lead generation or have your own inbound marketing program, qualifying leads can take a lot of time and effort. Calling those leads is one extremely popular way to qualify them.
Here, your lead generation company will likely ask you to submit leads to them. If you’re using a lead generation company, you can probably have them directly submit leads to your lead calling company.
From there, the lead calling company will contact the leads in your name, verify interest, and mark the level of interest for that lead.
Cold Calling
Cold calling or calling to cold sell a product is something most businesses don’t want to do themselves.
In addition, cold calling can help you to connect with new leads, and immediately determine whether or not those leads are worth pursuing.
Your cold calling service may generate leads for you or may request a list from you. In addition, the service may offer just one successful call, after which they book an appointment with your organization.
On the other hand, some lead calling services will offer a multiple-step process. Here, they will qualify your lead and then offer the first stage of your marketing process.
Follow-up/Reconversion
Most lead conversion rates hover somewhere between 2 to 5%. That means that a minimum of 95% of your qualified leads never go anywhere.
Follow-up and reconversion services work to convert some of those leads back. Here, they use following up, re-pitching the service, and checking interest after a certain amount of time.
Here, you have to work closely with your lead generation company to ensure that they have the information to follow up on leads well.
Telemarketing
Depending on the service, some lead calling companies are simply full-service telemarketing companies. Here, you outsource your telemarketing, allowing a third party to take on every aspect of telemarketing.
Then, once they’ve moved people through the marketing channel to sales, they hand them over. This removes much of the burden of lead conversion from your organization.
Lead Calling Service Features
Different types of lead calling services will offer different features. However, some of the most common include:
Cold Calling
Most lead calling centers offer some form of cold calling.
However, some will only call qualified leads – or those that have indicated interest by filling out a form or signing up for a service. Therefore, it’s important to check based on what you’re looking for.
In addition, cold calling almost always involves finding people to cold call. However, that isn’t always the case.
Telemarketing
Many lead calling agencies will function as full-service telemarketing hubs. Here, you’ll likely have a few consultants who are assigned to your business.
They’ll learn how your business and industry work, what your products are, and your marketing pitch.
Depending on the agency, they may also be available full-time. That means you can make and receive calls from the hub – essentially having an outsourced telemarketing call center.
Appointment Setting
Many lead calling services will schedule and make appointments for you from cold calling. Here, the agency will normally call the lead.
Once they’ve confirmed interest in your product or service, they’ll set up a call, demo, or consultation by scheduling an appointment.
This means that instead of having calls with unqualified leads, you’ll only receive calls once the prospect knows what your company offers and has been through the first stage of marketing.
Lead Generation
Your lead calling service may generate leads for you. However, this might include several different types of lead generation.
For example, they may generate leads from cold contacts. That involves setting up a contact list from LinkedIn, Sumry, or even a list of local businesses.
They might also help you to develop an inbound marketing strategy revolving around content, email, social media, and form submission.
In this case, lead generation will be a longer-term commitment and you may also build a pay-per-click ad campaign with Google.
In both cases, the lead calling agency will likely
Analytics
Most lead generation services will give you analytics and insight into lead conversation, efficacy of different types of messages, and conversion by the target demographic.
Many also integrate into marketing tooling, meaning you can import data as you need it.
Analytics or metrics can give you a good insight into what works and doesn’t. That will allow you to improve your future campaigns, whether you move forward with the lead calling service over the long term or not.
5 Benefits of Lead Calling Services
There are many reasons you might want to utilize a lead calling service.
For example, if you know you need or would benefit from outbound marketing but don’t have the people or the expertise in-house.
1. Expertise
Most small businesses start out by doing everything themselves. At the same time, your business isn’t a lead generation business. Building and following up with leads requires strategy, expertise, and marketing tactics.
Chances are, you don’t know how to do that. A lead calling agency does and they have invested money into improving those techniques and strategies. This means you’re significantly more likely to get results.
In addition, using a lead generation company will allow you to move some of that expertise in-house as you work with them, learn what they are doing, and see what works and what doesn’t with your prospects.
2. Reach New Prospects
Whether your organization’s problem is not having enough leads or not having the time to follow up with leads you do get, those problems prevent you from reaching those prospects.
Hiring an agency to do a large part of the manual work for you will resolve that issue.
Hiring a third-party agency to reach out to those prospects, qualify them as leads, and move them through the first stages of marketing will mean that you can connect with them.
3. Reduce Costs
Doing everything in-house can be cost-effective if you’re running a marketing campaign at enough volume.
However, for most small businesses, you’ll have to invest in software, content, marketing messaging, and people to do your outbound marketing – without having the volume and demand to warrant all of that time, research, and expense.
Here, most lead calling services will offer a flat rate or a monthly rate for X amount of rates. It’s common to pay a flat rate per month. You may also pay a flat rate per signup or qualified lead, plus a lower rate for non-converted leads.
Eventually, that could be significantly cheaper than attempting to do the research, lead generation, content creation, and follow-up in-house. That’s especially true considering that if your in-house marketing fails to perform, you’re stuck with them.
If your telemarketing agency fails to deliver on promises, you simply hire someone else.
4. Comply With Laws
Many areas have specific laws regarding cold contact and calling. That’s especially true if you operate internationally.
A telemarketing company will be aware of legal and compliance issues and is better able to stick to them. And, if they do something wrong, they should be liable for the decision, not your company.
5. Automate Your Marketing
For example, with conversion rates of 2%, you’d have to contact over 50 people to make a single sale. That’s time to research contacts, write out emails, follow up, and stay on top of who has replied and who hasn’t.
Most business owners don’t have the dedicated time to manage that.
Lead Calling Service Costs
Lead calling services normally offer a flat-rate per lead generated, with a minimum spend per month. For example, nationally, the average cost for lead calling services is $35-$45 per lead, with a minimum spend of $1,500 per month.
However, this can vary significantly. Some agencies will hand you a few consultants and have you pay their hourly fee. This can range from $45-$100 per hour.
In addition, you might end up with an agency that charges a flat rate per project. For example, “$5,000 for a 2-month lead generation campaign, including research, with the expectation of X number of leads”.
The cost for lead calling can vary quite a bit. It’s also important to note that lower rates usually mean you get less with the service. However, that’s not always true. Still, it’s important to be aware of what you’re getting with the service.
If your lead calling includes market research, content creation, script creation, cold calling, and appointment booking, it’s obviously going to be a lot more expensive than if you hand them a list of leads and they qualify the leads for you.
Next Steps
Lead calling services can help businesses to generate qualified calls by having a third party do the cold calling and qualification upfront. That can help you to generate more sales, without overburdening your in-house marketing team or over-investing in something you know nothing about.
At the same time, choosing between different offerings, making sense of what you’re getting for the money, and figuring out what rates actually are can be a lot of work. In fact, many won’t offer rates without a custom quote.
If you’d like to compare lead calling services, use the form at the top of the page, and we’ll reach out to lead calling services in your area. We’ll request quotes on your behalf, forward you the best ones, and ensure you have the information you need to make the best choice for your business.