When companies struggle with leads, they struggle with finding new customers. If you aren’t selling more, you aren’t growing – and that’s trouble for any business. And yet only 17.3% of companies are meeting their lead generation targets every year. Insufficient budgets, poor marketing channel choices, internal company issues, and data list quality were cited as major issues to lead generation by over 300 C-level sales and marketing executives in a whitepaper called The Black Report.
These four reasons are frustrating businesses and causing many to look for outside help. B2B lead agencies can be more effective than marketing departments at direct marketing, including telesales, direct mail, and outbound digital marketing. They maximize budgets, evaluate and re-evaluate marketing channel selections according to ROI, and constantly collect data on lead nurturing.
When you work with a B2B lead agency to expand into new verticals, they will set out a game plan for expansion. They take your target markets and analyze what the most effective message will be. Are these decision makers who know your brand, but aren’t buying for one reason or another? Are you introducing your brand to a new market where you haven’t defined yourself? Brand awareness defines your message in a direct marketing campaign. Check out this case study from 360 Leads about a high-end tool company running campaigns in two different markets at the same time:
Gray Tools manufactures industrial-quality tools in Canada with a lifetime guarantee, making them the tool of choice when trades people and manufacturers need handheld tools. With a 100-year history in Canada, it’s well-known for high-end tool manufacturing, but a flood of consumer brands made offshore had diluted its brand awareness and put pressure on their price points. They turned to a B2B lead agency because they needed help acquiring new customers after management purchased the company.
Their B2B lead agency took a two-pronged approach: the first was directed at MRO personnel (maintenance, repair, and operations), as well as trades people and plant managers in industrial food (Canada’s second-largest industrial sector) and manufacturing. These were decision-makers who knew about Gray Tools but needed to be sold on the value of these high-quality tools. Gray Tools needed a brand differentiation campaign supported by outbound calling to sell more high-end tools.
The second approach taken by 360 Leads was to introduce Gray Tools’ new mid-market line of tools to U.S. markets. They targeted an influential specialty tools convention with the goal of getting the new line of products in the hands of major distributors.
The results: the B2B lead agency booked sales meetings with 11% of targeted Canadian companies over 4 months, many of which were national and international brands and produced 20% of targeted trade show attendees in the U.S., helping the brand build product distribution in new markets. This is what the power of a B2B lead agency looks like. It’s time to light a fire under your lead generation efforts with the help of a B2B lead agency.