Appointment Setting B2B – A Guide
Trying to grow your business? If you feel like you could be getting more substantial sales, the problem might lie in your appointment setting strategy. B2B lead generation is a process, and if you’re not prioritising appointment setting within your long term strategy, you could be setting yourself up to fail.
For the most part, the whole point of lead generation is to set a sales appointment. At The Lead Generation Company, we specialise in setting appointments- but how do we seal the deal when the businesses we speak with are so busy? We can’t give away all our secrets, naturally, but in today’s blog we’ll be shedding some light on the intricacies of appointment setting.
What is Appointment Setting in B2B Lead Generation?
The process of appointment setting is exactly how it sounds. It’s the process of getting appointments scheduled with qualified leads in order to get them to buy your service or product. It’s one of the most reliable ways to bring value to your business and increase your revenue.
The purpose of appointment setting is to delegate responsibility when it comes to prospects. For example, when one of our Business Development Consultants is arranging an appointment for a prospect, that prospect will be a qualified lead, so at the appointment they’ll be speaking to a salesperson. The salesperson would then attempt to get that prospect over the line.
This process tends to be most beneficial when the sales price is higher, because in those scenarios a prospect will need to be nurtured far more before they decide to buy.
What is the Role of an Appointment Setter in B2B Lead Generation?
An appointment setter will reach out to prospective clients in order to secure appointments with those clients, in most cases for sales meetings or for product demonstrations. But there’s a lot more to it, naturally. A good telemarketer will be able to determine whether a lead actually has much chance of leading to a sale.
When Would a Business Need Appointment Setting?
If you’ve constructed an accurate demo of the product or service you’re offering, even if that’s just a 5 to 10 minute presentation, this would be the ideal time to start setting up appointments. But there’s a couple of other characteristics which, if present in your business, signify that appointment setting would be very beneficial.
You’re Selling B2B Products or Services with High Prices
The higher the price of your product or service, the longer the nurture sequence, and the more touch points before a lead becomes a sale. It may also be the case that, once an appointment has been set up, your salespeople will need to convince multiple stakeholders, rather than just a couple of front-of-house decision makers. This would be most common in account-based sales (ABS).
The latter scenario can be a lot of work, which makes it all the more important for B2B appointment setters to hone in on crucial decision makers.
Extended Sales Cycles
Within a B2B environment, long sales cycles are often par for the course. But a concentrated effort on appointment setting can significantly shorten that cycle.
Appointment Setting B2B: The Benefits for Your Business
There are a litany of benefits that B2B appointment setting can have for your business. Let’s take a look at just a few of them…
1. More Conversions
Information gathering is just as important as the nurture sequence of a sale. Provide each with equal attention. If you’re neglecting the information gathering process to make more time for the sales process itself, or vice versa, then the resulting imbalance could be problematic somewhere down the line. It doesn’t matter how good you are at pitching a product or service; if you don’t have all the information, the likelihood of a prospect becoming convinced by that product or service will be lower.
And remember, information gathering is a continuous process. It should continue throughout all of your interactions with a prospect. Even if they don’t end up becoming a warm lead, there will likely be some benefit to these interactions. Their objections, for example- do they match the objections of prior prospects?
2. Higher Quality Targeting
B2B appointment setting will also allow you to reach out to far more prospects. This is especially true if you’re outsourcing. Our expert team at The Lead Generation Company, for example, work with high quality data to ensure they’re not only making calls to a wide range of prospects, but also that those prospects could in some way benefit from your product or service.
3. The Benefits of Outsourcing
It can in some cases be possible to efficiently handle B2B appointment setting in-house, but it tends not to be worth all the challenges involved.
By outsourcing your appointment setting to an agency like The Lead Generation Company, you can expect a litany of benefits for your business. Speaking of which…
Appointment Setting B2B: Why Outsource?
Outsourcing your B2B appointment setting to an agency means you won’t have to train new staff members, buy new equipment (which can in itself have a multitude of long term costs), and pay for new platforms and tools. You’ll also be relieving your in-house sales team, allowing them to stick to what they already excel at. Your team will likely benefit from far higher productivity if everyone is focusing their efforts on the jobs they’ve actually been trained to do. Ultimately, if you sat down to work out the total projected costs of in-house appointment setting, you’ll soon probably realise just how much more cost-effective outsourcing would be.
Some companies decide to enlist one (or more than one) of their existing staff to deal with appointment setting, even if their training and talents lie elsewhere. This tends to result in additional pressure and stress on top of their current role, and even if they are willing to learn, you’d still be receiving far faster results by going with an agency of professionals.
Another notable benefit of outsourcing is the data side of things. The Lead Generation Company, for example, can source data that’s personalised for your specific brand and audience. We have a 98% accuracy guarantee for our data, which would be far harder to come by if you kept your appointment setting in-house.
Measuring Success in a Clear and Concise Manner
To measure the success of your business’s needs, you need to be doing so in a manner that’s both clear and concise. Losing sight of your company’s long term goals could lead to financial issues further down the road. By making sure you have a solid structure in place for appointment setting, you’re allowing your team to define clear targets for themselves. This is the only way your management will be able to gauge the team’s success.
If your team isn’t meeting the target they’ve set for the week, then it might suggest they need to tweak their strategy. Without clear targets, it would take far longer for your management to notice when results are falling short.
Data
It’s vital that you’re using only the most efficient tools when it comes to maintaining high quality client data. You need to be updating information about clients and targets on a regular basis if you want to provide your team with legitimate, long term opportunities.
When it comes to data, even the smallest mistake can cost your business both money and time. That’s why here at The Lead Generation Company we use only the most reliable tools for gathering and maintaining data.
Getting Organised
Appointment setting is also a great way to ensure that your team is as organised as they possibly can be. By setting aside time for specific clients, your team will be far more likely to make a good first impression with those prospects. That will inevitably mean more deals will be closed, making for a more profitable business.
Appointment Setting B2B: Conclusion
B2B appointment setting can have endless benefits for your business, especially if you’re dealing with a higher sales price, and thus a longer sales process. Your leads will be receiving the right amount of attention, the sales cycle can be shortened (regardless of how big the deal would be, or how complex the buying process is), and your sales team or account executives can spend their time focusing on prospects that actually have a good chance of buying.
While the benefits of appointment setting are quite obvious, some companies are yet to realise the potential in outsourcing the process. This is usually because of misconceptions people have when it comes to lead generation agencies. Some seem to think that it would be both cheaper and more effective to keep their appointment setting in-house.
But as we’ve outlined today, there are a litany of benefits to outsourcing. You’ll be increasing your team’s productivity, increasing awareness of your brand, avoiding burdening inexperienced staff, and saving on costs. If you go with The Lead Generation Company, you can also complement your telemarketing campaign with digital marketing campaigns.
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