Don't Forget About Content When You Outsource Lead Generation

Every company wants to exceed their business and sales goals. But what happens when you don’t have the right internal team members or infrastructure to meet those goals?

Hiring new talent, buying lists, or outsourcing cold calling can seem like fast ways to increase your revenue, but working with a tested lead generation partner is a path you should consider. In today’s business landscape, there are so many areas of expertise to wrap your arms around. A tested partner can help your business dive deeper thanks to years of experience working with a variety of companies.

Many lead generation companies promise quick results. However, much like renting a house versus buying, the short-term solutions might solve your immediate needs, but you won’t necessarily have anything to show for it in the long-term.

Before you invest in a list-buying or a paid advertising strategy, it’s important to think about the ultimate goal of outsourced lead generation, other possible options, and how they might be better for your business.

What is Outsourced Lead Generation?

Outsourced lead generation is the process of hiring a partner who creates a predictable workflow for connecting marketing campaigns to your sales team in order to deliver high-quality sales-qualified leads that can ultimately reduce cold calling and follow-up time, and shorten the sales cycle.

While it can be easy to think of lead generation in a silo, choosing to outsource any piece of the sales process is a big decision. So, before you make any decisions, it’s important to look holistically at the lead generation funnel you want to create.

The best quality leads are the ones that are already looking for your products and services, not leads that need to be sold on why your products are important. If you want the most qualified leads, your lead generation efforts should be paired with content. Here’s why.

1. Content Drives Qualified Traffic

Not all leads are created equally, but some lead generation companies will treat them like they are. If you are really looking to drive new, qualified leads for your company, not just any list development agency will do the trick.

By creating interesting content (using the best SEO practices, too), it’s possible to attract the very people that are already looking for your products or services.

Think about it, we all start our buying research online. With strategic content, you can answer your prospects frequently asked questions, guide them to the next step in the buying process, and connect them to relevant resources without ever needing to speak to a sales rep.

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And if you aren’t doing this, you can bet your competitors are. Not only are you losing the ability to find new incoming customers this way, you are making it easier for your competitors to scoop up those new leads and prospects.

2. Content Increases Conversion

Not every person researching on the internet is ready to buy today. Your website should make it easy for people to find answers to their immediate questions no matter what stage of the buyer’s journey they are in.

With content like blogs and downloads, you can create an environment that fosters trust with potential clients and gets them to opt-in to your communication.

Let’s say you work for a manufacturing company. Today, your website is full of great information that answers browsers' questions, but the only place you are capturing new contacts is through your “Contact Us” form.

You have hundreds of viewers on your site today, but only a few of them are ready to contact you and start a real conversation. The rest of them are interested in your business and what you do, but they are just researching for now. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to connect with them in a relevant way and continue to build a relationship with them.

Think about what types of information they might need to continue their project research. What valuable tools can you provide to their process? Here are a few ideas.

• An ebook about how to measure for a custom part
• A guide that details the types of materials and the different applications for types of jobs
• A case study of another company who uses similar products

These types of content continue to engage prospective customers where they are in the buying process and won’t force them to speak with a salesperson if they aren’t ready yet.

3. Content for Nurturing Leads

Once you start collecting new leads, it is important to have a process in place that allows you to communicate more efficiently than one-to-one.

Content is another great way to continue the conversation with prospective clients in a helpful, but non-threatening way. Continue to provide your new contacts with relevant, interesting content that showcases what your company does well.

By using a marketing automation tool like HubSpot, Marketo, or Drip, you can create a long-term communication strategy once and set it to do all the hard work of sending emails to your new contacts.

This ongoing, consistent, strategic communication ensures that new leads have you top of mind and establishes trust so that when they are ready to make a purchase, they already know that they will choose you as a partner.

4. Playing the Long Game

While many outsourced lead generation companies will promise you short-term results, marrying content with lead generation strategies creates a long-term approach that can help you create a more predictable pipeline.

It’s important to go into this strategy knowing that it’s not an immediate, short-term, silver bullet solution. But this type of content and lead generation strategy can be successful for many businesses with considered buying process who are willing to put in the time and effort to make it work.

Conclusion

While there are many "quick win" solutions that can help you get more phone numbers to call or tasks to complete, pairing content with your lead generation efforts can help you attract the right types of leads to fill your sales pipeline. This strategy might not be instantaneous, but it is a long-term strategy that will set you up for success for many years to come.