I’ve got a start up which provides outsourced services on a pay as you go basis. The concept is “customer sales and support as a service”.
We envisaged our target market to be online tech businesses within SaaS, apps, market places, word press developers etc.
Our service specifically helps tech/online businesses acquire and retain more customers.
What would you say the best way is to generate leads for this service?
I'd recommend attending trade shows and conferences focused on the tech industry.
Another great option would be running a Facebook Ad campaign targeting organizations who best represent your ideal client.
You can also try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and cold emails to cultivate your b2b leads.
Any of these are viable methods for lead generation. It's best to try each one and see what results you get.
Cold emails!
Using a tool like prospect.io find the best people in each company to contact.
Once you have contacts in mind setup a drip email campaign.
Each email in the drip should be strategically written to bring some sort of value to the client reading it. (they don't have to be super long either)
If you need help along the way, I'm one call away!
First, be crystal clear about what business you are in. "Customer sales and service" is ambiguous. Are you an outsourced sales organization? An outsourced helpdesk? I suggest you focus on ONE of those, build a business based on that and then go the other.
It's interesting that your service "helps tech/online businesses acquire and retain more customers" yet you are asking for help in acquiring and keeping more customers! What advice would you give yourself?
First of all, create a landing page and embed a how it works video. If done well it seems like a service many SaaS companies would like to know about.
In a crowded internet marketing space, selling and marketing your service is tough and will need a good marketing budget.
However, if you can offer your service to selected customers at zero or low prices that could be a good testimonial.
Even then it may be tough because SaaS owners will be vary of handing over their customer service to a 3rd party.
This question is one many SaaS owners may ask you -
How can you help me get sales?
You may want to review a website like http://www.snov.io for outreach and emailing.
Feel free to book a free 15 minute consultation with me: https://clarity.fm/asifosman/freecallAsif
If you have the time and resources, a combined marketing and sales approach would really deliver. Ideally - these people and/or teams work together (which drives much higher results).
Sales - Cold emails do work. My advice would be to keep copy short since people don't always read cold emails and they certainly won't read long ones. Develop a clear sales funnel as well and create marketing content along the way to push people down the funnel.
Marketing - Marketers help bring in marketing qualified leads (MQLs) that sit at the top of the funnel. It's sales' job to push these leads down. Marketing techniques that I think would work would be social (LinkedIn is your best bet here), content such as blogging (get something for Google to read to rank you), and even email if you have a list or want to start developing one. The best rule of thumb for a marketing campaign is to provide the potential leads VALUE. Don't start with the hard sell, give them content they can use, find trustworthy, and want to share.
Happy to chat more!
As I worked in this industry both in other people companies and my own as well I would definitely stick with 3 major areas:
1. Word of mouth: people and companies in this business usually know each other, start with the smaller ones you can reach in your network, ask them for reference and testimonial, let them spread the info.
2. Promoted reviews and Linkedin influencers, again try starting with small/local/regional people/magazines in SaaS/Software area, offer them free trial.
3. Targeted campaigns and provocative comparison, usual cold mail selling will not get you there
(probably), so try target your potential customer base with smaller advertising campaigns, precisely focused.
Basically you want to use both-inbound and outbound marketing.
Start small, if you already had your customers, for example from the freelance websites and you still keep in touch, you should ask for the feedback.
You can start with a landing page with clear description of the services you provide, and the reviews from your previous customers. You can make case studies for each of them to describe the complexity of the following tasks and how you solved and acheived your results.
The easiest way could be facebook ads, it is easy to make few targeted campaigns there and test which work best for your purposes.
Another way to claim your professionalism: creating your personal brand on social media and continuosly advice and create lead-magnet content, that will engage people to trust you as an expert.
And 3rd but not least: As you start your company, work on vision, mission and objectives, understand your ideal customer and the price that you are selling your services. And go for it: make a list f the companies that can be your relevant customers and reach their decision makers through Linkedin/their website and other forms of communication.
Will be glad to shortly give you the advice on the best leadgen tactics and discuss the materials that you already have starting your company
I have hired hundreds of outsourcing employees over the years.
A few tips would include:
#1 - Prove you can deliver. Someone is hiring you to help them solve a problem or grow. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people say they can do something, but it was added to look good or what they think a perspective employer would like to hear. Show me you have done it before
#2 - Be on time. Respecting time is something A LOT of outsourcing companies and employees do not do. If you say, I will speak to you in 10 minutes, dont make in 30 minutes. Now I have come to use to this that I expect that if they say something, it may or may not happen when it comes to time. It is almost consistent for people to not be on time, so being on time would be refreshing.
#3 - Have strong references and ask existing clients for more leads. Your clients are likely talking to other business owners and they may have a similar need. Each time I have let a person go since the business took a turn and they were great. I have got them multiple job offers elsewhere. That is because I know they are great workers and proven, I just did not have a need for the skills.
I hope that helps :)
Cheers,
Mukul
1. Create a white paper about how the value that a company in your target market gets if they use your service. What's in it for them to hire you? Why is it better to hire you than do it yourself?, etc.
2. Find email addresses for the right person at companies in your target market. Send them a short email that introduces you and your company, and offers the white paper. Don't try to do any selling. If they email your back, then send them the white paper. Tell them that you will follow up with them in X days (actually give the date). Also tell them that you will add them to your newsletter list, which you do not share with anyone, and they can unsubscribe at any time.
3. In X days, send them a follow up email, asking if they received the white paper, and if they had any questions or comments. Also re-send the white paper (or link) and say you are resending it, in case they didn't receive the first email.
4. in a week, follow up again.
Linkedin .. greatest resource in the world for B2B .. I have a system that is too long to explain here .. I coach Luxury Home Sales to Realtors .. all my business comes from Linkedin..
Without having a lot more detail on what you are doing or who your market is, what worked for my company (B2B software professional services) was getting out in front of potential customers by attending trade shows and conference for my target industries, having a booth when I could afford it, speaking about a particularly interesting use-case, do webinars in conjunction with a partner software company and trade associations.
It is hard to stand out when there are a lot of competitors (with a lot more resources) - specializing by technology, solutions, and industry helps you focus on customers who are potentially overwhelmed with options, too.
First, clearly shows your uniqueness so that people can see why you are better off.
Then try those advices given so far and use trial and errors approach to find out the best method to use.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator with LinkedIn Helper!
Know your biz' strength first, then find your specific market, and build from there.
If your target customers are searching for the same services as yours online, go for inbound marketing and do some ads. But if they aren't, do outbound or reach out to them directly.
Both approaches could give you short and long term results depend on how you will design your marketing campaigns. Since my expertise is more of the outbound side, I'm happy to share how I see that approach would give you success.
Perform 12 outbound marketing touchpoints system done by Microsoft and cement your solutions to your target customers' minds (LinkedIn marketing, direct emails, telemarketing, and Lead-nurturing). If you have a long sales cycle (3 to 6 months) and chasing them the right way would be worth doing cost-wise, don't hesitate as long as you have a well-planned marketing strategy and optimization processes in place, and someone who would execute consistently like 100% consistent, your investment will be successful.
You can use also systems like UpLead which give you access to 46M leads in contacts when you signup to their trial period.
They also provide you with all the tools to offer your service via their systems.
Check it out: http://bit.ly/2CVEXIU
