Identify, engage and close key accounts with BNZSA's Opportunity Finder

It’s a no brainer that sales teams are always going to look for ways to maximise their MQL and SQLs to closed won conversion rates. And as we face further economic uncertainty, it is even more vital for sales and marketing teams to ensure today’s budgets that are heavily scrutinised are invested wisely to secure a solid ROI.  

Despite being a key component for sales pipelines for many years, lead generation is often not as efficient as it could be, leading to a lot of waste. Companies handle leads from multiple agencies which are not accurately qualified. This results in up to 98.5% of pipeline being rejected by sales because it’s not a tangible opportunity.

Optimising your pipeline generation and activation requires applying various strategies along the sales funnel in order to fully engage and convert prospects to opportunities effectively.

This can be hard to get right at every step. It requires sales and marketing teams to firstly be aligned, to have access to quality data, relevant contacts, effective content, and actionable insights. It also often means combining data from various sources.  

Sales and marketing teams are often inundated with all the latest technologies, platforms, and services to facilitate and automate lead generation. Technographic and firmographic segmentation provides top of the funnel insights, but this data is often disjointed or lacks clear insights to aid conversion into actual opportunities. While this data can be valuable, it lacks context and opportunity defining detail.

One key issue is that “lead” is an all-encompassing term that can include everything from a simple opt-in to a Sales Qualified Lead, but using the term lead itself does not necessarily tell you whether it is likely to close or not.

There is a clear gap in the market for a solution that provides insights for an efficient whole funnel solution which maximises pipeline generation, transforming leads to opportunities. To make this a reality, it is necessary to combine data, digital and human interaction to identify credible and qualified opportunities.

BNZSA’s Opportunity Finder

Opportunity Finder by BNZSA is a fully integrated solution, combining some of the most advanced lead generation tools. It is designed to increase sales and marketing effectiveness as we noticed a gap in the market for an end-to-end lead generation engine that converts to closed revenue delivering quantifiable ROI.

Combining data and digital engagement with human outreach, Opportunity Finder is the most effective toolbox to identify real revenue-generation opportunities that have the best possible chance to close.

It provides insights which maximises the impact of campaigns and furthers our understanding of the market and the signals BNZSA is receiving from prospects. This allows companies to supercharge go-to-market strategies and accelerate pipeline faster.

Opportunity Finder is comprised of five key pillars to make sure each lead will move through the sales funnel. Rigorous processes are put into place to efficiently engage, qualify, and most importantly convert leads to closed won opportunities.

Enrich

Build your universe by enhancing your database with as much key information as possible about your target accounts.

Find

Find the right decision makers, identifying buying committees, and strategize how to best land your messaging.

Ignite

Combining intent data with first touch - digital and telemarketing engagement - to filter and segment the audience.

Engage

Deploying the right engagement strategies across the digital and telemarketing toolbelt to connect with decision makers.

Close

Using highly skilled BDRs/SDRs and advanced digital nurture to close the deal or deliver SQLs using our Warm HandoverTM and Sales-as-a-service processes.

Opportunity Finder - A Case Study

BNZSA recently launched an Opportunity Finder for a client – an industry leading recruitment software provider. The objective of the campaign was to generate 100 qualified opportunities and 150 MQLs for the client.

Enrich:

BNZSA’s Data and Decision Science teams combined first and third-party data to enrich the database with information intent data about 4,500 companies. We added firmographics, technographics, key market insights and anything additional that might inform their buying behaviours.

Find:

BNZSA’s team of Data Researchers identified 6,000 contacts that comprised of the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) from the 4,500 companies. This included various buying influencers as well as the key decision makers.

Ignite:

BNZSA then launched a telemarketing campaign as a first touch to gather consented MQLs and Opt-ins.

Engage:

The consented contacts were passed to the digital marketing team for digital follow-up with email nurturing.

BNZSA implemented two separate email marketing strategies:
1. To nurture MQLs/Opt-ins to try convert to a scheduled meeting
2. To keep converted prospects interested by sending a meeting reminder and additional relevant content before the meeting.

As well as email nurturing, we created a microsite in the local language which acted as a key content hub to educate the prospects and push them through the funnel for conversion. BNZSA was able to drive traffic to this landing page and track the prospects’ behaviour and understand their areas of interest.

The nurtured contacts were then followed up via telephone outreach by BNZSA BDRs with the aim of booking meetings with additional prospects. Once the meeting was booked, the contact was sent custom content and meeting reminders, which lead to a higher meeting attendance rate.

Our BDRs were also able to gain additional contextual insights into purchasing cycles and buying committees through their conversations with decision makers.

Close:

The meetings that were scheduled were executed using BNZSA’s Warm HandoverTM process – a three-way call between BNZSA’s BDR, the prospect and a sales rep from the client.

Results:

BNZSA predicts the top 3 B2B marketing trends for 2023

With the new year well underway, BNZSA is looking ahead at the top three trends that will influence B2B marketeers in 2023.  

The IT industry has been hit hard in the past year with mass layoffs and uncertainty due to the looming threat of a recession. This trend has sadly continued in January 2023 with more companies announcing redundancies. In times like these, it's crucial for businesses to be smart about their marketing spend and make sure their messaging is reaching the right people at the right time and is relevant to that audience in order to generate real sales opportunities and revenue.  

To this end, BNZSA is looking at three key strategies that can help you make the most of your marketing budget.  

1. Curated Content Hubs  

B2B buyers are increasingly expecting a B2C-like experience when interacting with B2B companies. This means that they want easy access to relevant and valuable content and information, as well as seamless and efficient communication and collaboration throughout the buying process.  

To meet these expectations, B2B marketers need to focus on creating an omnichannel presence that allows buyers to engage with their brand and access content and information on their own terms. This can include creating a robust website or landing page with educational resources that acts as a content hub. Creating this space creates a point of reference for the prospect where they can be directed to further “bingeable” content, or where they can be redirected to multiple times whether through ads, emails or through their own interest. 

Prospects’ content experiences can be enriched by using programmatic advertising on social media channels. By tracking engagement and user behaviour on the landing page, prospects can then receive advertising with tailored messaging based on their user profiles and leveraging data on customer behaviour to push them to additional content relevant to their interests, industry, or job title.   

By delivering a B2C-like experience to B2B buyers, companies can not only improve the overall customer journey, but also differentiate themselves from the competition and build strong, long-lasting relationships with their clients. 

Creating personalised user content journeys through email content, social media advertising and landing pages, allows marketing teams to gather important data on what interests their customers and helps to identify buying intent signals which is valuable data which can strengthen a follow-up telemarketing strategy.  

2. Disintermediation  

Marketing teams are often handling leads being generated from various agencies which can lead to a disjointed and inefficient workflow. 2023 is the year where marketing teams will partner with fewer agencies, instead, procuring all their marketing needs from one place.   

Gone are the days where one agency handles your social media and digital activity, another handles the generation of opted-in leads which are then passed onto another agency for further qualification, before hopefully being closed by an in-house sales representative. Working with one centralized agency that has the capacity to complete each activity along the sales funnel, maximises marketing efforts. Not only does it provide a more cohesive and centralized insight into the progress of the sales pipeline, but it also creates a seamless flow throughout nurture activity.  

When one agency handles every activity, it facilitates a faster follow up as the prospect’s engagement can be tracked and incorporated into a telemarketing campaign. When a prospect’s behaviour shows high engagement there is no lull between the different agencies’ activity, allowing you to capitalize on the momentum and increasing the chance to convert the lead into a revenue generating opportunity.  

A "one stop shop" specialist agency such as BNZSA, can provide a full range of marketing services, from content creation, content syndication, digital and telemarketing activity, and even outsourced sales teams to close the deal all under one roof, streamlining pipeline generation from start to finish.  

3. Opportunities rather than leads 

Traditionally marketing has focused on lead generation, and rightfully so. But times are changing and there is a need for campaigns to be more strategic in order to convert leads into revenue generating opportunities. Marketing teams need to look at the entire pipeline to ensure prospects are adequately qualified and nurtured until they are sales ready to not only close the “easy wins”, but to also make sure that nothing is lost from the pipeline in the meantime.  

Our research shows that up to 98.5% of leads are lost from the pipeline. This means that marketing spends potentially worth millions of euros is not being spent efficiently, simply because the sales teams don’t have the resources to follow up on everything or there is a breakdown somewhere along the sales funnel.  

This year will see a huge focus on quality over quantity and a shift from “lead generation” to “opportunity generation”. One key issue is that “lead” is a generalised term that includes everything from a simple opt-in to a Sales Qualified Lead, but using the term lead itself does not necessarily tell you whether it is real sales opportunity or not.  

Simple campaigns that focus on gathering consented opt-ins no longer guarantee a high revenue return. Marketing teams need to focus on creating intricate campaigns with multiple digital and human touch points in order to optimize their pipeline generation efforts.  

Identifying and qualifying opportunities that have the highest chance of closing involves applying various strategies along the sales funnel in order to fully engage and convert prospects to opportunities effectively. This can be hard to get right at every step but disintermediation and creating curated content experiences are huge steps in the right direction.  

Switch to a Hybrid BDR and SDR "Sales As-A Service” model for more sustainable sales pipeline and faster returns on marketing investment in 2023

By Paul Briggs, Director of Global Corporate Development 

To hire and retain the best talent in the future it will not just be about overall compensation, it will also have to address growing themes of work /life balance, remote and flexible working, and other hygiene factors.  

Ultimately, these trends may force hiring managers and chief strategy officers (CSOs) to completely rethink how they hire, manage and workplaces and employees, especially when more and more companies are looking to adopt a 4-day week for staff without reducing current pay. 

Naturally, the main concern is how to adopt to these new working trends without affecting pipeline and ultimately revenue targets, especially when analyst Forrester notes that traditional “leads-based “contributions have declined in terms of contribution to overall revenue results performance. 

But instead of hoping that short-term re-orgs, layoffs and downsizing fixed assets will solve the current and future challenges companies are facing, many industry commentators are suggesting that the companies that will ride the wave of recession and post pandemic pain points will be those that are planning to move to a distributed enterprise where not only will IT and business solutions be provided “As-A-Service,” human resources, will be too! 

Time-based models for supporting IT vendors and channel partners are increasingly being sought after as new hybrid business models evolve. By engaging with well trained and highly specialised individuals, companies can either back-fill existing vacancies, generate new high-quality opportunities or provide validation or nurturing support for existing opportunities. 

BNZSA is one such company that has evolved its business model to provide its clients time-based full-time BDRs and SDRs “ Sales as-a-service”. These resources work with clients in a number of ways for opportunity and closed won sales generation, in addition to its traditional CPL-based content syndication offering. 

BDR-as-a-service: Time based Model 

By engaging with a BNZSA BDR in a time-based model, clients only pay for the time of that BDR which is usually 20 days a month. The BDR can either use client data such as Target Account Lists to prospect from. These lists can be validated and enriched by BNZSA’s Decision Science and Data science teams or BNZSA’s own mixture of 1st party, 3rd party and intent data to create custom databases and audience segments.  

The use of BNZSA’s data services is included in the BDRs time-based fee at no extra cost. As the BDR works in a waterfall model, this allows for a deeper engagement with prospects. As well as producing 12-15 Warm HandoversTM per month, a BDRs also has approximately 5-15 interactions with decision makers on a daily basis generating: 

Without recruitment fees to hire, or ongoing costs such as holiday and sick pay, the BDR can be trained by the client in the unique selling points of the product or service, understand who an ideal customer is and can work with the client on a script to ensure brand protection and management.  

In some cases, the BDR can also use a client’s email address and call on behalf of the client. With regular reporting and calls, the progress and pipeline of the BDR can be managed by the client and can complement existing internal teams rather than compete with them.  

As well as backfilling resources and generating opportunities, BDRs can also be utilised to validate and recycle opportunities that have been generated by social media or digital content syndication activity.  These opportunities may have either stalled or have been discarded because there is either too much volume or not enough time/resources to nurture the prospects into a more sales ready status. 

As BNZSA’s BDRs have native speaking support for 26 languages, companies that are looking to land and expand in new territories can also avail of instant support in these regions, which is also attractive for companies that are looking to IPO.  

As BDRs can be throttled up or throttled back, clients can add additional resources or scale back depending on clients’ requirements, leaving internal and channel teams to concentrate on existing customer needs as well as finding new ones. 

SDR-”Sales-As-A-Service" model 

Similar to the BDR-as-a-service model, BNZSA has recently introduced a hybrid SDR- As-A-Service" model, where the SDR is effectively a full-time sales resource for the client. Essentially it is a “sales-as-a-service” offering, with a fixed fee and commission pricing structure.  

Like the BDR model, the client only pays for the days the SDR works, has a client email, and calls on behalf of the client. However, the key difference between the two is that the SDR handles the entire sales cycle and is responsible for generating closed sales and revenue where the client agrees a commission structure to create a strategic partnership.  

Like an FTE sales resource, the SDR handles PO, payments and all details required to enter a contract. Between the client and BNZSA, the SDR is incentivised for bigger value, high volume sales and facilitates a deeper nurture of the opportunity through the whole funnel. As well as access to BNZSA’s data and decision science team, the SDR fixed fee also includes additional sales support and resources such as sales managers and project managers.  

Like an FTE sales resource, BNZSA’s SDR will, in concert with the client’s own model, earn commission on closed won sales, but unlike many internal FTEs not in the first three months of engagement if there are no closed won sales. And due to BNZSA’s industrialised internal training programmes, there is a shorter ramp up time to get SDRs up to speed and closing sales, but like the above BDR model, there are not the extra costs in recruitment fees, training, holiday pay, sick pay, pensions, technology, software licence fees or tax.  

And like the BDR model, BNZSA’s SDRs can support 26 languages with native speakers that allows clients to instantly ramp up in new territories, achieve a lower cost of sale and see quick, sustainable, and measurable ROI to investment.  

In short, BNZSA wants to offer its clients a strategic partnership that works because its client’s success is BNZSA’s success. 

Hope For The Best By Preparing For The Worst: BNZSA Examines The Five Key Trends For ITDMs For 2023 And Beyond.

As we enter the last few days of 2022 it is a customary tradition to do a bit of navel gazing about what the next year will hold for the IT Market and what hot topics will keep ITDMs awake at night next year.

As we end what has been for many, a rollercoaster of a year, there seems to be plenty of things that will cause a few sleepless nights in the months ahead!

Therefore, it is important to identify and adapt to these trends in a world that has had a perpetual round of shocks in the last decade that in more recent times has seen: a global pandemic, inflation, global supply chain issues, energy and food crises and latterly geopolitical instability through war. There are also many concerns over increasingly sophisticated criminal and state sponsored cyber-attacks. 

With another global recession on the horizon, it is more essential than ever to have the best and most actionable data, combined with continued investment in employee and customer value propositions, in order to ride the wave of these uncertain times.

In the first of this two-part piece, BNZSA will identify the key trends and challenges in the market for 2023 and beyond.

1. Hybrid Infrastructure

Many commentators have been tracking the long-lasting implications of Covid on the workplace and what knock-on effects it has had on the provision of IT services and employee working practices. While the race to look for more collaborative technologies during lockdowns and social distancing measures was a necessary first response to a natural disaster, most industry watchers believe that hybrid and remote working will continue after the pandemic.

In November 2022, a YouGov study on behalf of IT service and consultants NSC noted “… organisations should expect this to be a permanent and persistent pattern in their workplace and to prepare for this long-term shift.”

It also believes that this paradigm shift is the ‘new norm’ and that increasingly companies will move to a ‘distributed enterprise.’ The report also noted that the global market for IT and business services grew 29% to $84.2 billion in 2021 as businesses reviewed and implemented new technology to improve “overall long-term business resilience.”

In order to fully utilise hybrid-infrastructure, ITDMs must factor in the following trends. With opportunity, comes potential challenges and risks, which if not fully planned for may bring some nasty surprises along the way.

2. Modern Workplace

The knock-on effect of the long period of remote working is that many employees now associated office-based jobs with an unnecessary and expensive commute on backed up highways and overburdened public transport networks.

Whereas hybrid and remote ways of working offer more flexibility, productivity and time to be with family. Many workers have decided that going forward they want to work for companies that will offer remote or hybrid working, according to analyst Gartner.

It found that nearly half of employees surveyed wanted to work for companies that offered more hybrid work and latterly shorter working weeks. It also stated that the “employee value proposition must change for hybrid work and respond to shifts in employee expectations”

In its report, Gartner has identified these key future work trends:

In conclusion, Gartner believes because the ongoing transformation in the way knowledge workers work, the move to hybrid working will prove great opportunities for companies. However, it will also provide potential risks such as increased exposure to cyberattacks, which we will examine below.

Other factors such as the way companies have traditionally  procured and managed hardware look likely to change as demands for more bring (or use) your own devices (BYOD) grows and the demand of  purchasing more mobile devices rather than traditional desktop devices grows.

Break fix services will also be a consideration for the future in terms of maintaining, services and replacing devices. And with a growing need for employees to monitor activity and productivity of remote staff, there looks likely to be some concerns about how much data companies are holding on employees, how it is processed and other concerns that ITDMs will have to manage as part of ongoing privacy policies.

3. Digital Transformation

While YouGov/NSC found, in a survey of 263 business executives, that 79% of respondents had a digital transformation plan in place, almost half cited that legacy technology as a key constraint. Many are now looking to cloud migration or companies that offer as-a-service solutions, to not only help with their digital transformation plans, but to also maintain solid customer value propositions and customer experience.

To this end, YouGov predicts that demand for as-as-service offerings will rise. And this can also mean how companies hire staff. According to Gartner, in looming recessionary times functional leaders must get “recession ready.” And this means being agile in securing talent.

For BNZSA’s clients, the demand for BDRs-as-a-service and SDRs-as-a-service also looks set to rise in 2023 and beyond as companies look to backfill existing shortages or look to grow pipelines and closed won revenue by adding instant ‘virtual’ resources at a fraction of the cost of traditional FTEs.

During the pandemic, a lot of the traditional face-to-face (F2F) ways to educate potential customers on IT products and solutions and generate sales pipeline such as conferences and events were put on hold. In turn, this has accelerated many companies to look to digital solutions and social platforms to educate and also for lead generation provision.

While it is universally accepted that ‘content is the backbone of any buyer journey or customer experience. Analyst company Forrester notes that currently marketeers must catch up on critical skills to ensure content will deliver its ‘intended impact’. It also notes that having a pre-pandemic approach to content provision and content syndication in an increasingly sophisticated digital landscape will not yield the results or ROI that marketeers and sales people expect. While we may have to wait for the Metaverse or some similar virtual reality platform to interact with brands, there are plenty of smarter ways for companies to use content on current digital platforms.

To this end Forrester advises five important focus areas for content provision, effective digital campaigns and providing the right content to the right people at the right time:

As we approach 2023, it seems that while most companies may claim they have a digital transformation in place, it may be hindered by a number of factors that need to be addressed and fixed.

If for example, legacy hardware is the reason why cloud migrations and as-a-service provision is faltering, looking to companies that provide managed services and have the necessary infrastructure in place could be a short-term solution to allow ITDMs and marketeers to focus on other areas of the business that need to be fixed such as content.

Like managed service providers, there are a number of agencies like BNZSA that can not only create the content for your campaigns but also manage both the awareness and the generation of marketing qualified and sales ready opportunities.

4. Cloud Computing

While the migration from on premise infrastructure to cloud computing has been happening the enterprise for some time, it is quickly becoming a top priority for the mid-size market. According to YouGov/NSC, it found that: “in 2021, cloud spending by small and midsized businesses shot up significantly, with as many as 53% spending more than $1.2 million annually on the cloud - up from 38% in 2020”.

It also states that companies are increasingly looking for cloud-based solutions “to keep up with digital transformation and ensure remote workers have what they need to stay productive”.

Considering the above trends and challenges of modern workplace, hybrid computing and digital transformation, it is small wonder that YoGov/NSC found that execs from all sizes of companies ranked cloud services between 80-93% as the most important technology for their business post Covid.

In terms of best practice around cloud migration, there is a whole range of advice around whether to ‘lift and shift’-migrating existing architecture to cloud-based services, ‘refactor’ or fully refactor, according to AWS cloud migration partner Cloud Bridge that notes

“In our experience, there is no ‘right’ way. The key decision is whether to modernise as you move, or afterwards.”

5. Cyber Security

With the move to more hybrid and remote working combined with the growth of using more “as-a-service” offerings by cloud migration and outsourced human resources is creating more security threats for both enterprise and mid-size companies.

The holiday period is also a prime time for cyberattacks according to managed services provider, Transputec that warns:

"The main issue with cybersecurity over Christmas is that many organisations are severely understaffed during this time. Employees are often underprepared when the cyberattack takes place, and even struggle to deal with recovering from the damages done after the cyberattack. Detection and response times are much higher in Christmas than any other time of year as a result."

"Cyberattacks are more prevalent since organisations just don’t have the defences in place to deal with the numerous forms of cyberattacks. In particular, ransomware attacks increased by 70% during the holiday period of 2021."

According to Transputec, as well as raising awareness of cyberattacks over the holidays with staff and running compliance courses, it is also important to add things like multi-factor authentication to accounts and devices:

“This will provide an additional layer of security that makes it more difficult for cyber-attackers to bypass. Cyber-attackers have often been able to guess or steal passwords. Having multi-factor authentication helps your organisation become less susceptible to social engineering.”

Going forward into 2023, YouGov/NSC notes that “67% of the C-suite see the single biggest "headache", with technology today, as Cybersecurity.”

While Analyst Gartner also notes that for audit departments, executives see Cyber threats as a growing risk in 2023.

“Fewer than half (42%) of audit executives are highly confident they can provide assurance over cybersecurity risk — although 81% plan to cover cybersecurity in audit activities. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting geopolitical hostility could lead to increased cyberthreats. Even before war broke out, organizations believed that actors sponsored by the Russian government targeted them.”

However, there are certainly solutions. Having a strategy and backup in place to deal with cyberattacks is crucial concludes Transputec that observes:

“Since cyberattacks are more common during the Christmas season, it’s also important to have backups of your data in the case of a successful cyberattack. With cloud computing being commonly used, having a physical backup of your data could be a life-saver”.

Stay tuned for part two where we will offer some tips and advice from our internal experts, clients and ITDMs, using real world examples on how to adapt for these challenges.

BNZSA Spotlight

Digital awareness campaigns with a purpose

The digital challenges in B2B marketing

In the B2B space, digital can be hard to get right. You have to catch the potential buyer’s attention in a very crowded marketplace, where we are already pretty desensitised and mistrustful of online advertising and email marketing in general.

It’s particularly challenging given the education journey required to purchase many B2B IT solutions, especially at the enterprise level where budgets are high, stakeholders are many and buying cycles are long. The products are often far too complex to be bought in the classic B2C e-commerce environment – somewhere along the way a conversation with experienced sales reps, product specialists and integration consultants will likely be required.

At the same time, we know that B2B customers are expecting somewhat of a B2C experience in their buying journey – they want to have a rich content experience that will enable them to self-serve the information they need, when they need it.

The challenges of digital marketing in the B2B space

High competition:

The digital space is a highly saturated environment, and customers are inundated with the content they are exposed to, whether in their email inbox or social feeds. This has created an audience which is desensited to advertising, meaning digital campaigns need to stand out and be relevant to customers’ needs in order to grab the attention of the target audience.

Lack of focus:

Digital encompasses a wide range of activities and platforms – programmatic advertising, paid social, email automation, SEM and SEO. This means that businesses run the risk of stretching their marketing resources too thin as they attempt to have a presence on every available platform. The best and most effective digital strategies are laser focused on matching the right audiences to the right platform at the right time.

Lack of actionable insight:

In digital it is hard to understand the full impact the campaign has had. Whilst you can collect a lot of metrics, it can be hard to connect some types of engagement with real action – whether because privacy laws limit tracking on digital ads or because form fills collect unreliable or insufficient information. Digital can only work when it is supported and enriched with additional insights form data and BDR teams.

Integrating digital marketing and lead generation

On the one hand, every marketer loves to do digital. It's creative and strategic, and most importantly it gives fantastic metrics that can demonstrate the value of the marketing team´s hard work.

However, sales can struggle to understand the value of this work if it doesn't necessarily translate into immediate revenue. We´ve written previously about how in some cases just 1.5% of marketing leads translate to sales.

This tension means marketing teams end up treating digital as completely separate from their lead generation programmes, or at least confine it to the awareness stage of their funnel. This means that they miss the opportunity to provide real insights that can have a real impact on sales revenue.

But it doesn't have to be this way. In our experience, digital can be an incredible tool that accelerates the customer journey – both through demonstrating value and creating opportunities for prospects to raise their hands when they are in-market.

How can digital support B2B sales?

When integrated correctly, focused digital campaigns can be integral towards achieving specific goals throughout the sales cycle. When digital campaigns are run simultaneously with a complete BDR outreach strategy, this can:

By achieving these objectives, sales and marketing teams can ignite their sales strategy and accelerate pipeline generation. Despite the challenges, digital marketing is a valuable tool for B2B sales when done well.

BNZSA offers Ultra-Nurture, a lead nurturing services which integrates data and telemarketing to create well-rounded, successful lead generation campaigns.

BNZSA’s Lead Recyclr: Re-engage sales pipeline and focus on high value opportunities

The challenge faced by sales teams when trying to optimise resources to maximise pipeline 

According to our clients, on average only 1.5% of leads will eventually close, meaning 98.5% of leads are rejected by sales teams at some point along the sales pipeline. But what can cause a lead to drop from the pipeline? Leads can be lost from a sales funnel for a variety of reasons such as:

Although these leads drop out of the pipeline, it does not mean that they are a lost sales opportunity. In most cases, they simply need more nurture throughout the pipeline. Not only will this nurture allow sales teams to identify when a lead is sales ready, it will also provide a deeper understanding of why the lead was closed in the first instance, as well as key insights into buying committees and purchasing cycles which can be used to tailor their future outreach.  

However, BDRs and sales teams often do not have the resources that allow them to nurture or regularly revisit discarded leads to re-engage with them. In-house sales teams are already facing a mounting level of burnout and adding the task of re-engaging with previously discarded leads to workloads will only further amplify this pressure.

To cope with the volume of prospects that need to be processed, sales and marketing teams at vendors often outsource this work to third-party agencies. However, to limit potential brand damage and to help ensure prospects are nurtured up in the right way, picking a specialist agency is a crucial part of the process. To be efficiently nurtured in order to be converted, prospects must be followed up by highly trained and qualified BDRs who intimately understand the problems faced by the prospect and how to appropriately align them with the client’s product or service.   

BNZSA’s Lead Recyclr: Lead Recycling Solution

BNZSA’s Lead Recycling process is driven by its highly trained and specialist BDRs, that are presented to clients as ‘Virtual Teams’. Clients provide BNZSA with a database of leads which have been deemed a lost opportunity at different stages of the pipeline – these leads are then picked up by BNZSA’s BDRs with the express objective of re-engaging the prospect, nurturing them, and pushing them through the sales funnel until they are eventually sales ready.

The leads are analysed using our Decision Science Practice and our InTNT intent data activator, that uses intent data and analytics to determine which leads are more likely to be in market at that time. This will allow the leads to be prioritised for follow up by our agents.

Agents will work to connect with each prospect over the phone, which allow them to determine what obstacles the prospect encountered originally and why they were not considered a viable opportunity at the time. For example, there was an established interest but not in the timeframe required to be qualified as a sales accepted lead (SAL)

By re-engaging the lead, BNZSA BDRs will be able to bring the lead back into the pipeline. Although not all will be sales ready, the nature of BNZSA’s approach, the quality conversations its BDRs have with IT decision makers will help to enrich the database and provide quality insights into buying cycles and buying committees.

Also, by allowing a specialist agency such as BNZSA to concentrate on reviving, nurturing and enriching top of the funnel leads to more ready for follow up with a product specialist or more sales accepted lead, existing client BDR teams can concentrate on opportunities that are perhaps more complex, lucrative and more importantly closer to converting to closed won.

Results:

On average we are able to re-engage and bring 56% of recycled leads back into the funnel. This engagement allows our clients to gain insight into the needs of their prospects and identify why these leads were originally considered a lost opportunity.

Of these re-engaged leads, we are typically able to convert 10-15% of them from a closed opportunity to a sales ready lead, increasing pipeline substantially and re-claiming a vast amount of revenue which otherwise would have been lost.  

Additionally, the conversations held between our BDRs and Decision Makers means we can provide deeper and more comprehensive insights into approximately 60% of the contacts which were not converted. These conversations allow our BDRs to enrich our client’s database with crucial information concerning intent buying signals, continued interest in product or service, need for product or service and buying committees.  

BNZSA’s Lead Recyclr – A Case Study

BNZSA recently completed a lead qualification campaign in the US market for an existing blue chip IT client.

Originally, we had undertaken a lead generation campaign for the same client, producing MQLs and organising telephone appointments for follow up. These leads were then transferred to another third-party agency for follow up.

However, the second agency were not thorough enough in their follow up leading to many of the opportunities we had identified were closed negative. This equated to a lost pipeline worth millions of dollars in revenue for our client.  

But we were confident in the quality of our work, so we took it upon ourselves to implement BNZSA protocols to recycle and revive these leads and complete the follow up ourselves.

We received 62 leads which the second agency had closed negative to investigate why they were closed, with the aim of re-opening the opportunity and re-claiming revenue for our client.

We were able to deliver the following:

BNZSA Spotlight:

Sales teams can often be daunted by the number of old leads that they have that can be recycled, even the best sales teams will struggle to allocate resources to this this activity on top of their regular outreach to new leads. But leads are expensive and marketing budgets need to be spent efficiently.

Leads that have been prematurely closed negative, for whatever reason, can equate to millions in lost potential revenue for a company.

BNZSA’s Lead Recyclr provides the resources sales teams need to recycle old leads and re-engage sales pipeline, so they can concentrate on what they do best – closing deals. Our Virtual Teams of BDRs provide support to in-house sales teams to re-activate leads, bring them back into the funnel and re-claim lost revenue.

Our approach not only generates high quality sales ready leads, but also enriches sales pipelines with detailed insights and understanding of why leads are being closed in the first place, providing a benchmark to analyse future lead generation campaigns.

Channel your MDF investment into Virtual Teams 

VARs and Distributors that want to beef up lead generation activity and accelerate pipeline growth, are increasingly looking to adopt virtual selling teams to add instant BDR resources to ramp up pipeline for vendor partners. 

Direct vendors and suppliers that utilise internal teams of business development resources (BDRs) are not the only ones looking to reorganise remotely or recruit virtually, the Channel is too. 

Traditionally used as a robust and complementary part of an IT vendor’s go-to-market strategy, value added resellers, (VARs) and managed service providers (MSPs) have been an invaluable extension to a vendor’s sales team, being a reliable source of both pipeline and sales. 

For this service, channel partners receive vendor training to get sales accreditation and marketing development funds (MDF) to support sales activities. 

Typically, especially pre-pandemic, this MDF funding has largely been invested into face-to-face events to generate leads, with one large enterprise software company spending over 80% of its annual MDF budget on events alone. 

Face to face meetings between reseller reps and prospects were also commonplace before the pandemic, but more recently, the number of B2B sellers operating virtually reached 90% in January 2021, up from only 24% in 2020, according to research firm Gartner. It noted: 

"For decades, direct field sales was the dominant go-to-market channel. This dominance is being challenged with 67% of CSOs planning to transition some field sellers to virtual roles, and 80% have already considered or are considering creating hybrid field/virtual sales roles."

Marketing trends in a post-covid world

However, following Covid and the cancellation of events during the lockdown the channel has been a little slow to embrace complementary ways to attract, validate and nurture potential prospects to the products and services they sell on behalf of vendor partners. 

Anecdotally, some channel veterans have commented that channel marketing is behind the rest of the marketing world by about five years and that most VARs are five years behind that. 

Although many channel companies have invested in digital marketing tactics such as pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) to generate interest and leads, the results in terms of the quality of inbound leads is mostly disappointing in terms of return on investment (ROI). 

This is largely because, the content they are providing on their sites is often more important to them than their users or potential customers. Often VARs and Distributors are just recycling a vendor’s corporate marketing collateral which looks at speeds and feeds rather than producing content that would address the needs and benefits to their potential customers. 

Without a full events calendar to drum up prospects, many channel companies are now scrambling to find new ways to help with pipeline acceleration and lead generation support. One of these tactics has been to set up virtual teams to retain pre-Covid sales forces that now favour remote working practices and benefits rather than returning to the office, even if it means reductions in salary, according to Gartner. 

It also noted that chief strategy officers (CSOs) are also hesitant to fully commit to virtual teams as they are undecided if remote working is just a temporary hiatus until the world emerges from the Covid pandemic or if it is indeed the ‘new norm.’ 

There is an understanding that the ‘digital native’ Millennials and Gen Z, who have emerged into the work force in recent years, are already accustomed to digital communication and platforms. They favour the benefits of remote working and communication rather than working and commuting to office-bound cites.

But what is clear to many channel companies, is that by reallocating field sales to virtual sales teams there are many savings to be had such as less travel expenses, company vehicles and entertainment budgets.

Remote working – a virtual insanity or virtually impossible to ignore? 

While it was a necessity to work remotely during the pandemic, now as the world emerges from the pandemic, channel companies can reap the benefits of Virtual Teams without the worry that they are over committing to a strategy that will change as Covid restrictions lessen.  

As today’s MDF funding is less discretionary and requires more business planning that is tightly linked to sales performance, to secure funding being able to demonstrate a credible source of pipeline and sales ready leads is a better bet.  

Virtual teams not only increase pipeline, but it can also be measured in uplift of closed won opportunities, so it is very transparent for the vendor allocating MDF to its reseller partner. The opportunity is validated, has given GDPR consent so even if the opportunity is not sales ready, it can be put back into nurturing for the future. 

Increase conversion rates from digital content syndication

For those in the channel that have tried digital content syndication for lead generation, many are finding the returns are not as they once were, especially in a GDPR monitored market that has reduced the number of daily marketing emails by 1bn.  As we can see from the below infographic, compiled using internal BNZSA data, there is a very low conversion rate between the number of digitally content syndicated leads that are recognised as sales accepted. This is because in many cases the interest is triggered by open rates, not true indication of the prospect’s interest that you can get through tele-based means. There is often little nurturing, personalisation or validation of the prospect before it is handed over.  

So, it’s a small wonder that when these digitally generated ‘leads’ are passed on to a vendor’s sales team, there is the usual outcome of “I don’t remember downloading the whitepaper” or “Where did you get my details? I don’t remember giving consent for you to email me.” 

Even when customers are followed up with BANT style questions, many outcomes are considered closed because the prospect either a) might have the need but not the budget or b) need buy in from a group rather than overall sign off or c) may have need but not in the next 12 months as they might be working on another project. Combined with often unrealistic internal KPIs to move leads from MQL to SRL in a couple of weeks, it is often easier for sales to close the leads rather than do the required nurturing to move the prospect down the funnel. In this scenario many BDRs think it better to bin prospects that don’t instantly convert, than manage too many prospects that are stuck in the funnel because they have not had the required nurturing to be approached. This often means that vendors are paying several times for the same MQL which is wasteful and potentially brand damaging. 

BNZSA WarmHandoverTM vs BANT methodology

However, with a virtual BDR approach from BNZSA, highly trained agents call on behalf of the channel partner or vendor, strike up a conversation with the prospect, validate the person’s details are correct, gain consent to email over collateral, and capture any buying intent signals that might be useful to prioritise who to follow up, first. 

By deploying virtual teams, BNZSA agents are not only identifying those prospects that might be ready to have a call with sales, BNZSA’s agents also sets up the call with the channel partner’s vendor in what is termed a Warm HandoverTM which boasts a 70% conversion rate.

Conversion rate comparison between traditional digital content syndication and implementing a BDR approach showing how IT channel providers can better use their MDF.

Conversion rates using the WHOTM process, rather than BANT methodology, can improve closed SRL opportunities by 300%. 

Instead of competing with the functions of an in-house BDR team, adding BNZSA Virtual Teams offers companies an extension to its current set up. Not only are the resources dedicated to the campaign, BNZSA can in advance or concurrently surround target companies with programmatic advertising to raise awareness of the vendor’s product or service. 

All BNZSA’s agents go through a rigorous and industrialised training and onboarding process and are experienced in selling enterprise IT B2B products and services. 

BNZSA agents are also available to receive specialist training from a company’s product/subject matter specialist. BNZSA also employs highly experienced technical coaches that have spent years in the IT industry. They can add instant quality and experience to a company’s set up in a fraction of the time it takes to build this infrastructure in-house.  

With support for over 26 languages, companies looking to land and expand in EMEA have instant access to native speakers that can communicate with a company’s prospects and understand the various cultural nuances of that region and importantly get clear consent for follow up with email and other communications preferences. 

As BNZSA has the ability to rotate and scale resources depending on the client’s requirements, companies that use Virtual Teams will never have staff shortages through sickness, holidays etc. They will also have access to BNZSA’s data scientists, first party intent data, third party intent data and other multiple sources of technographic, firmographic and trigger data as part of the Opportunity Finder stack.

Prospects that are sent over from BNZSA are qualified, validated and ranked in accordance of where we see them in the purchasing process. This means that opportunities are much more transparent to the end client and not passed through as something that they are not. For example, if we pass prospects over as marketing qualified leads (MQLs), we have identified that they are towards the top of the sales cycle or funnel and require more nurturing before they become credible sales ready leads (SRLs). 

What are the benefits of Virtual Teams in channel marketing?

Virtual Teams are a hugely beneficial addition to both sales and marketing teams' resources, especially within the IT sales channel. Channel partners can face certain challenges such as lack of resources, inadequate data analytics, and inefficient training. Virtual Teams can help sales and marketing teams navigate these issues.

Benefits for marketing:

  1. Quality data sources: Clients who work with multiple resellers, often have difficulty accessing adequate and consistent data. BNZSA Virtual Teams are supported by in-house Data Science and Decision Science teams and our data services are built on first party intent data and second and third party data. Marketing teams will gain valuable market insights to drive strategic decisions.
  2. Better insights: Not only can Virtual Teams deliver more SRLs, through pipeline nurture they can identify key decision makers, organizational structures, purchasing cycles and buying committees, as well as consented opt-ins, MQIs and MQls with timeline and budget. All of which are key insights for marketing teams to leverage.
  3. Larger Audiences: Smaller channel partners can instantly expand their international reach instantly as BNZSA provides multi-lingual support with native speakers of 26 languages. This means that not only can marketing teams expand their lead generation efforts internationally quickly, but they can also localise their messaging in markets across EMEA, APAC and US.

Benefits for sales teams:

  1. Professional BDR resources: Resellers and distributors can often lack the resources need to recruit, train and retain qualified BDRs. By using Virtual Teams, channel partners can quickly professionalize and standardize their approach. This allows them to quickly ramp pipeline generation with highly trained BDRs with product specific knowledge.
  2. Enhanced lead generation: BNZSA's Virtual Teams are driven by highly qualified BDRs who have gone through rigorous training. Channel partner sales teams will benefit from a stronger pipeline as Virtual Teams can concentrate on prospecting and identify high quality opportunities.
  3. Increased revenue: Channel partners using Virtual Teams will receive higher quality SRLs with up to a 300% improvement in closed opportunities. This generates a healthy pipeline and substantially more revenue.

BNZSA's Lead Verifyr - make your pipeline work harder

The challenge faced by sales and marketing teams

Marketing teams work hard to produce a healthy pipeline of leads for sales teams to nurture. They commission lead gen services from a range of agencies who are able to generate simple opt-ins through to MQLs, with a typical cost of €50-60. However, with thousands of leads coming through monthly and very short timeframes to push these through the pipeline, sales teams can only touch a very small percentage of the pool.

We’ve heard from clients that just 1.5% of this pipeline eventually closes. This means that a marketing spend worth potentially millions of euro is going to waste, simply because the sales teams don’t have the resources to follow up on everything that is delivered.

For a marketing team requesting 20,000 MQLs globally, this would be a total marketing spend of more than €1 million. If we take the 1.5% figure from above, this would equal just 300 converted leads. On that basis, the cost per conversion would be more than €3000, without taking the additional nurture cost of the work done by the sales team into account.  

But why is this happening? Due to time pressure, sales reps likely reach for the best qualified leads with reliable contact information, leaving the rest of the pipeline to one side.

This is completely understandable – our lead qualification team have found that just 15-30% of contacts could be reached on the first attempt and in fact 40-50% took 5+ attempts. Even worse, around 10% of the pipeline turns out to have incorrect phone numbers so cannot be reached at all. Busy sales teams under pressure to meet targets simply don’t have the time or resources to work these contacts.

However, this doesn’t mean that 98.5% of the pipeline is invalid. Lead gen partners have identified a universe that can be activated – the challenge is how to do this.

Our Lead Qualification Process

BNZSA’s lead qualification program picks up all leads that were rejected by sales in the first screening – our clients tell us that this can be up to 98.5% of the pipeline.

Image with percent about lead verifyr

Our Virtual Teams of highly trained BDRs have one single objective: to drive the leads to the next stage of the funnel up until they are ready for sales.

They will work to engage every single contact and organise them into categories based on their contactability and level of engagement. Where contact information is unreliable or out of date, our data team will work to enrich the database and then the agents will follow up and validate the information. Where they are missing information, they will conduct their own desk research to understand how to navigate the target companies and which contacts should be engaged.

Then the BDRs will explore the topics with the prospects in further detail in order to push them along the funnel. If appropriate, we will introduce them into our email nurture tracks to keep them activated with custom content until they are ready for further engagement. Our lead scoring mechanism means we can accelerate leads for follow up if the intent signals are strong.

If the lead is not ready, our BDRs will at least capture market insights like number of users, buying cycles, key decision makers etc.

This means that we’re able to provide more detailed insights into the pipeline that enable your team to prioritise and focus on closing the warmest leads whilst ensuring that they’ll have more coming through for the following quarters. 

The results

Typically, we are able to move around 15% of those reached on the phone along the funnel, warming them up for the next phase of engagement by the client’s sales team. This is a huge improvement on the 1.5% that are sifted through by sales, and already increases the pipeline dramatically.

Furthermore, we can add additional insight to around 60% of the contacts which means that digital teams can appropriately stream them into marketing automation tracks to receive the required nurture.

We’re also able to enrich the 5-10% of the database that sales teams flagged as uncontactable with email addresses, phone numbers or updated employment information so they can be used for future activity.

BNZSA's Lead Qualification Engine - A Case Study

We recently conducted an EMEA wide lead qualification for a client in 7 languages. Our client was receiving up to 10,000 leads per month through content syndication. We were invited to conduct some initial qualification and found the following:

We were able to help the client secure better value for money from their content syndication programme in the following ways:

Conclusion

In conclusion, BNZSA’s lead qualification engine results in better quality MQLs and SQLs which are more likely to engage and enter the sales funnel.

By discounting leads that are not immediately identifiable as a tangible opportunity, sales teams are losing a large part of their potential pipeline. Not every lead generated is immediately going to be a Sales Qualified Lead, but that doesn’t mean that they should be discounted as a revenue-generating opportunity for the future.

Not only is this a waste of potential in itself, but it also compounds since marketing often ends up paying multiple times for the same leads to be generated at a later date since they still sit within the relevant campaign targeting.

Our approach keeps leads in the system to activate them when they do have a concrete project and budget in place. Gradually warming and engaging leads to push them through the sales funnel will help you keep the pipeline active and help you close more deals.

How pre-IPO companies can meet global revenue targets

When companies look to enter an Initial Public Offering (IPO), revenue targets are of course crucial for potential investors. An area that can be especially challenging can be requirements to generate a certain percentage of revenue outside of local markets. This is considered to demonstrate long term growth potential and validate a successful IPO. For example, many private equity or venture capitalists require at least 30% of revenue to be generated in EMEA before considering investment.

When faced with the challenge of expanding pipeline generation in international markets, companies often struggle to grow as quickly and efficiently as needed.

Launching into new international markets can be a costly mistake if not done correctly. Expansion comes with a high possibility of brand damage if you launch without the right data, sales structure, and customer focus in place.

Common challenges faced by pre-IPO companies include:

Lack of efficient sales structure to enable growth

International expansion requires a stable sales structure to facilitate growth. This calls for an experienced sales team, reliable and extensive data, and HR resources to support a large, international team. Training will be required to ensure a consistent customer experience and to absorb local feedback. Many companies will struggle to scale all these resources in an efficient manner.

Shortage of resources to localize outreach and offering

When expanding into global markets, it is hugely beneficial to have a localized outreach strategy. This requires multi-lingual resources and BDRs who are familiar with their target markets. It is a huge investment to onboard and ramp the necessary BDR resources to facilitate effective international outreach. Companies often face challenges with legal and regulatory compliance in new, unfamiliar markets which can create reputational and financial risks.

Limited experience handling larger enterprise accounts

Growing pipeline and revenue generation will often require working with large enterprise accounts. However, these companies will often have a complicated organization structure and procurement processes. Smaller companies who are only beginning to grow internationally may not have the resources in-house or procedures in place to support such large accounts.  As well as excellent cross-market coordination between BDRs working in different regions on the same accounts, there is also a requirement for company and contact information, as well as market insights to support their initial outreach

Taking these challenges into consideration, companies must consider whether it is feasible to grow their internal resources, or if they should partner with an agency with an established presence in their target market.

How outsourcing your sales team can help you IPO

Global B2B sales and marketing agency BNZSA can help streamline pipeline generation from day one. Our Virtual Teams have helped our clients to scale up rapidly and meet the targets required for a successful IPO. Virtual Teams can help address the following needs:

Speed and Scalability

Virtual Teams give you access to all the resources you require, at the moment that you need them. At BNZSA we have BDRs speaking 26 languages from 48 countries, meaning that you can reach EMEA, APAC and the Americas from Day 1, with the cultural awareness you need to adapt your outreach strategy to local markets. Working with an outsourced sales team allows you to scale BDR outreach and adjust and rotate resources as you require. This means you only pay for what you need without the need to invest in internal recruitment, training or employee holidays.

High Quality

A consistent and customer-obsessed experience will be essential to your brand’s reputation in new markets. Our Virtual Teams receive rigorous training and are subject to quality control for every single lead generated in any market. We invest heavily in our training programmes to ensure deep understanding of technical products – Intel’s Marc Beckers develops our IT training courses, supported by Head of Learning & Development Alvaro Aldana who brings experience in scaling consistently from Starbucks. This emphasis on quality at every stage means that our Warm HandoverTM process, which is unique to the market, boasts a 70% conversion rate.

Experience with large enterprises 

BNZSA’s Virtual Team of BDRs are experienced in tackling global enterprises and building relationships across departments and regions to secure revenue. They are supported by industry-leading data team who help map out the global decision-making matrix and enrich with contact information. Our Decision Science practice provides actionable insights about their prospective customers and to anticipate when customers have a need for a certain product or service. Using these insights, digital campaigns can warm and engage stakeholders around an enterprise, leaving the BDRs available to focus on the key decision makers.

Preparing for IPO can be a nerve-wracking moment for leadership team, and it’s tempting to hold all revenue-generating activities close to home. However, choosing the right strategic partner to help you meet your goals can relieve some of the risks and pressures, enabling you to focus on areas such as product that will ensure your ongoing success post-IPO.

Virtual Teams: The solution to BDR burnout and the Great Resignation

YouGov recently surveyed two thousand workers for recruitment website, TotalJobs. The results showed that more than 75% of participants had experienced at least one symptom of burnout this year. Two fifths of respondents cited unrealistic workloads as one of the biggest causes of burnout. 

Many sectors such as travel and leisure, which were hit hard by the pandemic are now facing staff shortages. However, there is also currently a record number of vacancies in sales and marketing. According to GrabJobs, roles within sales and marketing are some of the most in demand positions in the UK in 2022.    

Adding to the strain is what is referred to as “The Great Resignation”. Workers are deciding to quit or not to return to their jobs as the working conditions provided pre-Covid crisis are no longer appealing to them. Instead, people are now looking for companies who are more mindful of their needs and who respect their work/life balance. Companies providing benefits such as remote working, better pay and better career opportunities are now more competitive as employers.  

Sales teams within the technology and software sectors have been acutely affected by the Great Resignation, with voluntary sales departures reaching 67%, according to figures from Xactly.  

Challenges affecting in house BDR management: 

When considering the role and responsibilities of a BDR, the above challenges are compounded by an elevated level of burnout. A BDR position can easily be considered one of the hardest roles in sales as they face a high level of rejection daily, no matter how good they are at their job. Despite receiving compensation in the form of commission, the pressure can affect their mental health and lead to burnout. Some of the aspects adding to this high level of employee turnover and burnout are: 

Cost of Living:

With sharp rises in energy costs and geopolitical factors, 2022 has seen the cost of living rise steeply. As a result, workers are not just seeking out the most competitive employer for salary, they are more mindful of those that can provide benefits and working conditions that are more inclusive of their personal needs, such as remote working and flexible work schedules.  
There is also a pressure on BDRs to perform, hit quotas and achieve KPIs on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. Although they are compensated for this work, missing targets and therefore losing commission can cause added financial strain. 

Covid:

During the pandemic, many workers faced with layoffs and uncertainty saw the time as an opportunity to reflect on their career path and their passions in life, with many deciding to pursue other opportunities outside of sales. 

Staff shortages:

As more workers change positions, the gap left in sales and marketing roles means BDRs are tasked with carrying an even greater workload to compensate for being short staffed, adding to the pressure to perform in their role. A higher-level of stress is key factor in BDR burnout.  

Unrealistic workload:

 Compounded by a high churn rate, BDRs are facing an unmanageable workload which can also negatively impact their mental health and add to burnout. According to BNZSA research, a BDR will have to simultaneously manage 1000s of contacts in a 12-month sales cycle. Tasked with outbound calling, trawling databases, coordinating with marketing and data teams, as well as handling inbound requests from various sources, BDRs can often struggle to prioritise their workload efficiently. 

Friction between teams:

Technology and automation to define workflows for lead follow-up are often chaotic and unmanageable. If processes to manage workflows are not clearly defined, this can lead to friction between BDR teams and Sales and Marketing. 

BDR Burnout is caused by a combination of the Cost of Living Crisis, high turnover in sales and marketing positions and a greater workload in a high pressure environment.
There are many factors which contribute to BDR burnout.

Virtual Teams as a solution: 

Designed to be an extension of your in-house team, rather than a replacement, BNZSA Virtual Teams is a ready-made solution. It is intended to not only enhance the functions of in-house teams, but also give instant resources, multi-lingual support and credible and compliant opportunities that are more mature in the sales cycle. 

Instead of hiring, training and paying for holidays and local taxation, customers only pay for the time of BNZSA's BDRs. They are virtual only in the sense that they are full time BNZSA employees but use an email domain and call on behalf of the client.  

BNZSA’s Virtual Team of BDRs and marketing executives provide our customers with end-to-end lead generation services including profiling accounts, following up on digital activity, qualifying leads, identifying decision makers, and buying committees which is key for companies wanting an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy. Costing of Virtual Teams is via a subscription-based Marketing-as-a-Service (MaaS) solution, rather than a traditional cost-per-lead (CPL) model. 

Virtual Teams have access to BNZSA's own technology stack, as well as the support of our data science team and newly formed decision science practice. This allows BNZSA to do a lot of the heavy lifting for our clients when it comes to providing high quality, sales ready leads. 

Using a Virtual Team has many benefits which can enhance your B2B lead generation strategy
Virtual Teams are an extension of your BDR resources - not a replacement.

Benefits of using Virtual Teams: 

Enhanced B2B Lead Generation:

Extend and enhance your lead generation efforts with our fully ramped and trained teams. We deliver high-quality, warm leads with our trademarked Warm HandoverTM process, developed specifically to increase conversion rates of the leads we deliver. BNZSA’s BDR will orchestrate a three-way call between themselves, the prospect, and a sales rep, allowing for a direct introduction. This allows for a smoother customer experience for the prospect, and a much more efficient use of time for the sales rep. 

Dedicated BDR Team:

With a BNZSA Virtual Team, they will function as an extension of your in-house BDR team, rather than as a replacement. Our process ensures consistent communication between our agents and your sales rep, creating an environment for constructive feedback, improving the quality of opportunities we deliver. They will be fully dedicated to customer campaigns. They will contact and qualify prospects on their behalf and be an expert in our client's products and services.  

Technical Training and Support:

Our highly experienced technical coaches are on hand to provide support to your team, adding instant quality and experience to your infrastructure. Our agents receive continuous training and guidance throughout campaigns, guaranteeing high quality leads.  

Localise in New Markets:

BNZSA can provide multi-lingual support with native speakers in over 26 different languages. This means our customers can expand their international lead generation strategy, and localise their messaging across EMEA, APAC and US markets. 

Flexible BDR Resources:

As BNZSA can adjust and rotate our resources based on clients’ needs, meaning a B2B campaign will not be slowed down because of sickness, holidays or other absences. 

Quality Data Sources:

Clients have access to BNZSA’s data services comprising of first party intent data, second- and third-party data, as well as support from our Data Science and Decision Science Teams, adding valuable insights to your B2B marketing strategy. 

Why BNZSA? 

 BNZSA is positioned to ramp your lead generation efforts quickly and efficiently with our Virtual Team offering. The Warm Handover (WHOTM) process has a 70% lead-to-conversion rate. With access to almost a decade worth of our own first-party intent data, along with the support of our Data Science and Decision Science teams, BNZSA have the resources to expand pipeline generation. BNZSA works with leading IT providers, with a 95% client retention rate. Get in touch today to discuss how we can add value to your B2B marketing strategy.