Performance Marketing Appointment Setting

One of the greatest challenges for all businesses is lead management. In conventional business models, marketing teams focus on lead generation and sales teams convert prospects into customers. This broken and outdated model ignores the buyer’s journey assuming only leads at the bottom of the sales funnel are qualified.

In performance marketing, Valve+Meter includes lead generation services and appointment setting with our comprehensive suite of outbound services. We recognize there are two sales within every buyer’s journey. When a prospect first engages with your brand they have paid with time. This is an increasingly valuable commodity but often is discounted by sales reps. Intelligent businesses recognize prospects engage at many phases within the buyer’s journey but often undervalue how many leads are lost due to poor marketing and sales actions. The proliferation of exceptionally powerful customer relationship management (CRM) platforms is a testament to the need for brands to keep leads engaged from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the sales funnel. Even when organizations invest in CRM, hiring expert specialists on data management and lead qualification is expensive. Mismanaged data, squandered sales opportunities and fractures throughout the sales pipeline can be remedied with performance marketing.

Valve+Meter helps businesses convert more qualified leads through proper data driven lead management. Our lead generation services separate cold leads from qualified leads. Highly qualified leads at the bottom of the sales funnel are prioritized and transferred to your sales teams. For many prospects, moving from the attraction stage to engagement takes time. Sales Appointment Setting Services nurture qualified prospects through appointment generation.

What Does Qualified Appointment Setting Mean?

Once a prospect becomes brand aware, there are many methods for retargeting including outreach via phone, email and paid advertising. In the most simple form, both B2C and B2B appointment setting is outreach from your business to potential customers. For leads at the bottom of the sales funnel, the outreach is typically a sales representative closing the deal. Sales representatives are highly skilled at completing sales and building a life-long partner for your brand. Prospecting efforts that nurture new customers toward your desired outcome demands a different skillset.

At Valve+Meter our team of appointment setters offer a different expertise. If lead generation and brand awareness occurs when prospects are at the top or middle of the sales funnel, both B2C and B2B appointment setting is an intensive, time-consuming process. By knowing who, why and what we are calling for, our team peaks the interest of highly qualified leads and demonstrates your enthusiasm with a value proposition. 

An average of eight contacts are required to guide a lead from attraction through brand engagement and finally to the decision phases of the buyer’s journey. Few internal sales teams possess the infrastructure and even fewer employ the highly skilled appointment setters and project managers required to nurture leads through this process. 

When sales appointment setting services are employed, Valve+Meter uses methodology to simplify the process, track the data and measure performance. Our services offer 3 key benefits: retain more qualified leads; reduce time and deficiencies within your sales team; and improve return on marketing (ROMs). Retaining all the qualified leads you have  to increase revenue while reducing marketing spend. 

When you contact Valve+Meter, you gain access to a trusted full service marketing agency driven by math and focused on performance. Our sales appointment setting services help businesses experience transformational growth. 

Why Do Businesses Struggle to Convert Leads to Sales?

One of the greatest pain points in sales is the time lost between lead generation and appointment setting. In conventional business marketing there is a gap between marketing and sales full of deficiencies and errors. These issues lead to complaints of both parties as businesses lose sales due to poor lead management and the buyer’s key decision makers seek brands that value their time. 

There are two key struggles for all businesses that both consider time.

LEAD QUALIFICATION

Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms help businesses manage the sales funnel but often act as another obstacle in lead conversion rates. If internal marketing and sales representatives do qualify leads data must be entered into CRM to manage leads. Businesses then must extract the data and build a lead qualification process. This requires skill, training and additional resources many small and medium sized businesses lack. 

To save time and resources, lead qualification services help businesses manage the sales funnel. The first goal of our team is to identify the lead and gain the attention of key decision makers. In performance marketing, sales appointment setters deploy a proven strategy to guide decision makers through the sales process. Prospects remain brand aware but do not consume the resources of sales teams until they reach the bottom of the funnel. 

In the simplest terms, appointment setting services fill the gap between lead generation and sales process.

Symptoms of Poor Lead Conversion

The telltale signs of poor lead conversion are when your business does not have the data to track lead conversion. Most often businesses evaluate success based on sales performance and revenue. The data team at Valve+Meter frequently encounters businesses that view marketing as an expense. To truly transform, businesses must embrace marketing as an asset that releases the stored potential within your business.

Poor Data Management

In order to track data, customer relationship management tools must be organized. While most businesses invest in CRM tools, small and medium sized businesses typically task sales representatives with data entry. From the initial point of contact to multi channel outreach every prospect appointment should be recorded. If data becomes disorganized and tools are not properly used, leads and existing client’s information become inaccurate and ignored. 

The best companies employ project managers who become experts in the feature and fully utilize the tools within the CRM. Properly maintaining your company’s CRM database includes having a strategy in place for monthly, quarterly and semi-annual maintenance. Maintaining client and lead information reduces mistakes costing your company revenue. 

Proper data management informs lead conversion strategy. Although this is typically a role reserved for lead generation, Valve+Meter appointment setters comb through your CRM, verifying all data and increasing lead generation. Great appointment setting services know who you’re contacting, why you’re contacting them, and what your business can do to help them. Otherwise, time is wasted. 

For many businesses, employing B2B appointment setting services through a performance marketing firm fixes poor data management and improves existing client relationships. 

Lack of Knowledge

The difficulty to manage data and CRM tools often indicates a broader symptom. A lack of knowledge or clearly defined strategy holds many sales teams from converting cold leads to sales. Setting sales meetings doesn’t need to be a struggle but internal sales teams help understanding how meeting success is measured. Some businesses have a training gap but often sales teams simply need a plan. Data may take the form of a chart, map to success or even gamification of outreach.

Valve+Meter has multiple marketing success measurements in place to help your business determine its weak and strong marketing strategy points. After careful review, we will take your appointment setting strategy and revamp it to fit your business, your targeted market, your brand and your scale to ensure the best plan for you. Because our revenue and success depends on yours, accurate measurement is a prime part of our process. Those measurements are available to your business frequently and openly.

Fractures in Sales Pipeline

A system must be created to nurture leads over time. This applies to all businesses including seasonal businesses. Furthermore, leads must include prospects and existing customers. Every business has a sales cycle. As previously noted, the first sale occurs when a prospect gives you their attention and time. When businesses fail to keep your brand in front of leads and clients, you are passively destroying your sales pipeline–losing leads, ignoring clients and wasting revenue daily. 

Cultivating a system continually updates and tracks lead purchasing signals. When you have the right person in front of each lead, data drives your pipeline. Appointment setting services function within the larger framework of your business to heal these fractures and manage the flow of leads to your sales team.

Sales Prioritization 

Your marketing team is nurturing your leads, and they are busy with other tasks, like lead generation. Your sales team is darting from clients to quality leads trying to close those sales as rapidly and effectively as possible. In other words, neither has time for a sales appointment setting. If there is no one at the helm of your CRM tools, this can become even more difficult.

An appointment setting company is the best way to balance new prospects, growing clients and set more appointments within your business calendar. Knowledge of quality leads and the stages of those leads is key to closing sales with prospective clients. Leads of strong quality are prioritized with your extremely responsive sales team. Meanwhile leads at the top of the marketing funnel and existing clients are nurtured with regularly scheduled outreach.

Missed Revenue Goals

Business leaders set revenue goals and evaluate the health of your business by dips and gains in revenue. When data drives marketing, businesses gain greater insight to  explain why revenue goals are not being met by your company. The metrics involved in outsourcing marketing performance and strategies increases the scope of insight and ability of your business to drive more revenue, increase brand recognition in your target market, and enable hitting those goals consistently.

Stagnant Growth and Poor Evaluation Tools

Business leaders should always have tools beyond revenue to understand the health of your organization. Knowing how to train your team, test strategies and implement new processes can be taxing and overwhelming on any company struggling with appointment setting for a sales team.  

Most often there is a way to accelerate growth and improve results hidden within the metrics. At Valve+Meter campaign development is a major factor in achieving desired outcomes. An outsourced team like Valve+Meter will step in to assist in areas where improvement can be made as well as identifying where email marketing through workflow development can help increase appointment setting.

The role of appointment setting in performance marketing helps to increase sales appointments. It is also a data driven strategy that helps find new opportunities and improve functions within your business.

Who are you calling? Why are you calling? Why should they listen? If you hesitate on any of these questions, then you may lack the evaluation tools necessary to set better sales appointments. 

Valve+Meter’s tactics reveal information about your leads, existing clients and performance defines future marketing campaigns. Data helps us revise scripts, overcome objections from prospects and build better relationships with clients. More than just more appointments, the goal is better appointment setting for your sales team and your prospects. By honing on the most effective strategies and most responsive leads, campaigns become more profitable and less marketing dollars are wasted.

Lack of Personnel

While lack of knowledge prevents many sales teams from designing effective outreach to top of the funnel and middle of the funnel leads, one highly skilled appointment setter is often not enough for growing businesses and seasonal companies. 

Hiring appointment setters, training, and overcoming obstacles specific to your brand is a pain point solved by outsourcing to Valve+Meter. Sales appointment setting services from a team of trained, experienced marketers is working with your sales team constantly, gaining your business clients and increasing revenue and growth with every time slot.

From strategy to execution, business can always be better; Valve+Meter is prepared to partner with you to achieve results.

Lack of Resources

Many businesses also benefit by saving time, money and resources beyond personnel. By freeing your sales team to focus on the most qualified leads, sales appointment setting services keeps all other leads engaged. This workflow optimization can be a permanent or temporary solution. 

When you contract with Valve+Meter as your sales appointment setting company, you gain access to a full service marketing team. Our team can fill resource gaps with a single appointment setter or a full team working on growing your business. For small teams and growing businesses this solution relieves stress of the unknown by providing stable resources.

Scale Up and Down

Appointment setters provide a unique skill and virtuosity of their craft. Investing in an internal team is expensive and often a waste of resources. When you need to actively accelerate lead qualification, outsourcing appointment setting services to Valve+Meter offers the ideal solution. Likewise if you need to slow down the sales pipeline, we have the expertise to inform your decisions. 

For growing businesses, demand may exceed your ability to scale. Our data tracks your sales cycles and seasonality. In these situations we are able to supplement internal efforts with our specialists. If demand exceeds the capacity of your sales and operations, we have the ability to slow the sales pipeline. Pacing demand for your products and services keeps your business running smoothly without sacrificing lost sales and services to competitors.

Hiring the Right Sales Appointment Setting Company

As a full service marketing company, Valve+Meter offers a full suite of services and tools to help businesses achieve transformational growth. Our Outbound Marketing Team uses data to study the gaps in your sales process. When actions are driven by metrics, lead management becomes an asset to drive revenue. 

Outbound sales appointment setting through Valve+Meter functions to prospect potential customers through the buyer’s journey; re-engage current clients with your brand and design the most effective strategies to manage your sales pipeline. While we are founded on the principles of prioritizing math-before-marketing, we want to make sure our partners know what to expect when hiring our team:

Subject Matter Experts 

We provide transparent and honest consultations with all clients. This is the number one thing to look for in a company offering sales appointment setting for your business. To apply our expertise in sales appointment setting services, our team works with you to become subject matter experts. 

Brand Alignment

Valve+Meter is driven by data and strategy. Math-before-marketing describes the process of designing repeatable and scalable methods. We are not impressed by glamorous advertising and vanity projects. When you commit to following the data, reinvesting in marketing allows for growth. 

Forward Thinking Strategies and Leadership

When you outsource appointment setting, Valve+Meter employs both tested techniques and emerging methods to gain competitive advantages for you. Marketing strategies are constantly in flux but by applying leading edge strategies our team helps your business evolve.

Proven Strategies

As valuable as avant garde marketing is to grow your market, Valve+Meter supplements your business. We listen to your proven marketing strategies and process and learn from your thought leaders. Unlike dedicated appointment setting companies, setting appointments may be just the beginning of our long term business relationship so we are eager to learn from your team. 

Expect Insight and Knowledge

As data specialists within a comprehensive performance marketing firm, every member of our team acts in the best interest of our clients. This often emerges as insights beyond the scope of sales appointment setting services and even outreach. Our goal is to help your business grow through honest and fearless insights.

Sales Appointment Setting Techniques That Generate Opportunities

From the first moment of lead generation to leveraging referrals and asking for meetings, Valve+Meter will cover every aspect of your outsourced appointment setting, making your job easier and keeping a steady flow of B2B appointments on your sales team’s calendar. While our services are bespoke to your business a number of key appointment setting techniques are proven to drive results.

Account Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing, or Key Account Marketing, focuses on specific, high-value accounts within your business’ target market. Most notably, Valve+Meter creates personalized marketing campaigns tailored to the interests, needs and goals of specific accounts. 

ABM is an important component in data-driven marketing. Rather than targeting broad audiences, our team develops a strategy most likely to generate significant revenue. Customized content for potential clients and existing customers helps with longer sales cycles and builds deep, long-term relationships with key decision makers.

Enhanced Calls to Action

Our appointment setting service strives to improve calls to action within your campaigns. During our outreach and appointment setting, calls to action (CTAs) are tangible ways your leads and clients can interact with your business. Testing and evaluating results helps us hone CTAs to be more effective and engaging.

Richer Research Techniques

Our subject matter expertise accesses your resources and constantly challenges ourselves. Past success has demonstrated the better our research techniques the greater our performance. Appointment setters at Valve+Meter actively engage with your thought leaders and brand ambassadors through personal conversations, observations, and researching your product or service.

Sales Call Preparation

Experience, research and strategy prepare Valve+Meter for performance. Our  appointment setting preparedness includes tactical planning and detailed notation. Every member of our outreach team is empowered by knowledge and empowered by our strategy. The consistent result is increasing the number of high-quality leads filling your sales pipeline.

Leverage Referral Business

The greatest advocates within your business are existing relationships. ABM and appointment setting builds and nurtures relationships. Business referrals are one of the most high-quality lead generators for increasing your business revenue and achieving growth.

Prospecting for Decision Makers

Conventional lead generation methods rarely discover key decision makers initially. As part of our process, Valve+Meter screens the employees in your target market to ensure they can make a sales decision.

Our experienced marketing team knows which people in an organization to pursue. To ensure your appointment setting dollars are not wasted, we work diligently to set appointments with these decision makers whenever possible.

Keep It Simple

One of the greatest mistakes is sales is lost time. Each appointment setter on our team values time as a commodity for your business, potential clients, and also for Valve+Meter. When we set appointments we demonstrate how this service saves them time. When a busy prospect feels valued and appreciated your sales team operates from a position of advantage.

Ask for a Meeting

As previously noted, most transactional sales involve two purchases–the initial meeting and the close. While the most common sales pitch focuses solely on the close, our appointment setting strategy focuses on the clear and present goal of simply asking for a meeting. 

Too many qualified prospects are lost because sales reps and marketers overlook the first step. Setting B2B appointments for your business is one of the most crucial parts of branding and company strategy. 

Valve+Meter is committed to data-driven strategy and scalable results. When you want to drive your communication strategies to the next level, request a free Gap Analysis that will help determine where you have opportunities to improve your digital marketing footprint.

Valve+Meter is focused on your business, with decades of marketing, business, finance and data analytics experience. We can’t wait to increase your sales appointment setting through marketing that works.