Nowadays with the development of technologies communication has become an indispensable part of any business. The more successful contacts (leads) you make, the higher the profit you get. Sometimes it becomes a nightmare for people with a lack of time or skills to deal with this task. This is where B2B leads by Belkins’ come into play. Our task is to get you through all possible trials on the way to a high conversion rate and growing sales. And the first step on this path is appointment setting.
Making an appointment seems to be easy, with so many means of doing that (let’s count: phone calls, emails, social networks, business events or symposia, etc.). However, to catch the eye of a potential prospect might happen to be a hard nut to crack. This is why it’s getting more and more commonly occurred to hire a sales development representative (SDR) for conducting the initial stages of business negotiations and making appointments. This, the prior goal for an SDR is to set a nice and smooth beginning of a potential partnership. We do know there’s no second chance to make a good first impression, this is why a skilled SDR will be able to introduce the services of a company in the best possible way. Consequently, it will expand the business influence and get new business leads.
Making an Appointment to Secure the Growth of B2B Sales Leads
So, what are the exact stages of this process? Let’s talk it over:
- Preliminary Preparation
Always bear in mind those PP letters. You can’t just let yourself act blindly. A good start would be to create an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Persona (BP). They will help to form the idea of a person who wants to use your services. ICP and BP both track the records of your former buyers, consider their demands, features, social or environmental, to outline the group of people you’ll value the most as your credible customers.
- Targeting the niche
When an image of a potential client has been formed, it’s time to search for customers and reach out to them. A talented researcher will find where the targeted audience is gathered, study its demands and offer a couple of ways to make it interested in your services. This is where business leads are born.
- Adding personalization
Would you rather answer a typical, soulless message made up with all possible cliches or a personalized, well-structured one, without inappropriate information? Though it seems like an evident choice, some entrepreneurs prefer to ease their life with automation procedures and excessive usage of computer software. Remember that moderation is the key. The first contact with a customer should be as human-like and natural as possible. This will considerably increase the chances to create solid b2b sales leads generation flow.
- Researching your clients
An experienced SDR collects all the possible information about the potential client, marks his demands, determines points to concentrate on while negotiating. Thanks to social media and the abundance of data about everyone, this won’t be difficult to form some sort of a dossier. This is true even about cold calls or emails. In the first message or call, find out what you and your prospect have in common and develop the course of negotiations stressing these mutual aspects.
As you see, it’s all about learning the rules of a courtesy game and disclosing the actual demands of prospects.
B2B Sales Lead Generation via Email
Despite the popularity of social networks, cold emailing remains a decent way to make people around know about your enterprise. Just to remind you of the definition, cold means without any preliminary introduction, the prospect sees or hears you for the first time. This is the case when your first letter should be precise and composed of nothing but facts and advantages of cooperation. To speed things up a little, it’s possible to use software for automation and creating templates. Besides, it’s important to pay attention to email deliverability. Thanks to such apps as Folderly it is possible to track how many of your emails reach the target and stimulate B2B sales to lead generation.
It would also be useful for your SDR to create a list of emails with high, moderate, and low rates of deliverability. This would help to separate active and reliable clients from the reluctant ones. Another tip to mention is the frequency of mailing. It’s advisable to mail the list at least once in two weeks so that your prospects would not forget about your existence. However, the niche you are targeting might influence the frequency of mailing. Sometimes the offers are updated so often, you need to notify your customers about them every week. Don’t forget about the balance, though, or you might find your messages in a spam folder.
Setting Appointments via Email
To achieve the desired goal, we suggest following a universal plan of action. It includes the following steps:
- Stage of planning
It would be silly to think that an appointment is arranged right after the first message. Usually, it takes two or three to successfully accomplish the task. Design a fine template, including a short presentation of your services, why a prospect should choose you, and what are the general benefits of this choice.
- Stage of mailing
By this time, you should have already chosen the audience to work with. It’s high time you started mailing. Don’t expect every message will be answered and mind personalization to boost your B2B leads.
- Stage of estimating
Approximately, after a month of your campaign, it’s time to pay attention to the feedback. At this stage, it’s important to sort the list of emails by relevance and importance, cross out bad prospects, introduce changes into templates if necessary.
If these steps are followed, the chances to drive a prospect to an appointment are considerably increasing.
Setting Appointments by the Phone
Good old phone calls haven’t gone out of fashion yet. They are used both for cold and warm calling, depending on the necessity. In the process of business to business sales leads generation it’s advisable to combine cold calls with other methods of outreach extension. Otherwise, this method would require a great deal of patience. Let’s outline the basics:
- Collect the necessary data, in this case, we need correct and valid phone numbers. Try to avoid the third-party connections, aim straight to the lead.
- Warm the things up a little. Mailing and calling all together work the best way.
- Know every detail an SDR is going to mention. The very first words and actions are crucial.
- Don’t be afraid of being rejected. Sooner or later you will get the first refusal. Stay calm and concentrate on the message you want to deliver. Even the greatest b2b lead generation agency doesn’t have failure insurance.
There’s a rumor that cold calls are totally ineffective. We can’t agree about this one, since statistics prove otherwise. However, warming up is essential in sport and in business, it works pretty the same way.
The Typical Appointment Setting Scripts
They say fortune favors the brave. In business, it’s better to be brave and prepared at the same time not to miss any B2B sales leads. Your phone call might go the wrong way because of many reasons: the bad mood of the prospect, awkward questions, your SDR being nervous. To avoid such situations, there are specials scripts to follow:
- Introduction. Name yourself, your company, give the purpose of calling
- FAQ. Get ready to answer all common questions about you and your business offer
- State your business. Give the proposal as soon as you realize you have managed to catch his attention
- Make an appointment. If everything goes smoothly, this is why you are here for. Set the time and place or follow up if necessary.
These scripts can be created with the software, however, it would be smart to spend some time crafting them manually. This will not only increase their overall quality but also give the idea of what and how you are going to attract prospects.
Conclusion
The cornerstone of modern business is reputation and the ability to convince. If you want to have lots of B2B sales leads, the whole algorithm of the marketing campaign should be perfected to the utmost degree. Making appointments is just a tip of an iceberg, though, even the tips must not be neglected.