OUTSOURCED LEAD GENERATION VS IN HOUSE
Outsourced lead generation today is one of the prime ways in which businesses delegate their marketing efforts. There are different perspectives and opinions that would say otherwise that in-house lead generation marketing is better. In this article, we will make the case that outsourced lead generation is more advantageous, especially to small to medium-scale businesses but towards larger ones as well.
When running a business, it becomes quickly clear that one of the prime goals is growth. If we take a look at how businesses are run, it is never enough to just break even or even to just earn beyond that. For your business to survive, you have to find ways to reach new customers. Your current customers will slowly subside and your current market reach will reach a point of saturation and eventually, your competitors will reach out to your own customer base, further losing your market.
In today’s business environment, growth is the new faith by which all businesses adhere lest they risk dying out. It has become, to some extent, sacred in the world of business. A company that does not seek growth or does not put a priority on it runs the risk of bankruptcy.
This is why expanding your market reach and spreading your brand awareness is very important. The advent of online marketing has only increased the opportunity for growth, making it much easier to reach out to markets that traditionally would have cost more to do so or downright impossible. That is why it is important to have a focus on lead generation. This, however, becomes a dilemma to a degree, as marketing efforts more often than not differ from the efforts in focusing on your products and services, the very thing you offer to the wider market.
Before we continue, though you probably already know what is lead generation, let us just briefly run through what it is.
What is lead generation?
It is the process of locating, luring, and nurturing new clients for a company’s goods or services. It entails gathering data on those who have shown interest in a company’s products and services before converting them into customers, or people who have given their contact information and indicated interest.
Why outsource your lead generation?
A business’ first focus, of course, is its own products and services. Developing your products and services in order to compete in the wider market should be your priority for your business. A product that is non-appealing to the consumer is a product that won’t be bought. Marketing your brand would be a different effort. You have to start thinking about how and where you can reach your prospects. Once you have reached your prospects, you have to go through the arduous efforts of trying to convince them to buy the services and products that you offer. This requires a set of skills that is widely different from the know-how that you would need in designing your products and services.
I think we can agree that an organization such as a marketing agency would have more skills, know-how, and experience in marketing efforts such as lead generation, as it is the very service that they offer. It is their forte. When you outsource your lead generation and marketing in general, it would then be safe to say that you are putting this responsibility in the hands of experts.
Now you could try to hire your own lead generation marketer and decide to do your own lead generation efforts in-house. This is unviable unless you have the resources for a large operation, as putting up an effective marketing team would usually entail multiple specialties involved and processes. This is why I have alluded that outsourced lead generation is pretty much good for small to medium-sized businesses. The benefits, however, that small and medium-sized businesses would gain would be the same for a larger business, which makes it advantageous. We will discuss more of this below.
Reasons for Outsourcing Lead Generation
There are generally three broad reasons why outsourced lead generation services are better. First, you save time, second, you will have better quality, and third, it will save you money. Let us discuss these 3 broad reasons.
Save Time
Outsourced lead generation services would allow you to focus on your brand and the general management of your company as the time otherwise you would have spent on strategizing, organizing, carrying out, and managing your lead generation marketing. This will save you a lot of time as well as for your marketing and sales team, to which focus can then be had for other pressing matters. Take note as per explodingtopics, 44% of sales reps are too busy to follow up with leads. Clearly, time is an issue when it comes to lead generation.
Lead generation efforts may, for example, include calling prospects, that in itself would consume time that needs to be sensitive to your prospects or clients. Looking for email addresses, contact info of prospects, thinking what to write and say, tracking those leads among many things, all of these will consume large amounts of time. Not even add that if you outsource your lead generation marketing, they will have a retinue of experience and best practices.
Better Quality
Sometimes quality depends on the time you give to it. As we have established above. Without outsourcing your lead generation, you may be at a loss of time, and may not spend the necessary time to assess your lead generation strategy. Effectively knowing how to attract leads is also a time-learned skill, unless you have the natural knack for it.
Knowing the appropriate technologies, such as the various tools that would help you draw quality leads, would be better known by agencies that primarily focus on it. Outsourcing your lead generation would also make use of the technologies that those agencies would have, the experiences that these agencies have in generating leads as well as the best practices that they have built up.
Spend Less
By outsourcing your lead generation efforts, you would be able to save money in different ways such as not hiring your own in-house sales development representative (SDR). As we have discussed above regarding technologies that are used such as CRM software, to name a few you don’t have to buy them as these agencies are sure to have.
For example, as per glassdoor, the annual average salary of an SDR is around $69k. That is just one staff member. Lead generation efforts usually need an entire team. As per webfx, the average lead generation service is around $12k per month. That would translate to around $144k per year and that includes an entire team, and including all the tools. Hiring 3 staff for your lead generation service would already be more expensive. That is not even counting the tools and other expenses.
In conclusion, outsourced lead generation services are more often than not better. It just saves you money, time, and has quality. According to marketsplash, outsourcing lead generation efforts achieve 43% more results than in-house lead generation. Now I have mentioned above that outsourcing your lead generation is usually better for small and medium-sized businesses. I say this because a larger company that has multiple products and services serving an array of various needs, and can afford to have a complete team for lead generation marketing, could opt to go in-house for the lead generation efforts.
They could start at first by outsourcing and then slowly transition towards their own team once they have learned from the expertise of the seasoned agents of the marketing enough, it may be better to have their own in-house lead generation marketing team. However, it may be a case-to-case basis at this point, as we know that almost all the big brand companies still hire a 3rd party Marketing Agency to provide them with lead generation.
Now there are many lead-generation marketing agencies out there. It can be a bit daunting to try to pick which one is best for you. Don’t worry though, we here at XYNC do exactly just that. We do a multi-channel approach in finding leads for our clients. That means we use multiple channels such as email marketing, LinkedIn marketing, social media, to name a few, all done in a synergistic and customer centric way. Be a company with an outsourced lead generation service and contact us.
