It isn’t easy to locate the ideal customer for your product or service. Nearly 61% of marketers consider lead generation as their number one challenge. As privacy laws have made it difficult to reach prospects, organizations are investing more in inbound marketing for B2B lead generation.
80% of the B2B companies use content marketing for lead generation as per data released by Content Marketing Institute. But if you’re a start-up or a small business that is in the early stages of its marketing journey, there is only so much you can do when it comes to inbound marketing. Content marketing takes at least six to nine months of consistent effort before you yield actual results.
Most start-ups and small businesses are also constrained when it comes to budgets and resources. That’s why it makes sense to invest in B2B lead generation while you scale your content marketing efforts. So some of you may ask, what exactly is B2B lead generation?
B2B lead generation is the process of identifying the ideal customer for your product or service and then using a mix of marketing channels to convince them to purchase your offering. Typically this process involves identifying a lead then nurturing them by providing relevant information like blogs, whitepapers, and case studies. This process is also referred to as demand generation.
Why should you work with a Demand Generation Agency?
If you’ve ever worked in a small or medium-sized organization, you’re aware that the sales team often wears many hats. They must prospect to find leads, qualify them via a nurturing flow or discovery calls, handle demos and RFPs, and most importantly, close the deal.
Such firms’ marketing teams often divide their time between demand generation, typically a combination of events and outbound marketing, and focused content marketing initiatives. However, roles are often ambiguous in most smaller teams, and attention is split between 10 distinct activities.
Sales reps must qualify leads themselves since most small firms cannot afford to hire SDRs. Sales Development Representatives (SDR) are tasked with outreach, prospecting, and qualifying leads. They act as a bridge between the marketing and sales teams, contributing significantly to the lead funnel.
But it isn’t easy to hire and train SDRs; the average salary of an SDR in the United States is $45,080 per year. You will need to hire at least multiple SDRs to support a sales team of 4-6 sales reps which means you will have to shell out at least $100,000. The cost doesn’t include the budget required for additional tools like access to database providers like ZoomInfo or Uplead, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and access to sales engagement platforms like SalesLoft or Reply.io. This is why hiring a B2B lead generation agency in the initial phase makes sense.
B2B lead generation agencies offer their expertise to companies to generate sales leads and create new sales opportunities. They work with you to identify your ideal customer profile by creating in-depth customer personas and then targeting prospects using focused campaigns that involve sending emails, making outbound calls, retargeting using social media, and programmatic advertising. Most B2B lead generation agencies operate on a retainer and serve as an extension of your team.
5 Best B2B Lead Generation Agencies
1. Cience
Cience was founded in 2014 is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. They have helped over 1,200+ organizations with their B2B lead generation efforts. The company claims to have built its own contact database and has qualified researchers who work for you 40 hours every week to develop your contact list of named accounts.
Cience has also developed its own design and campaign orchestration capabilities; they reach out to the list of named accounts using email, phone, social media, and web to qualify them over time. They are also among a few B2B lead generation agencies which have developed their own programmatic advertising capabilities.
Each organization that signs up with Cience is assigned a customer success manager, agency services lead, researcher, and SDRs. They offer companies a three-month trial period to try their services but ask for an annual commitment if you want to sign up for their services. If you are unsatisfied with their services during the trial period, you can always choose to part ways.
They offer two different packages, each of which comes with a $1,800 one set-up fee. The first package offers a set of services for $5,400/ month, and the second package offers the same set of services at $7,900/ month with one difference that the SDRs will be based outside of the United States. In the first package, the SDRs will be based out of one of Cience’s offices outside the United States, which are Kyiv, Manila, Brazil, Mexico, or Berlin.
If you are targeting customers in the United States, it makes sense to go with the second package since SDRs based in the country usually drive 20% higher conversions.
2. Martal Group
Martal Group was established in 2009 and has offices in the United States and Canada. They have worked with 1,000+ clients in over 50+ verticals. Martal Group has built its contact base by partnering with multiple database providers and has over 100 million contacts.
Besides the standard set of design and account orchestration capabilities, the agency also uses intent data to enrich its data and targeting capabilities. Martal Group offers customers three different plans based on the stage of their leading generation journey.
Lead Generation: The first package is designed for companies that are just getting started with their lead generation journey. The package delivers qualified leads directly to your CRM. The package is available for $5,400/ month.
Lead Generation & Onboarding: The second package helps you generate leads and enables you to negotiate and close deals. Martal Group charges $6,500 per month + a sales commission of 15% on each sale in this package.
Lead Generation, Onboarding, and Account Management: The third package extends all the benefits of the second package and provides account management services as an add-on for $8,000 per month + a sales commission of 15% on each sale.
3. Callbox
Callbox was founded in 2004 and claims to be the world’s largest outsourced B2B lead generation service for businesses and organizations worldwide. Callbox primarily uses six lead generation channels: phone, email, social, chat, website, and webinars for its outbound lead generation efforts. The company is based in California but also has offices in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.
Callbox has also built its property CRM platform Pipeline with marketing automation capabilities. They currently work with clients like Microsoft, HP, Infor, Singtel, Toshiba, etc.
4. Belkins
Belkins is a multi-award-winning business-to-business lead generation and appointment scheduling firm with operations in more than 30 countries. They provide a wide variety of sales and business development services, including market research, B2B outreach, lead qualification, and appointment scheduling.
Belkins is headquartered in Dover, Delaware, United States, and has offices in Wyoming, Illinois, and Kyiv, Ukraine. Belkin’s base pricing tier starts at $3,500 per month and provides a guaranteed 30 appointments over six months.
5. CloudTask
CloudTask helps you build your sales development team irrespective of whether you want to outsource or develop an in-house team. They help organizations identify their key challenges and work as an extended team to support their sales goals.
The cost is more or less at par with other B2B demand generation agencies. They charge $3-5.5k per rep in a month if you hire from 4 to 10 representatives, which is relatively cheaper than hiring a full-time SDR, especially if you’re in the early stages of your sales development.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to B2B leading generation, the more questions you ask before you onboard an agency, the better. The whole dynamics changes based on your target market, sales cycle, and the stage of your growth. Eventually, you would want to build your own sales team, but you need a partner who acts as an extension of your team until then.
The most important parameter for selecting the best B2B lead generation agencies is people. Irrespective of which agency you decide to partner with better the people, the sooner you will be able to achieve the desired result.