Attributing outbound sales

I worked with a couple of new business development agencies over my first 5 years at performance marketing agency Branded3.

They were good at what they did (or at least, one of them was). They generated a deal or two each year. Brands like Vue Cinemas, which the team grew into a seven figure account over almost a decade with the business, came from a cold intro our new business agency made.

Of course, it isn't as simple as new business agency makes intro; we close.

We knew all along that we got the most out of that agency when we engaged with them. We got good stuff back when we kept them in the loop with the events we were hosting or attending; the posts we were writing; the awards we were winning. We found ourselves saying things like "they're good...as long as you keep on top of them" or "they get us leads but we have to chase them a lot."

We overlooked the (now) obvious truth: marketing generates leads. But someone has to collect.

Case study

This post is part 1 of 2, because we won the same client twice (two different agencies) and learned something new both times. More on that next week.

The year is 2015. I've parked outside McDonalds to dial into a new business call our agency set up. We're using conference calling service Powwownow (another Branded3 client) because video calling hasn't been invented yet. Everyone has arrived and, within a couple of minutes, the client tells me: "we spoke to [Branded3 founder] Patrick Altoft a couple of years ago...we follow you."

Who generated that lead?

How do you attribute it in that un-nuanced box inside your CRM?

The client's first touch point was an event. They saw Patrick speak (and presumably thought "these guys know their stuff"). At some point, a conversation happened. There's absolutely no record of this on our side, of course.

They read our blog (tens of thousands of other marketers did, at one point). Maybe they subscribed using Google Reader (RIP).

...and then our new business agency called them at just the right time.

If our new business agency hadn't called them at that time:

• The deal may not have happened
• If it did happen, the client might have run a competitive process and we might not have won
• If we did win, we might have been squeezed on price
• If we were squeezed on price, we might not have done a good enough job for them to come back to us when we launched Rise at Seven a few years later.

Someone has to do that job. But marketing has to do its job or they are going to struggle. If that client hadn't seen our founder speak at the right event; had a conversation; and read our blog:

• They might have put the phone down when our agency called them
• If they didn't put the phone down, we'd have to convince them that we know what we're doing
• If we did convince them, they might have included us in a competitive process
• If we were included, we might beat the agency who they did see speaking and whose content they did read, if we were cheap enough

You've been down that road. You know where it ends. To avoid going down it again, here's what I want you to take away from here:

1. New business agencies fulfil a role that needs to be fulfilled
2. They will not succeed in that role unless you fulfil your role, which is marketing your marketing agency
3. If you don't fulfil that role, you're going to be very disappointed with the return you get from a new business agency
4. The smart new business agencies are investing in/becoming outsourced marketing functions as well as new business functions - if you think "that sounds expensive" then you are correct...but someone has to do it, so if you aren't going to do it yourself then it's money well spent...
5. When you do market your marketing agency, there's little difference between inbound and outbound - whether the last touch point is an unsolicited call; an email; a blog post you wrote; or a thought you shared on LinkedIn...each one is just another inbox, allowing you to get connected to the right client at the right time
6. At some point during the sales process, you need to prove that your agency knows its stuff. You can do this by demonstrating it on stage; in thought leadership content; and in case studies...or you can rely on your salesperson to prove it. But you should sit for a second and ask yourself: is this third party that I'm outsourcing my job to going to adequately demonstrate that my agency knows its stuff?
7. This point isn't relevant for everyone...but if you are an office-based business and you outsource "lead generation" to someone not in your office, you are missing out on sitting with the only function that can give you new and valuable information every hour, on the hour
8. Keep good notes about the calls you make and take; don't rely on a drop down to attribute a lead as "inbound" or "outbound" because that's rarely the whole story

You can in-house new business development or you can outsource it (I said at the start of this post that I worked with new business agencies for my "first 5 years" - I've in-housed it ever since). There are some good business development agencies around and I'm happy to recommend one if you drop me a line.

Subscribe if you want to read (next week) what happened when this same client got in touch a second time and why we turned them down...