How to Choose the Best Outsourced Sales & Marketing Solution
You've made the decision to outsource, so I don't need to explain the benefits and costs savings such a move entails. But now that you’re in the thick of it, you may be overwhelmed by the plethora of outsourced sales and marketing companies out there. Wading through a sea of agencies, consultants, and freelancers can seem overwhelming. Add the tidal wave of pricing options, industry specializations, overlapping terminology and it’s easy to wind up thinking to yourself, “will outsourcing even work?”
The good news: there is absolutely a B2B outsourcing option out there that will work for you.
The bad news: it will be quite challenging to determine the right one for your specific needs.
As someone who has spent the bulk of my career directing an outsourced sales and marketing company, I have found myself on every side of the decision process – many many times. It’s given me some insight into the lesser discussed and often overlooked factors of the decision-making process.
So with that being said, here are some tips to find that perfect outsourced marketing and sales partner.
Be Clear on the Reason You’ve Decided to Outsource
Being clear on why you need to outsource will help you in two ways. First, if you and your team know what portions of revenue funnel need outsourcing, that’s an excellent start to shrinking your pool of options. There is no point in wasting time vetting a company that won’t be able to do what you need, or worse: only offers their services in bundled packages that contain things you won’t utilize.
Say a trusted source refers you to an agency that specializes in your industry. This agency shoots up to the top of your list, even though they’re a little more expensive than anticipated. They’re a big name with five-star reviews. You’ll get what you pay for right? Considering you might not need every service they charge you for, the answer might end up being no, especially when you’re first starting out.
This is where a consultant or freelancer might be a better fit, since they will offer way more flexibility in their prices and services. A good consultant will usually have access to multiple agencies, freelancers, and employed talent to ensure they can accommodate a specific need. Working with a consultant can also be a more personalized experience, and while it doesn’t guarantee your account will receive better attention than an agency, it does make it more likely you’ll receive attention from the consultant themselves, and not some entry-level account manager.
Second, having clear goals and reasons for outsourcing will set up the expectations, and your vendor will understand how, and if, their company can help. If you’re looking for appointment setting services to feed your in-house team and you want 50 new appointments each month, that is something you should be telling every vendor you consider.
How much sales & marketing function are you going to outsource?
Are you planning to outsource everything? In that case, start your search by looking for a combined solution. It’s going to provide better results, clearer messaging, and more accurate data. The downside is that some agencies will want contracts that state your data is non-transferable when the engagement ends. Make sure to ask what happens to your data and any lead list if you choose to stop services.
The next thing you’ll need to address is the amount of control that your company is willing to let go. It’s often the case that your vendor will have a standardized process, tech stack, script format, and training method. It’s that very standardization that allows them to spin up and down fast with positive results. It’s a huge benefit when you can embrace their full program – especially if they use best-in-class software such as Salesforce, Hubspot, and Marketo.
Whoever you decide to work with, they need to be excited about your product and believe in the solution it provides to customers. Marketing is simply helping people find the information they need to solve a problem. Sales is offering that solution and solidifying the right choice.
Easiest Marketing to Outsource:
Budget will probably play the most important role in your decision. So if you’re looking for support but are unsure which parts should be outsourced, some services are better suited than others. If this is the case for you, here are some of the easiest services to outsource:
Website Design is a commonly outsourced service, and when done right, will make your website the biggest source of leads. How your online presence looks and feels is the first impression your customer has. As your biggest advertisement, website traffic eventually translates into new business, and the potential for great ROI . It’s design should be updated yearly.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is just always worth it - you get what you pay for here. It’s not a service that is suitable for an intern or most entry-level hires. SEO requires constant on-site and off-site maintenance to keep up with the regular changes to Google’s algorithm.
Content Syndication is a pretty straight-forward service to outsource. You take a piece of web-based content and re-publish through a third-party site to a larger network. Select the qualifying filters and when the content is downloaded, only the leads that meet your qualifications are filtered back to you. It’s usually a pay-for-performance model and can be outsourced with appointment setting services for immediate lead follow-up. All you need is a blog, white paper, or video.
Content Creation is moderately difficult to outsource, but unless you have an in-house team, it is usually necessary to do so. Good content is important and bad content is too common and can actually damage your brand.
“...publishing and sharing low quality content that doesn’t educate, inform, or entertain your target audience won’t help boost sales. In fact, poor quality content could have a far-reaching negative effect on your brand and business." - cannabisexecutive.com
The hardest part of outsourcing content is the expertise factor. Ideally, executive-level members of your company are involved in the content-creating process, but if for whatever reason they don’t have the time or energy to do so, then it’s always best to hire freelancers with a lot of experience creating content for your industry. Be sure to ask any potential outsourcing partners about their research process and content strategy.
On the other hand, because “content” is such a broad term, it’s likely that some form of content creation is going to be included with other services. At minimum, SEO vendors usually provide some form of blogging or press releases. Outsourced sales services almost always come with some form of email creation or sales collateral, such as slide decks or sales sheets.
Understand the different types of outsourced sales and marketing
Something I see way too often is that a company misunderstands the services that were purchased, and not because the sales person mislead or poorly explained their offering. Usually it just boils down to a misalignment of service terminology. Over the years I’ve noticed companies end up confused when trying to compare these types of options. Here are a few outsourced specialization terms that you’ll need to understand during your search for the best solution.
Sales Enablement provides your sales team with the resources they need to close more sales. It’s a very broad term and can include content creation, training, technology, software, knowledge or processes.
Content Marketing is a service that may mean writing emails to one company, but may mean an integrated strategy of video, infographics, blogging, and email automation to another. Both services would be correct in saying that they offer content marketing, but too often companies wind up comparing apples to oranges without realizing they’re looking at different fruits.
A lead generation company could be a full service digital agency that employs a customized, integrated digital marketing strategy. It can include everything under the sun to deliver you MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads). It can set appointments, or it can have reps cold calling and or qualifying MQLs or contacts pulled from ZoomInfo to produce SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads).
All of these are beneficial outsourced options for the right customers. Don’t be afraid to ask your salesperson for clarification about what exactly their definitions entail. This gives your outsourcing partner the opportunity to ask you relevant follow-up questions, and will up-the-average of transparency necessary to set reasonable expectations right from the start.
Work with a B2B Sales Consultant
“One of the main reasons clients turn to HartLed Solutions is you get a senior sales leader with over 15 years of experience building and leading inside sales teams. You are greatly reducing your risk of failure when you use as a proven sales leader in concert with a loyal, skilled, hardworking SDR.” - Jonathan Elhardt, Principal and founder of HartLed Solutions
Working with a B2B sales and marketing consultant will get you the experience and expertise of the consultant themselves, and the SDRs they employ usually have a close relationship with him or her. The freedom to not be micromanaged on a daily or hourly basis empowers these types of reps to perform better than their competitors.
A consultant will often have relationships with other consultants, and the ability to work closely with outsourced marketing agencies. It is essentially like having everything outsourced to one place, but getting the specialization of outsourcing separately. If you have someone internally whose focus is managing and participating with your vendors, you may want to consider outsourcing separately.
“Its far less risky to go with HartLed Solutions and an outsourced lead generation resource. From a quality perspective, a startup cannabis company [for example] may not have the budget to hire a CRO at 250K a year, but you can get the same level of quality and experience with us using only 10 hours per week at a fraction of the price using our fractional VP of Sales model.” - Jonathan Elhardt
Let’s consider the Cannabis industry as an example. There are many additional factors to touch on, and a smaller pool of industry experts. Working with a consultant who has proven themselves across many different industries with a proven track record of breaking into new markets, such as HartLed Solutions, will mitigate as much risk as possible the sales and marketing process.