If you want your business to be successful, you need to find great leads. While you could do this in-house, it’s often better to outsource lead generation to a separate company. This way your sales team can focus more on closing deals than finding new potential clients.
Lead generation companies can have a huge impact on your company’s bottom line. So how do you know you’re choosing the right one? We’ve compiled a list of the top five lead generation companies for 2021, so you don’t have to do any digging yourself. We’ll also dive into how these businesses work and why they’re so valuable.
What Is a Lead Generation Company?
Lead generation is the process of finding and verifying new sales leads. These leads are sourced from social media, web traffic, search engine optimization and more.
This mean a lead generation company handles this process on your behalf. Instead of having your in-house sales reps find and validate leads, a lead generation company delivers them to you all ready to go.
What Does a Lead Generation Company Do?
Typically, these companies follow a set process that uses multiple nurture points to verify and “warm up” the leads. The warmer they are, the more likely they will buy. While the specific process varies between companies, the basic formula works like this:
Step One: Finding New Leads
Lead generation companies work with B2B and B2C clients, so they find both consumer-level and company-level leads. These companies will often have multiple resources at their disposal, like social media accounts.
Lead aggregation simply pulls as many names as possible for different clients. The lead generation company will segment their lists according to various needs.
Step Two: Verifying Leads
Having a name and a social media profile doesn’t mean that a lead is legitimate. There are countless fake profiles out there, so the next step is to figure out which leads are genuine. This step involves verifying contact information so that a lead can move onto the next step. If a lead doesn’t have an active email address, they’ll be scrubbed from the list.
Step Three: Warming Leads
The best lead generation companies will warm the leads before sending them to a specific company. For example, if a client needs leads interested in buying a car, the lead generation company will ask users whether they’re in the market for a new car. Only those that respond “yes” will get forwarded.
Since the lead gen company isn’t responsible for closing the lead or even steering them further down the sales funnel, they can only discover so much information about a lead before sending it off. Most of these leads will need some extra nurturing before they’re ready to buy.
How Do Lead Generation Companies Work?
How Do Lead Generation Companies Work?Lead generation companies work on behalf of their clients. Using our car example, let’s say that an auto dealership wants to sell to new leads. They will contract with the lead generation company to help them reach more leads than they would by themselves.
Clients may have specific requests, such as how warm the leads are before coming to the sales team. Rather than delivering a list of names and contact info, the lead generation company will target those people on the client’s behalf. Once those leads are interested in buying a car, they’ll go to the client’s sales team.
Overall, a lead generation company succeeds by having a massive and organized database of up-to-date information. If leads are outdated or contact information doesn’t work, the company is far less valuable to its clients.
How Do Lead Generation Companies Acquire Leads?
As we mentioned, there are multiple ways to dig up new leads. During the first step, the goal is to have as broad a reach as possible. From there, lead generation companies can whittle their lists down to verified and warm leads.
Some examples of resources that these companies use include:
Social Media Marketing
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are excellent resources for lead generation. It’s relatively easy to figure out if a profile is genuine, and these platforms have built-in contact methods (i.e., Facebook Messenger).
Lead generation companies will promote marketing materials related to specific industries or products as a means of qualifying and warming leads for their database.
Online Advertising
Online AdvertisingPay-per-click ads are another excellent way to curate new leads. If someone clicks on an ad and goes to a landing page, they are likely in the market for a specific product. Lead generation companies can promote ads for individual clients using targeted keywords. This approach ensures that all potential leads are somewhat interested in a particular product.
Landing Pages
A landing page is the most critical element of lead generation. The primary goal of a landing page is to get a new lead to fill out their name and contact information. If the landing page is confusing or doesn’t appeal to the person, they won’t follow through on the call-to-action (CTA).
Lead generation companies are adept at creating landing pages for their clients that have high click-through rates. These companies have insight and experience finding and curating leads, so they know which layouts and CTAs will deliver the best results.
Website Traffic
Since lead generation companies know how to find new customers, they can link back to their client’s website during their outreach. For example, the company may promote an ad for a particular product on social media that links to the manufacturer’s website.
What’s critical to understand is that more web traffic does not automatically mean more business. If your site has a high bounce rate (meaning that people leave immediately), more leads won’t make a difference.
This discrepancy highlights the fact that lead generation in and of itself is not necessarily a “magic bullet” to improve your bottom line. Instead, it’s one component of many that can lead to higher sales. If you skimp on the other elements, you won’t notice much of a difference in overall revenue.
Some Examples of the Best Lead Generation Companies in 2021
With so many options out there for lead generation, picking the top company can feel a bit overwhelming. To help you get started faster, we’ve compiled this list of the top five companies in 2021.
CallBox
One of the primary selling points of a lead generation company is whether they work within your industry. For example, if you sell cars, you don’t want to use a company that specializes in consumer packaged goods (CPG).
Callbox is a B2B lead generator that works within these specific industries:
- Healthcare.
- IT and Software.
- Consultancy.
- Finance.
- Advertising.
Big corporations like Forbes, DHL and Motorola have all used Callbox to help them amass new leads. However, Callbox also works with small- and medium-sized companies so that they can grow faster.
What we like about Callbox is that they provide comprehensive data about their leads. They will curate a list of companies who are likely interested in your product or service. Then, they’ll break down who to contact within an organization so that you don’t hit a brick wall.
Best of all, Callbox will warm your leads to the point that they’re ready to schedule a meeting. This way, your sales team just has to know how to close a deal. While this system isn’t completely foolproof, it does help set your business up for better success.
DiscoverOrg
While Callbox warms your leads for you, DiscoverOrg requires a bit more involvement on your part. Instead of nurturing potential leads, you simply get access to a detailed and accurate database of companies.
DiscoverOrg also specializes in B2B sales, and it’s perfect for smaller companies who need an edge to build their bottom line. DiscoverOrg claims that its data is at least 95 percent accurate thanks to the company’s blend of automation and human interaction.
One primary selling point of this lead generation company is its free trial. This option allows you to see how the database works so that you can determine if you need something more involved. Overall, if you have a high-performing sales team, DiscoverOrg is an excellent resource. If your reps need more direction, you might want to choose a company like Callbox instead.
As far as niches go, DiscoverOrg specializes in:
- Sales Leadership.
- Marketing and Demand Generation.
- Recruiting.
- Sales and Marketing Operations.
- Sales Development.
CandorWorks
If you’re not a B2B company, you’ll appreciate working with a brand like CandorWorks. This business is full-service, meaning that they’ll practically deliver leads on a silver platter. CandorWorks guarantees all leads, so if one of them is inaccurate, they’ll work to correct the problem.
From lead generation to qualification, CandorWorks does it all. Better yet, you only pay for the leads you use, so don’t worry about a list of worthless names and email addresses.
What makes CandorWorks so reliable is that they help you develop lead generation strategies for your business. They’ll assist with targeting, marketing and nurturing so that you can eventually run your business autonomously without CandorWorks’ help.
The brand’s business model is also ideal for companies of all sizes thanks to its adaptable pricing structure. You’re able to use CandorWorks in an ongoing capacity (retainer) or for a specific project. You can also set performance metrics so that it’s easy to tell whether you’re getting value for your investment.
Overdrive Interactive
Building a lead generation and nurturing system is time-consuming and takes a lot of work. Overdrive Interactive helps alleviate much of that pressure by helping your marketing and sales teams every step of the way.
Overdrive Interactive helps you build a strategic end-to-end sales process that finds, curates, nurtures and converts new leads. From initial contact to closing the sale, you can get assistance and insight the whole way.
This company works with all industries, including B2B and B2C. Some of its specialties include:
- SEO.
- Retargeting.
- Inbound Marketing.
- Social Media Management.
- Paid Search.
- Account-Based Marketing.
- Content Development.
One of the best selling points of Overdrive Interactive is that they help you create demand for your business. This tactic increases the number of inbound leads so that your marketing team doesn’t have to do so much work at finding new prospects. With that kind of approach, growth is inevitable.
Let Selling Revolution Help You Upgrade Your Business!
As we mentioned, lead generation is only one aspect of growing your business. Having all of the leads in the world won’t matter if you can’t close any deals. While Selling Revolution won’t help you get new leads, we will help your sales team convert them into new customers.
We offer a wide array of sales tools and coaching to help you create a better sales team. Improving your bottom line is much easier when everyone is working at maximum efficiency. Let Selling Revolution kickstart your growth and help you reach the next level. Book a 20-minute introductory call with us today to get started!