Whether or not you achieved your sales goals in 2022, the beginning of the new year is a perfect time for a fresh start. It’s a chance to consider implementing new marketing strategies to help grow your business and keep your sales pipelines full.
The economic challenges that emerged this past year aren’t expected to disappear anytime soon, but that’s no reason to take a conservative approach to marketing in the new year and to even position for next year. Sales and marketing leaders often point to a McGraw-Hill study from the early-to-mid 1980s, the last time inflation rates were comparable to today. McGraw-Hill’s research analysis showed that B2B companies who maintained or increased their marketing efforts during the recession experienced significantly higher sales growth than companies who eliminated or decreased their marketing.
As Dennis Kirwin, CEO of the global marketing agency Dymic, wrote in a recent Forbes article: “Although it is wise to contain costs (during economic downturns), now is the time businesses need marketing the most.”
One of the most effective ways to attract high-quality leads, reach potential customers, and boost sales in 2023 (and beyond) is to partner with an experienced lead generation and appointment-setting firm to assist with your marketing efforts, whether you’re a small business, medium-sized, or a large company. The right partner can help you develop an effective B2B lead generation strategy, even during a difficult economy.
Here are five ways VSA can help your business hit the ground running in 2023:
1. Developing the strongest possible list of target prospects
It doesn’t matter how strong your company’s product or service is if you’re not reaching the right audience. By some accounts, a list is as much as a 70% predictor of a program’s success. When developing your target list, it’s essential to know everything you possibly can about what makes an ideal prospect—from the type of industry, to the number of employees, to the revenue range, to the geographic location, to the job titles most likely to show interest, to the most common pain points.
On top of all that, having the most accurate and up-to-date contact information for the decision makers on your list is critical. Targeting the right people won’t matter if you aren’t able to connect with them.
VSA utilizes multiple list-building resources, including an expanded list analysis team that works in conjunction with our database marketing analysis team, our program managers, and our tech team to develop the most effective list strategies for our clients. We’re then able to refine the list as needed based on data gathered during each lead generation campaign. Whether we’re creating an initial list ourselves based on an Ideal Customer Profile or enriching a client’s existing list, our goal is always to identify and focus on the target prospects that make the most sense for each individual program.
2. Reaching more prospects
Knowing exactly the type of prospects you want to target is an essential first step in the B2B lead generation process, but what good will it do if you don’t have the time, resources, or bandwidth to reach out to every company on your list?
That’s a common dilemma for B2B companies, and one of the biggest reasons to partner with an outsourced lead generation and appointment-setting company like VSA.
Our advanced live-dialing technology allows us to deliver more than twice the output of the average B2B call center. Not only do we have the resources to make the calls our clients’ sales reps often don’t have time to make on their own, but we have the data to identify the best times to call, the optimal number of follow-up attempts, and other key lead generation metrics.
Whether we’re trying to set sales appointments for your reps, gathering valuable marketing information, following up with former customers, or simply spreading awareness of your brand, we help ensure no potential lead goes untouched.
3. Starting new relationships
The new 2023 year is the perfect time for forming new business relationships and influencing B2B purchasing decisions for the year ahead. Prospects in the educational space, for example, are often still a few months away from finalizing their budgets for the next fiscal year, so there’s still time to generate interest in your product or service.
But starting new relationships with strangers on the telephone isn’t easy. You need to develop a level of comfort and trust almost immediately, or the relationship could be over before the conversation has barely begun.
VSA’s Business Development Representatives (BDRs) are adept at engaging with prospects in a professional but personable manner. They are always highly trained in our clients’ offerings, so they’re able to veer from their script when necessary. The messaging we develop on our clients’ behalf, meanwhile, is designed to be more conversational than “salesy”. Our intention is to get your company’s relationship with new prospects off to the right start, making it easier for your sales reps to close new business and grow revenue down the road.
4. Improving the customer experience
Pursuing new customers is great, but not at the expense of failing to satisfy existing customers. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 68% of customers leave because of the treatment they received. Just about every online list of reasons for customer attrition includes some variation of “poor customer service”.
Customer Thermometer, a company that provides businesses with customer feedback, lists poor communication as another big reason for customer attrition. “This is particularly pronounced in B2B customer relationships, with the dynamic (supposedly) being more of a co-reliant partnership,” the company wrote in a recent blog post.
With 21 years of call center and customer service experience, VSA is well-equipped to help our clients maintain solid communication with their customers. Our recently launched full-time inbound department allows us to handle customer questions and concerns 24/7 for any client who requires such services. We’ve also developed multiple outbound programs specifically for reaching out to clients’ existing customers, helping them sustain a consistent growth rate.
5. Remembering last year’s warm leads
At one time or another, just about every sales rep has come across a lead they meant to reach out to but, for whatever reason, never did. Maybe they got caught up with something else, maybe they dismissed the lead because it didn’t seem hot enough, or maybe they just forgot to take the time.
How much potential business is lost because of follow-up calls that were never made? Not all “hand-raisers” are future customers, but none of them become customers if they’re ignored.
VSA offers a fully integrated approach to outbound lead generation that prevents viable leads from slipping away. We can follow up with old leads your reps are unable to pursue, resulting in more scheduled meetings and fuller pipelines.
If your company is looking to find new ways to update annual revenue goals for the year, grow your business, and hit the ground running in 2023 to achieve a particular milestone, give us a call.
The new year is a perfect time to explore new partnerships, and we’re always excited to learn how we can help other companies thrive.