Choosing The Right Lead Generation Firm
Posted by
Chris Lang on Thu, Jan 27, 2024 @ 04:33 PM
There are a TON of lead generation companies out there. I have no official numbers to back this up, but it seems like every demand/lead generation manager that gets laid off started an outsourced marketing firm. The result was a lot of companies signing on with more cost effective firms that knew how to run lead generation programs for their old company, but didn’t know how to run lead generation for different companies. They said what the prospect wanted to hear and closed the business only to lose that business shortly thereafter and give the industry a bad name.
Truth is there are a lot of great lead generation firms out there also. Where a lot of companies get burned is by choosing a lead generation firm for the wrong reasons. Believe it or not there are cases when a project goes wrong and it is NOT the outsourced firm’s fault! Here are a few things to look for to ensure you pair up with the right firm.
Cost per lead vs. cost per dollars on forecast. A lot of people judge a lead generation firm by the amount they pay for the leads. It is a silly way to look at things. It’s like buying a 12 pack of non alcoholic beer because you don’t want to pay for a 6 pack of real beer. Sure the 12 pack is cheaper, but you’re buying a large volume of crap instead of 6 very tasty beers. Let’s say one firm charges $500 per lead and another charges $1000. At first glance the $500 leads looks like a great option. That being said, what if you have to buy 30 of those leads to match what you could have had from 10 of the $1000 leads? Find out the success rate of the leads passed and how qualified they are. How many of (X) leads will it take you to find (Y) forecast? Compare the cost to the amount of forecast not the amount of leads. Don’t drink a lot of bad beer.
Volume & Quality: Match the lead deliverable to the sales team you have. Don’t work with a company that delivers a high volume of unqualified onsite meetings to a 2 person senior level sales team. They’ll burn out traveling all the time and they won’t be able to adequately work all the accounts you give them leaving a lot to be wasted. In this case go low volume and look for high quality. Conversely, if you have a large sales team and you need to get them out of the house shaking hands and holding babies, don’t choose the low volume inside sales group, take appointments and get the team in front of people.
What other features do you need? Lead Generation companies offer different features to their clients. These include top of funnel demand generation, off the shelf lists, direct access to your account reps, marketing metrics, lead guarantees, shared risk models, short term pilots, etc…. Ask yourself what your company needs most. If you don’t have a list, go with a firm that can provide you with a scrubbed list. Don’t dust off the Vegas trade show list that you generated 4 years ago and expect the lead generation firm to make gold of it.
Set proper expectations and then follow them: When it comes down to evaluating the lead generation firm’s success, I suggest writing down exactly what you want the lead generation firm to deliver. Make sure you separate the results of the firm from the results of the sales team. EG: don’t hold the lead generation firm accountable for lack of closed business. In my opinion, if the right number of leads are developed and the lead generation firm provides the information they said they would, they have done their job. “Well we had the call with the level of decision maker we agreed on and the information we wanted was all there, but the call went no where!” That is not a lead generation problem. That is a sales problem.
Like I said, there a lot of lead generation firms out there. Know what you need, know what your sales team needs and set proper expectations. You’ll have a much better experience.