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How to Generate Cost-Effective Service Leads for B2B

08.31.17 // Emily Larkin

There is a common misconception of lead-opportunities in B2B requiring heavy investments and deep pockets. This is especially so when you compare your company’s lead nurturing strategies to other competitors who may be convinced of the same. But do not be fooled – there are many solutions and considerations that are budget friendly and equally effective, if not more so, than commonly seen tactics. And they can be found beyond your Sales and Inbound efforts.

Costs per Services-Generated Lead Vs. Other Sources
Sources: TSIA Lead Generation Through Services Survey, 2017 and HubSpot “State of Inbound Marketing 2015.”

Obility guest and expert on the subject, TSIA’s Steve Frost, recently shared his article  7 Steps to $7 Leads: Generating Cost-Effective B2B Opportunities Through Services. In this, Frost guides us through the conducted survey, research, and analysis that led him to findings on how cost-effective Service-Generated leads are. In comparison to its counterparts, Inbound Marketing and Sales/Outbound Marketing, the Service-Generated cost-per-lead is significantly lower on average amongst marketing platforms who answered the survey.

Not only can this method be $25-$275 less per lead, but Frost also concludes that it is more effective in its timeliness as well. When looking at a range of service organizations, the median time spent per lead ranged from just over 11 minutes – 60 minutes. The extension of time correlated with the weight of relationship-building within that particular service, “whereas the fix-and-repair services delivery reps such as Field Services technicians or support engineers took less time to speak with the customer when generating leads. The latter, therefore, has a lower relative cost.”

Cost-per-Lead by Service Organization
Source: TSIA 2017 Lead Generation Through Services

 

So given these findings, how can we best take advantage of this valuable services interaction information for our own lead generation strategies? Provided for us by TSIA are seven steps we can take as B2B companies to do just that.

7 Steps to $7 Leads Chart

In this list of steps,  Frost makes it clear that it is not about creating a completely new and foreign concept to attract leads to your services, but keeping an open mind to existing resources and changes in the market so you can be flexible and available to these opportunities when they make themselves known, while still establishing the most important components from before any actions are even taken. Elaboration on every step can be found in the article. These steps include not only the how’s and what’s of successful, budgeted B2B strategy, but also the who’s.

You can look at the explanation of every step, and a more in-depth understanding of Frost’s analysis here. If you’re seeking solutions that are less costly to your B2B business, we the team at Obility highly recommend considering these words of wisdom, as we will definitely be doing the same.

About Emily Larkin

Emily is the Internal Marketing Coordinator for Obility, and has been leading efforts in social media, event planning, generating online leads, and even brushing up this new website. She is a fan of comedy, dogs, and jazz covers of popular tunes. View all Emily Larkin’s posts >