Quick Navigation:
- What a Lead Generation Specialist Does
- Online vs. Online Lead Generation Specialist
- The Difference between Branding, Content, Social Media, and Other Agencies
- Sales Funnels for Online Lead Generation
- Hiring a BDM vs. Sales Funnels – The Cost Comparison
- Marketing vs. Lead Generation
- Benefits of Working with a Lead Generation Specialist
- Done-With-You Lead Generation Strategy – We Can Do It Together
Working with a marketing agency can be a big decision to make. You will literally give out your trade secrets and hand over the control of your brand, content, and marketing. It takes a lot of trust. Some businesses would rather work on the strategy themselves and use a lead generation specialist to get them qualified prospects. Both of the approaches can work well if executed properly.
If you are sitting on the fence about finding a digital marketing agency to handle your lead generation campaigns here are some tips to understand the process better. We will cover each aspect of your marketing and the different types of agencies you can choose to work with.
What a Lead Generation Specialist Does
Most lead generation specialists work with numbers. After all, marketing is a numbers’ game, so they say. So they go out, find the interested parties based on the client’s profiling – which is not always accurate – and deliver the leads. What happens to the leads after that is not their business. Whether they are the right fit for the company is down to the manager who is overseeing the project.
There’s nothing wrong with using lead generation companies. There are reliable therapist directories and tradesmen comparison sites that give users the choice and provide qualified leads to the business. However, there are some freelancers who call themselves lead generation specialists who do nothing but cold emailing and cold calling, which does more damage than good when it comes to your company’s reputation.
Online vs. Online Lead Generation Specialist
There are some lead generation companies that offer online services, while others will do offline. It will depend on your business size, niche, capacity, and infrastructure which one is the most suitable solution for you.
Online lead generation can be done through a third party website, paid ads or sponsored links, referral traffic, and so on. If you opt for an offline lead generation strategist, they will use their network and reach out to your target audience in person or over the phone.
Before you engage with any of the businesses for generating leads, you will have to make sure they fully understand your offer and USP and they can give credit to your brand when representing it.
The Difference between Branding, Content, Social Media, and Other Agencies
So many businesses call themselves marketing agencies, but all of them are different. Some of them will focus on design only, others will provide you with stunning print materials. There will be web design agencies and content marketing companies. And yes, there are social media agencies, too.
Branding agencies will take care of your image online and offline and make your business more visible. Their main focus is on making you look good, not getting the sale. Still, you might generate a lot of interest and get more followers after working with a branding agency, but they don’t really care about your balance sheet.
Content agencies will plan your strategy to talk the language of your audience and engage with them in a meaningful way. They will craft content that will -hopefully – appeal to your ideal clients, and they might get the sale. However, their focus is on reach and content interaction which might or might not translate into sales. But if you already have a conversion strategy, you will benefit from the collaboration and expertise.
Social media agencies focus on your content on the most popular networks. They offer content, graphics, strategy, and scheduling services for brands that are too busy to handle the job themselves. They don’t take care of the website, so if your landing pages are not converting, it has nothing to do with them.
Website agencies can design amazing sites, but – again – it is up to you to develop a great conversion path for your customers. They will do the technical and design work, but not necessarily the user experience design. You will need to talk to them to get the most out of their services, telling them exactly what you want visitors to do.
Sales funnel agencies are the most complex of all. They handle lead generation, design, social media campaigns, and strategy. They will map out the customer journey, provide profitability predictions. Their main goal is to get you leads for less through automation, so your marketing budget can stretch further, so you can get a positive return on marketing investment.
As a full service sales funnel agency, we work on branding, marketing strategy, design, and even websites. Sometimes we even take care of the copywriting. So it is a more complex setup than branding or social media agencies have. But we love it. It’s complex, yes. But it is interesting and inspiring.
Sales Funnels for Online Lead Generation
Sales funnels – when designed right – take care of the lead generation, lead nurturing, and customer engagement at the same time. Online lead generation only tackles the top of your funnel; engagement and interest. So you will still have to take people from the INTEREST stage to the demand and action stages.
Marketing automation plays an important part in sales funnel designs. It can save you a lot of money not having to employ someone for manually follow up leads. It can also save you time and hassle. A good sales funnel will qualify your leads, which means that you will waste less time chasing after people who are stuck at the “interest” stage and don’t even consider making a purchase.
As they say, time is money, so if you want to save time, you might as well get a sales funnel to do the heavy lifting for you. Just like in the 21st Century we would not consider using a typewriter for marketing emails or going to work on a horse and cart, you would probably not want to have a diary of leads to manually follow up. It just doesn’t make sense when you have all the technology available.
That said, you might still need to close the sale, as anything under a certain level of investment to the customer will be considered high risk for them, and they will need to see you face-to-face (or at least on Zoom) to have enough confidence in you and what you offer. However, dealing with unqualified leads all day is probably not the best use of your time.
Sales funnels can take the guesswork out of your marketing as well, as they can be measured at different stages. So you always know what your click through rate was, how many people visited your landing page, what your conversion rate was, how many people clicked on the links on your email, and how many new clients you got. As the costs are easy to track, you can get your Customer Acquisition Cost and see how profitable your marketing is.
Hiring a BDM vs. Sales Funnels – The Cost Comparison
The traditional way of getting more clients and growing any business – and the most recommended by coaches – is hiring a BDM (business development manager). This will cost you in wages and related costs, but it can be profitable, too. If the person you hire has industry experience and proven track record, you are onto a winner.
Hiring a BDM will cost you around £42,500 per year in wages according to Talent, plus the cost of employment; courses, networking, memberships, benefits, national insurance, etc.
The new (21st century) way of getting more clients is implementing a sales funnel. It does the tedious tasks of finding and qualifying leads, and then your BDM or sales team can go ahead and close the deal. Even if you do currently have a BDM, you will grow your business much faster if you embrace automation and implement a winning lead generation strategy. Not to mention that your sales team will be happier as they have an endless supply of qualified leads.
Marketing vs. Lead Generation
Marketing is often used as an umbrella term for any activity that gets your company and its offers visible. It can be simply reaching out to media outlets, putting a banner up, advertising on a related website, or sending out an email. Without a clear desired outcome, marketing will bring in only vague results.
Benefits of Working with a Lead Generation Specialist
If you work with an agency that is also a lead generation specialist, you will be able to get your message across and design the customer journey together. Given that you are working with the right agency. At LMNts, we don’t take on clients; we partner with them. If we can have a two-way conversation about what you are trying to achieve and have a brainstorming session, the campaign will be a success. If, however, someone tells us that they want more leads but nothing else, we will respectfully decline their partnership offer.
Here are the main benefits of working with a lead generation specialist.
Flexibility
You can get more leads without having to employ a new BDM or salesperson. You can also scale your ads and campaigns up and down. So the sky’s the limit. Plus, you set the rate of growth and the desired results.
Personal Approach
A lead generation specialist will ask you the right questions and tailor your campaigns to your USP, your brand, and your industry. They will also ask about the ideal outcomes and your customer avatar.
Custom Design
While marketing and sales funnel software work without changing anything, you can multiply your results by having a custom funnel or copy for your outreach campaign. There’s no “one size fits all” landing page or phone script. It has to communicate the unique value you bring your customers.
Focussing on Your Business Goals
A good lead generation specialist will ask you what you are looking to achieve. How many clients? How big? How much volume? Which industry? Which products or services would you like to push?
Lower Cost
Compared with the cost of a sales team over a year and the salary of a BDM, having a custom built lead generation funnel is much cheaper. It will also take less time and money to maintain than your staff, and you can increase the profitability of your campaigns by one simple tweak.
Long Term Strategy
While getting leads through the door today and next week might sound like an urgent problem, it is not the most important one. What’s important is to have a system in place so you don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night wondering where your next customer is going to come from. And with that system, you can achieve sustainable growth.
Measurable Results
You don’t always know how much value you got out of an employee, as they do more than just having sales conversations. However, a lead generation marketing system will do nothing but turn your cash into even more cash. You can track the profitability of your campaign by working out your marketing spend and the sales generated.
If you are in business for many years to come, you will have to think about a long term marketing and lead generation strategy. Something that will work for you 24/7.
Done-With-You Lead Generation Strategy – We Can Do It Together
At LMNts, after building dozens of complicated and simple funnels last year, we decided to offer a new service: done-with-you funnels. The reason being is that if we build the funnel ourselves we will have to have a lot of check-ins and conversations to get it right. Also if we design the funnel map and plan ourselves and leave it to the customer to implement we might never get to launch day.
Technology is a pig most of the time, and you might get stuck. You could also have things coming up in your business that have a higher priority than getting the landing page designed. And that’s fine. That’s what the new package is all about.
So here’s the deal; we spend a day or two at your offices, interact with your staff, sit down at the drawing table together, and create a plan. We will also start the implementation and create a task list so we can manage the project together. Then we will check in every month for 3-4 months for a consultation meeting to see whether everything is going in the right direction. So you can have a brand new custom funnel launched in no time that generates leads 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
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