To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown: "When you absolutely, positively got to reach every ********** on the list... accept no substitutes."

Sales appointment setting really is the ultimate sales lead generation tactic because it does just that. If you really need to make sure that everyone is touched, no stone unturned, then you need to run a sales appointment setting campaign.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's the cheapest form of sales lead generation. Neither is it the best way to get huge volume in large markets since it takes time.

But when it comes to different methods of sales lead generation - appointment setting is the most consistent and thorough tactic in niche markets.

Let's do some comparisons...

Say you have a specific business service with an easily identifiable set of prospects (usually by turnover, sector, etc). This is a common situation for many clients, perhaps giving them a sweet-spot of less than 500 companies.

Now, if you were to run a sales lead generation campaign using email marketing, you may get a response rate of around 2% (assuming it's a good campaign sent to cold data). Based on these numbers, that may mean you generate around 10 "leads" from this list.

If you're a very small business and 10 leads is enough for you (and you have no desire to capture more market share) then this could be all you need to do.

Bear in mind that we're talking about 10 "leads" - you still need to convert them to sales.

However, the reality is that the email campaign hasn't even made a dent in your potential prospect list. And, if you work on the rule of thumb that approximately a third of your prospects are potentially in the market for your services, you're leaving revenue on the table for your competition.

This is why I said at the beginning of this post that appointment setting is the ultimate sales lead generation tool.

Because when we run a sales appointment setting campaign, we will call and pitch every single one of the prospects... no stone unturned.

Sure, we'll not reach everyone, even when you include using voicemails, working with PA's and sending individually drafted emails); but, on average, we pitch around 80% of a target list.

Of that 80% we would figure a low response rate of around 10% and, more often, we book appointments with at least 25% of the list.

That's a conversion of around 100 leads compared with 10 from an email campaign - 10 times as many.

So, if you have a high-end B2B sales proposition and need to generate revenue now, rather than waiting for the business to walk through the door, then appointment setting will work for you.

If you operate in over-crowded and competitive markets where you're struggling to stand out and get on a prospect's radar, then appointment setting will work for you.

As Samuel L. Jackson says, "... accept no substitutes."

Labels: appointment setting, sales appointment setting