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Writer's pictureBain & Company

The Real Cost to BPO companies for Business Development and Sales in the United States marketplace.





Experiencing poor results in your BPO sales pipeline? Outsource to GroupBDO.


It’s not unusual to experience Sticker Shock when exploring your BPO business development and lead generation options. And after a few phone calls with reputable agencies, a handful of proposals, and finally an in-depth meeting with your top marketing advisor (Google), you conclude that it’s far more affordable to generate leads in house... But what is the real cost difference between outsourcing your business development and sales (co-close)? While the up front cost might warrant some surprise, it’s nothing compared to the resources needed to build a successful campaign. From the cost of prospect lists to the time required to follow up with potential buyers, lead generation is a big investment. Many BPO companies try to cut costs by generating leads in-house but the time and resources needed add up quickly. Marketing and lead generation are skill sets in and of themselves. Without experience in this space, you’ll be starting from square one and faced with a large learning curve, trial and error, and fruitless testing. You’ll burn through time, energy, and prospects without a return. Rather than reinventing the wheel or transitioning your title to ‘CMO’, you might want to consider outsourcing. To GroupBDO.


In this review, we’ll review all of the necessary tools and re sources required to get a successful lead generation and business development campaign off of the ground. You’ll be able to review the skills, time, and money needed for each component and evaluate whether or not your team is ready to take the plunge. Remember this does not include the $125,000-$150,000 a year Sales Executive.


1. Marketing or Sales Engagement $14,600 / year ; for email campaigns, prospecting, and sales activities, lead scoring, web tracking, and landing pages.

I know what you’re thinking - is a Sales Engagement Platform re ally necessary? Short answer : it depends. If you have an extremely small prospect pool and have full confidence that you can manually track where they are in the prospect journey and follow up accordingly, then no - not necessary. However, if you’re planning to scale your lead generation, automate touch points, and track your results, then a sales engagement platform is a must. Sales engagement tools help your team to stay in contact with thousands of leads, while communicating more strategically based on buyer personas and prospect stages. Sales engagement platforms such as RampedUp can integrate with your CRM and email to help your team stay organized and streamline your workflow (which is extremely important as you scale). If this isn’t enough, utilizing sales engagement tools will help you to optimize and iterate campaigns. Using analytics, you’ll be able to use evidence based strategies to increase the efficiency of your campaign, while quickly pivoting away from strategies that don’t perform. A sales engagement tool helps you to move quickly, identify roadblocks, and increase traction. These are the table stakes for lead generation in 2021. On average, a marketing and sales automation platform will cost between $500 - $1,000 a month.


2. List Database $10,000 / year; source for stocking the pond with Ideal Customer Profile contacts; Your lead generation is only as good as your prospect source. List databases provide thousands of names that can be identified by industry, title, geography, etc. This system is a bit more complicated than just buying a few names. While list databases can be an incredible resource, they aren’t 100% accurate ours is 87-90%. Not only is prospect data constantly changing, it is also user generated. From a recent marriage or job change, names, titles, and contact information are in flux. If you’re going to reach out to the right person with the right messaging, your lists need to be cleansed regularly. This is a huge advantage to working with an outsourced lead gen company who can ensure your contacts are accurate and up to date.




At GroupBDO we use RampedUp. for Data Base Management

Another aspect to consider when evaluating your list database is intent data. This information takes targeting further than the demographics and credentials needed to qualify your lead. Intent data reflects behavior, such as web search history, content topics, downloads, and social media metrics. This information can help you to make your campaigns more specific to the pains of your audience while also acting as a prompt for your sales team to strike while the iron is hot. Once you’ve created a list of ideal prospects, you also have to know what to do with said list. Chances are, you’re contacting multiple buyer personas within your campaign. From messaging to sending schedules, each buyer persona will need a different approach. Without segmenting your lists appropriately, you run the risk of wasting qualified leads with the wrong strategy. Database sources vary in offering, price, and quality. You can easily fall into a partnership with poor email deliverability or loosely verified titles so proceed with caution. In light of the pandemic, email is making a comeback and in a big way. That’s why we are partnering with Betterfy to provide intelligence to CATCH ALL and Grey Listed email addresses. Betterfy searches hundreds of millions of websites to see if an email address is published, how often, and when. It truly is a better way to validate B2B email addresses.

The process starts by identifying duplicates, web-mail and role-based email addresses not assigned to a professional. Then Betterfy separates CATCH ALL emails from the ones that can be validated. The ones that can be validated are put through a grey listing process where servers that need information to validate an email are provided it. The CATCH ALL emails are assigned a Web Source and a Pattern Match to identify records that conform to the email naming pattern.



3. Content $70+ / hour; for email introductions, follow ups, and cold call scripts

To whom it may concern… If your email starts something like this, you’ve already lost your prospect’s attention. Content is a foundational pillar of an effective marketing strategy. Without strategic content, how are you going to build your case...to a stranger...over the internet? In a market that’s more competitive than ever before (and an audience that’s more informed than ever before), your content needs to cut through the noise, provide value, and make an impact. If a campaign isn’t performing, content is one of the most malleable variables in your formula. It’s a science just as much as it is an art. While an amatuer or even professional writer could take a stab at creating the perfect email sequence, keep in mind that marketing emails are a different kind of beast. Even the most talented of writers may miss the mark when it comes to email marketing. Your content needs to be clear, concise, and compelling; it needs to recognize a pain and establish a need, while feeling approachable, maybe even funny. This is no small feat. The best writers leverage buyer personas to craft individualized messaging within your campaign; that’s where the magic really happens.

Content isn’t usually a one-time project. Your initial campaign will start with not just an introductory email but a series of touch points ranging from email follow ups, to LinkedIn messages, to cold calls. You’ll likely want to devise separate campaigns segmented by title, industry, or company size; each having separate content with different pain points and value-adds. Once the initial campaign takes off, content can be iterated to achieve optimal performance. The size of your campaign will impact the quantity of content you’ll need. Whether you hire a freelancer on retainer or by the hour, you can expect to pay between $50-$100 per hour for their service.


4. Salaried Business Development Rep $60,000-$75,000 / year; to follow up with leads using email and call tasks. Our team once followed up with a prospect for over a year before securing a meeting. As the old adage goes, persistence is the key to success. This story is not uncommon in our process, in fact it’s the norm. And it’s the norm because this strategy is exactly how to effectively engage with a prospect. It’s playing the long game, investing in the prospect journey, and understanding that one touch point is not enough. Whether you have one sales rep or a team of SDRs, following up with leads is key to your conversion. From the moment someone opts into your newsletter or asks a question about your service via email, you need to nurture that lead.





Driving BPO (G) Sales in the United States >

Want to know more about how we drive revenue for our BPO & Technology clients? Contact our sales team at 512.688.1931. We are here to assist you and your team.


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