When we started Nerdy Joe, we had no intention of offering lead generation or cold email as a service. Our main focus was to help e-commerce and SaaS businesses boost their revenue through email marketing. 

But as our client roster grew, something happened…

Most of our clients started complaining about their current lead generation agencies and how they were losing money. Given our proven email marketing results, we started getting requests to expand our services to lead generation.

Usual complaints we were getting from clients include:

• “We’re stuck in a 6 month contract and we’re not getting results.”
• “Our cold email agency charges $3,000 per month and we have no idea what the promise is.”
• “The quality of the leads we’re getting is subpar and it’s literally a waste of time for our sales people.”
• “Many people have been lately complaining about our outbound emails on social media.”

We then discussed internally to weigh in the pros and cons and ultimately decided to offer cold email as a service. 

But instead of doing what everyone else was doing. We decided to follow a strategic approach and be result-oriented. 

We used our strategy to get:

• Multiple $24,000/year clients for our content marketing agency.
• Multiple guest blogging placements for our clients on blogs like Mailshake, Coschedule, Hunter.io, Appsumo, etc.
• $300k+ in the sales pipeline for one of our agency clients.

Below, we discuss how our cold email marketing agency is different from what you’ll see in the market.

Why Most Cold Email Agencies You Work With Fail To Deliver 

From our experience, there are four main reasons why most agencies fail to generate highly qualified leads.

Most agencies think cold email is a number’s game

There is a common belief that the more people you can target with your outbound lead generation, the more opportunity you have — ergo, you can convert exponentially. 

Tons are the self-proclaimed cold email experts out there who sacrifice quality in the name of scalability.

Well, the result just comes out being a fiasco. 

• 1000 emails sent a day with a template subject line
• 300 trigger spam filters.
• 12% open rate.
• Only 1 person is interested. 
• Client’s sender’s reputation gets damaged.

The problem is that targeting a huge prospects list sucks away the time you need to properly research your prospects and create email copy that is tailored to their individual traits and touches on their pain points. 

Simply because you target 3000 people doesn’t guarantee you will convert more than someone who targets specific and handpicked target prospects. 

From our experience, when you create a cold campaign, write beautiful emails, and target 200, or 100 people at the same time, you get zero results out of the campaigns. 

And the few responses were all big fat “NOs” or “Please don’t reach out to me anymore”. Not always this respectfully, but you know the drill.

Successful cold email senders have a small, specifically-defined target group per campaign. A high-quality list of contacts makes your email reply and conversion rates skyrocket. 

Case in point, Andrei Zinkevich, Co-Founder of Fullfunel.io, reached out to a select list of 30 qualified high-ticket B2B service providers in a well-defined niche. 

Prior to the campaign launch, Andrei took the time and conducted proper research, warmed up his accounts, and only then did he send personalized proposals. 

Andrei’s campaign had a 37% response rate (12 out of 30 accounts responded) and a 20% success rate (2 deals closed out of the 12 accounts that responded). In total, it was a $300,000 revenue. That’s an average of $150,000 per account. 

Most agencies report on open rate and clickthrough rate and not on the metrics that matter

It’s not easy to get people to open your cold emails. 

In fact, a significant part of your strategy with cold email is getting your prospects to open your emails. One could even argue that it’s the most critical part of the entire cold email campaign. 

But that doesn’t make it a success per se when prospects open your cold emails. 

The open rate is merely an email campaign metric, not a marketing outcome, and that’s why it makes little sense to report it. 

The open rate only informs how many of your cold emails have been opened. It’s a metric you should refer to improve your cold email tactics to ensure better engagement for future campaigns. 

You can have 100% percent of your prospects open your cold emails and still have 0% reply and conversion rates — zero leads generated for your business. 

Think about it like content marketing. Simply because your content is generating a ton of traffic doesn’t mean it is converting. 

Yet, that’s what most outbound lead gen agencies report on — leaving their clients empty-handed with no ROI whatsoever. 

As a business owner or marketing executive, you want to work with agencies that understand metrics that matter for your business. 

For instance, if you’re a B2B company, your b2b lead generation agency should report on metrics like the number of b2b leads generated month over month or the number of appointments set on a monthly basis.

If you’re a digital marketing agency, your cold email agency should report on the number of sales meetings they book for you, not your campaign open rate.

Most agencies have a bias toward what conversion is

If you’ve done business with one or two cold email marketing services, you know there are four types of agencies:

• Agencies that charge their clients based on the number of emails they send or the number of contacts they put in your list.
• Agencies that charge you a monthly fee and promise you’ll get the best leads ever but never deliver on their promise.
• Agencies that call everyone who’s downloaded an ebook or PDF  a LEAD and charge you for that.
• Agencies that charge based on the number of QUALIFIED leads they generate for your sales team.

The one thing the top three types of cold email agencies have in common is that they all have a bias towards what conversion is. 

At Nerdy Joe, we believe that the number #1 pain point of a company that needs help with cold email is that they’re simply not growing at the rate they want and need LEADS. 

So, every cold email agency should only take pride in reporting on metrics that matter — not vanity metrics like how many cold emails they sent, open rate, bounce rate, clickthrough rate, etc. 

Metrics they should lead with include: 

• Number of positive replies
• Number of meetings booked
• Lead to close rate.

For instance, if you want to work with an agency to increase the number of guest posts your team gets per month, they should report on:

• The number of YES they get from editors. 
• The number of positive replies they get.
• And the number of high domain authority websites you get mentions from on a monthly basis.

If you’re a B2B company selling to accountants, they should only charge you for the number of appointments they set for your sales teams. What conversion means should depend on your company’s goal and what outcome matters the most to you.

Most agencies force you into a 3-month contract with no result guarantee

If you’ve worked with one or two digital marketing agencies in the past, you know it’s common that they require you to commit to 3-month or 6-month contract.

Simply because, “it takes time to get results.” 

The caveat with this model is that it gives the agency some flexibility in terms of revenue, and they don’t feel the pressure to deliver on their promise. 

So, you end up being stuck in a contract where you lose money on a recurring basis with no guaranteed results. 

Why We Set Out To Be The Best Cold Email Agency?

With the shortcomings we identified, we had the basis of a cold email strategy to offer a service that generates results and stands out from the competition. 

We felt that if we could address every single of the above issues, we would genuinely have one of the best cold email agencies around.

So, here’s how we’re solving the problems.

We deeply research and personalize our campaigns

At Nerdy Joe; we have a three-pronged approach to doing research for each campaign.

Understanding your product and offer through a situational analysis

The first step is to understand your product and company. Essentially, we seek to understand what you sell and how you wrap it and present it to your target customers. 

Next, we will seek to understand your company and the things that matter to you as a brand. 

We also embark on a market and situation analysis to identify the businesses and the potential blockers we are going up against. 

Questions we ask to have a better understanding of your company and offer are:

• What pain point is your product or service selling?
• What situations are your prospect avoiding when they come to you?
• What happens when they don’t act on that situation
• Which prospect was the easiest to close?
• Which was the hardest to close?
• What’s your lead-to-close rate?
• What have you done to improve your lead-to-close rate? How did that impact your results?
• Which type of client has the highest lifetime value? Why?
• Which type of client churns the fastest?

The goal is to ensure we fully understand what you offer, how you offer it, the target audience, how your offer impacts their lifestyle, your competitors, and more. 

Understanding your ideal customer profiles through lead scoring and qualification

At the beginning of the engagement, when we ask most of our new customers who’s your ICP, we often get results like:

• Our ideal companies are SaaS companies
• We target e-commerce businesses

When we’re lucky, we get more specific answers like:

• Our ICP is B2B SaaS companies that IPOed 
• Our ICP is man fashion e-commerce businesses

Still, it’s not enough data to run a highly targeted and personalized campaign. That’s why we ask questions to really understand who you’re targeting, which type of customers are beneficial to you, and which we shouldn’t go after.

We ask questions like:

• What’s the story behind your company?
• What type of pain points are you trying to solve?
• What are the top 3 objections you hear from prospective clients during sales calls?
• How do you address these objections?
• Tell us about a time when you worked with a company that fit the criteria, and still, things didn’t go as planned.
• Etc.

The answers to these questions help us know precisely who to target and why. And this type of information makes the difference between: 

And 

Once we have a clear understanding of who the ICP is, we proceed to manually build our list, and that’s what we use to run our lead generation campaigns. 

Understanding who each prospect in the list is and personalizing each email

Since we are sending unsolicited emails and the prospects know very little about the sender, it only makes sense that we break the ice before getting to the subject of the matter. 

Icebreakers are a great place to research your prospects and personalize your message to the specific reader and connect with them from the beginning. But there is more to icebreakers than just that.

Here is a cold emailing lesson that we’ve learned over the years: 

• Most people always have their guard up when it comes to unsolicited marketing materials in their inbox. 
• For most of your recipients, your cold emails will feel like just another pitch from a salesperson. 

So, we strongly believe in having a strong, personalized, and persuasive email opening and that’s what using icebreakers is all about. 

Using icebreakers allows us to make our emails feel less like marketing and gives the recipient something interesting to chew on or to relate to so that we can hook them before jumping into the heart of the matter. 

How do we do it? I’m so glad you asked. 

First thing about us, we don’t use client data when running lead generation or cold email campaigns. And unlike most lead generation companies, we don’t rely on data intelligence tools such as ZoomInfo or Lusha.

We don’t trust these data sources because they only aggregate technographic and demographic data. I mean, you cannot actually make your prospects feel unique with that type of data. 

For example, using these tools, it’s easy to find data regarding companies that: 

• Are in the accounting software industry, 
• Have 30 to 65 employees,
• Are series B-funded companies,
• Are in Europe,
• Use Slack or Digital Ocean as part of their tech stack.
• Have a ping pong table at the office. 

The problem with this data is that it can only serve to craft obvious personalized icebreakers like:

We don’t want to come across as basic or boring, so we go further down with personalization. We make use of psychographic data and other types of data. 

And that’s how we go from 

Icebreaker A: Hope this email finds you well. I know your company uses bla bla bla.

to

Icebreaker B: I just watched your interview with John Jane, and I love your take on how businesses can double their income by aligning the marketing and sales departments. I, too, believe the best sales happen when marketing and sales teams can get together to discuss customer needs. 

Random opening lines simply won’t cut it. Success with icebreakers lies in relevance and details. 

So, where do we get information about each prospect or member of your target audience we use for personalization?

Here is how.

• We listen to podcasts your potential customers have been on.
• We read blog posts they wrote. 
• We read their LinkedIn, Twitter, and Mastodon posts.
• We read discussions on forums they’re in.
• We call their mom. 😂

Using this aggregated data, we find unique angles that we use to craft personalized first lines or icebreakers.

Here’s what it looks like in real life. I pitched CoSchedule’s Head of Content, Ben Sailer, and asked him if I could write for them.

Here’s what he replied 1 hour later.

Here is another successful example from a similar strategy.

As you can see from both screenshots, the cold emails sent to the prospects were so compelling that they couldn’t help but acknowledge it before offering to hire us.

We send emails that are respectful of your brand’s, and domain reputation

Simply go on Twitter and check what type of advice or strategies most self-proclaimed lead generation experts are chanting.

Most people believe that you need to create and send 1000 emails daily to get the results you want (i.e., success is a matter of volume). 

Well, this tactic probably works for some companies, but it certainly guarantees the following:

• Both ESPs and ISPs will flag your email and IP addresses as spammers.  
• You’ll kill your company’s reputation and get a bad rap on social media. 
• The quality of the leads you get will be subpar. 
• Your domain will face severe deliverability issues.

At Nerdy Joe, we spend time learning about your ideal customer profile (ICP) in and out before we send a single email.

This is because we want each recipient to feel like you know them and wonder why you didn’t cross their paths months ago.

We also do that because we don’t want to send 1000 emails to get 4 meetings booked. 

Our ideal scenario is that we send 20 well-crafted emails, get 15 replies, 10 positives, and get you 4 sales-qualified meetings.

Now, don’t get this wrong. By personalization, we mean we make each email relatable and timely. We don’t just add [[First name]] and other variables to the email subject lines. 

Just for some context on how this works for us, here’s an example of a reply I received as I reached out to a Global VP of Marketing, but the timing wasn’t great. 

Still, she took the time to reply and communicate an appropriate time when it makes sense to touch base.

Personalization is what makes people who are averse to cold outreach reply to your cold email.

Here’s an example where we reached out to a VP of Marketing who has historically blocked or reported SPAM to anyone who’s sent him a cold email.

Here’s another example where we pitched a Head of Marketing, and here’s the response. 

Contrary to what these gurus suggest, most of our cold email campaigns are run towards 10 or 15 people, not 1000.

That’s because we simply believe that the best sales strategy is to build trust and relationships. That’s why most of the responses we get are:

• “Wow, such a nice email.”
• “Thank you for the nice words and compliment.”
• “Let’s catch up next Thursday.”
• “Ernest, love your email. Can you follow up on the 25th?” 

Also, know that our email sequences are designed based on different segments and customer engagement events. (We move prospects to different segments based on their engagement with previous emails). 

We charge you for the results and don’t require you to commit to a 3-month contract

Most cold outreach agencies charge:

• Per the number of emails they send.
• Per the number of prospects they put on your list.
• Based on set-up fees.

That’s because most of these agencies are not confident they will get you the results you need to break even. 

At Nerdy Joe, we believe that great cold emails should yield instant results. So we don’t ask our clients to sign a 3-month or 6-month contract. 

Our pricing structure is flexible, allowing you to pay depending on your budget and needs, and you only renew if you’re satisfied. 

Moreover, you only pay based on the number of leads you get for us. So, for instance, if you choose our Boss mode plan, we only charge you $999 for 6 meetings booked per month or 6 hot leads per month.

We have a 30-day money-back guarantee 

We’re probably the only cold email agency out there that offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. This means if we fail to deliver on our promise, you will get your money back.

Here’s the typical scenario. If you pay $999 for 6 meetings per month, that means 1 lead = $165. So, if we were only able to get you 4 leads, you can either:

• Get $165 back for the 1 meeting target we missed.
• Or give us some more time to get you the remaining 1 meeting.

And if we totally fail to get you the 6 leads you signed up for, you’ll be refunded. 

Sit Back And Let Us Handle Your Cold Email or Lead Generation For You

There are tons of cold emailing and lead generation service providers out there that offer bulk email and sending volume as part of their stack. If that’s what you care for, Nerdy Joe is not for you.

But if what you want is a lead generation agency that:

• Only charges you for results — instead of charging you for every cold email campaign or the jobs to be done.
• Sends you high-quality leads consistently.
• Sends email with your domain and brand reputation in mind.
• Helps you better understand your ICP and get granular.
• Gives you a money-back guarantee.

Then Nerdy Joe is the cold email marketing service that you need.

SaaS email marketing has become complicated over the years and it takes more than executing a well-thought-out email marketing strategy to get the results your company needs.

Whether you are a SaaS founder, CMO, or even a solopreneur, you have already heard about AppSumo and its incredible growth.

In 2021, the company founded in 2010 by Noah Kagan plans to make over $74 million in annual revenue. And currently, they’re looking for an A-Class CEO who will take the company to the billion marks in revenue. Yes. Billion dollars.

But, hold on, this is not the most fabulous part of the AppSumo story. The craziest part is that the company gets a whopping 49.59 percent of its annual revenue from email marketing. 

What’s more, the AppSumo website has more than 110 000 monthly traffic.

And 6.70 percent of that traffic comes from their email list. That’s around 7300 visits per month.

This leads us to two conclusions:

• Email marketing works when you know how to do it.
• If you’re not getting results, chances are the $497 email marketing course you bought is not as effective. 

Now the 37 million dollar question is: HOW? 

How on earth do the folks at AppSumo approach email marketing to achieve this success?

It all started in 2010…

Let’s travel back to 2010 when it all started to help understand the Big Bang behind the AppSumo website and how they have been approaching email marketing since day one.

Upon acquiring their domain name, the one thing that was on their website was an email opt-in form. No content, no nothing. Just an opt-in form with an offer to pique visitors’ interest.

As a brand new company, Kagan’s first goal was to grow the company’s customer base, capture as many leads as possible, and do it all while keeping the business afloat. He uses marketing tactics like exclusivity and scarcity to get people to subscribe to AppSumo’s email list. 

Fast forward to July 2010, they started creating content, moved the opt-in form to the right hand corner of the homepage and added their first pop-up opt-in form to the site.

In September 2010, they revamped the website’s homepage, kept the same opt-in form at the top of the page, but improved the pop-up opt-in form by changing and using a more suitable color.

Now, let’s go a little farther. In 2015, the website homepage was improved and they had a welcome mat. 

A welcome mat is an email opt-in feature that is displayed at the front of a website and appears when visitors land on your site.

A little farther again. In 2019, they were no longer using any welcome mat. But instead, they gave the website a complete makeover and added above the fold and footer opt-in forms.

As you read this, the website has been upgraded to a modern day online business model and baseline standards. 

They added some copy to the page and the above-the-fold opt-in form. They also nailed the color schemes to perfection. But nothing changed with the footer opt-in form, the design and the copy remained the same.

As of 2013 – which is 3 years after its inception – the company counted 150000+ email subscribers. And today as we write this piece, the company has a base of 730 000+ Email Subscribers to market its services to. 

Now, as you may have guessed, AppSumo’s first marketing move has always been growing their email list. As it turns out, from day one, the company has never stopped aggregating its email list through the multiple digital marketing channels available.

“What started out as an experiment for growing our small audience became one of the key marketing activities that helped grow our customer base,” said Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo Officer.  

Here are 4 steps showing how AppSumo was able to build its email marketing empire. 

4 Steps You Can Follow to Make $37M From Your Email Marketing, Just Like AppSumo

Step 1: Grow your email list

Growing an email list in your early days is one of the hardest things in any SaaS business. But AppSumo is living proof that this is possible. They started by creating simple above fold and footer opt-in forms. 

Use Above Fold and Footer Opt-in Forms

Position is key when it comes to the effectiveness of the opt-in forms on your website for the simple reason that you could be leaving thousands of subscribers on the table if you are getting the position right. And you don’t have to fill your website with opt-in forms to get amazing results. 

The folks at AppSumo captured thousands of email addresses using only two opt-in forms. One above the fold and the second at the footer.

Why was it so effective?

Well, if you are like most people, you won’t care to scroll down to the footer of a website. You would just pinpoint the content you’re looking for and bounce away. 

So, placing an opt-in form above the fold (aka: where visitors can see it firsthand) will give you a better shot at capturing the email addresses of the visitors without having to scroll down your page.

On the other hand, if you are a veritable digger like me, you are more likely to scan the whole webpage before taking any action. And if you have your opt-in forms both above the fold and at the footer, that makes it easy for the visitors to sign up wherever they want.

Add Lead Magnet Opt-in Popups to Your Website

Firstly, a lead magnet is web content offered to a prospect in exchange for contact information. 

Secondly, an opt-in form is a signup form intended to collect the email address of website visitors in order to contact them in the future for prospecting purposes. 

And thirdly, a pop-up is a window that automatically pops up (depending on its programming) on the screen of a web page. 

So, how do you come up with a lead magnet opt-in popup? 

Simple. 

You can create one following two straightforward steps:

1. Create a popup opt-in form (like a traditional one) and then,
2. Gate in a lead magnet along with a compelling copy as a traditional lead magnet to capture leads. 

Here is an example from AppSumo.

First, the opt-in popup (All the business ideas you need) appears, then it displays something the visitor will be ready to trade their email contact for (75 No-code business ideas). 

We know this whole thing might seem complex. So we decided to break down two lead magnet opt-in popup tactics AppSumo used to grow its email list. Let’s jump in it. 

•  Grow your email list using these 2 lead magnet opt-in popup tactics 

Let’s clear something first. In most cases, people find pop ups to be annoying, especially instant intent pop-ups. And as an online business, the last thing you want is your website (aka: your business venue) to be annoying, and AppSumo understands it very well. 

Pop-ups do work, but you have to approach it the right way – leveraging timed and targeted popups. 

Case in point, AppSumo waits quite some time to pop its opt-in forms. By doing so, AppSumo gives the visitor the time to decide whether their website content aligns with their expectations and if the business model is the right fit for them.

What’s more they only add pop ups to specific pages (i.e. pages or posts with the most traffic). 

Ultimately, as a result of the combination of great copy and perfect fitting pop-ups, people conveniently and easily sign up to the AppSumo email list.

Here are top-performing pop ups AppSumo used to grow its email as a breeze. 

Popup 1 : The Freebies Popup

AppSumo gathered 78,888 emails using the Freebies Popup  tactic alone. 

How?

• Perfect Timing

It is quite commonplace to come across websites where you get blasted with popups while you still have yet to find what you’re looking for. And that is the reason most people don’t like popups. They’re not timed to appear at the right moment. 

The AppSumo Freebies popup never appears unless the visitor has spent at least 15 seconds on the site. This way, AppSumo gives visitors time to view the latest products or deal opportunities before they are invited to sign up for an email.

• Great Targeting

You can get the timing right. But if you don’t understand your audience, no one will sign up for your email list. 

In most cases, the people who visit the AppSumo website are looking for products, services or are start-up operators looking for a good deal. AppSumo understands this and uses this information to tailor the popup copy to what visitors are interested in.

• Valuable Offer

After the attention-grabbing and interest-piquing popup copy, AppSumo brings something valuable to the table for visitors. 

The AppSumo Freebies popup invites visitors to register their email address and receive over $100 in freebies items each month. As a result, they sign up easily.

Popup 2: New Product Popup (Optimized For Mobile)

AppSumo created a popup form dedicated to presenting new product suggestions with an email signup form. They then optimized this popup to render appropriately on mobile devices. 

The outcome? 

AppSumo witnessed a 100.49% increase in mobile conversions in just a single day and, of course, more than 2,000 new email subscribers. 

Here are the main parameters set forth by the company to nail this popup to perfection. 

• Organized Displaying

One of the reasons for this success is that the AppSumo website does not squash visitors’ eyes with its popups. The company uses certain display rules to tweak the display of its popups to perfection. 

For example, signup forms do not appear on all pages, but only some predefined ones, once in a certain time frame, and not on all devices.

• Mobile Rendering

The AppSumo website gets a great deal of visitors from mobile devices. So, optimizing new product popup forms for a good mobile layout is nothing short of a great idea. The company used its highest-converting popup on desktop and optimized it for mobile layout. 

The mobile layout highly resonated with visitors and made it easy to enroll when browsing on mobile. So as a result, it doubled the mobile conversions and boosted email signups.

Takeaway: People hate pop-ups by nature, let alone when they block them from getting what they want. So, don’t blast your visitors with annoying pop-ups. Instead, design your pop-ups to appear only on specific pages and after the visitor has spent some time engaging with your content. And use CTAs that improve clicks.

Bonus: Using the cool stuff you did in the past to get new subscribers.

Are you familiar with the old saying: “he who gave in the past is likely to give again in the future”?  Well, it is verified and people believe it. 

In the setting of email marketing, this means that people will be more likely to sign up for your email list if you have already presented yourself as a benefactor in the niche. 

So, highlight the cool stuff you did in the past in your popup copy to create interest around it. 

Here is an example from AppSumo.

Run Viral Giveaways Campaigns

Most dictionaries define a giveaway as something that is given for free. 

For the sake of clarification, we’d like to express giveaways as something given to a specific group of people for promotional or marketing purposes. 

In other words, you don’t have to market your business or pitch your services all the time to increase conversion. And for the same reason, you don’t have to create opt-in forms or pop ups all the time to grow your email list. 

Why?? 

Because the cool stuff you do to get attention matters just as much. And a giveaway campaign is the coolest thing any company could ever do to grow its email list. 

Here is what Noah Kagan thinks of giveaways.

“The one method I can consistently recommend for people starting their customer base has been giveaways.” 

He’s absolutely right and I can relate. When people value what you give away, they are more likely to recommend their friends to take action. That way, they help create virality around your brand and grow your customer base like crazy while you’re drinking coffee. 

This is nothing new for AppSumo. Their very first giveaway conducted in October 2012, a giveaway for 10 Dropbox lifetime licenses, resulted in a 200,000 person email list growth for the company. And today, AppSumo strives to do one giveaway every quarter.

Bonus: Leveraging influencer marketing to grow your list

There is always some nice thing going on at AppSumo. And no matter where you look from, you’ll always see Noah Kagan among the trailblazers. 

Noah is known for being more than the founder of AppSumo, he’s the corporate face of the company – a cool face. He’s to Appsumo what Elon Musk is to Tesla. 

And that status, Noah leverages it to send messages to AppSumo target audience to pique their interest, spur them to action and ultimately improve customer lifetime value and brand awareness. 

Thanks to his emails, the company gains trust and credibility with its target audience and is able to win them over. 

Well, this is influencer marketing. 

People like Noah and trust him for his track record over the years. So they’re more likely to take action when they sense that he’s part of the team that caters to them and especially when they feel like he’s talking directly to them. 

Here’s a sample of the emails Noah sends.

Takeaway: Noah Kagan is one of the hottest entrepreneurs in the world right now. And so, when people receive an email from him, it definitely affects them differently so they are more inclined to take action. Therefore if you have someone like Noah in your company, you can leverage that influence to gain the hearts of your subscribers.

Step 2: Send More Emails

If you are like most email marketers, chances are you always have your email marketing plan mapped out – top to bottom. What emails to send, what day to send them, what segment to send them to, how far apart should each campaign be sent and everything. The usual suspects.

Awesome!

Now with that in mind, sending more emails than you traditionally did may strike you as being invasive, bugging your subscribers or blasting them with emails. 

Good thinking!

But get this. Over the last year, AppSumo doubled the number of emails they sent at the company. And here is what they’ve gotten from it:

• A 25% increase in customer lifetime value 
• A 33% increase in average purchase rate 
• Their open rates are higher than ever before 
• Their email list is bigger than ever before

This is a radical shift in the company’s email marketing approach. And the result is literal: sending more emails translates into making more money. 

“I think the biggest problem right now, that most people have, is that they’re not simply sending enough emails […] if you could do one thing from this video, it is sending a ton more emails […]  the people that are on your email list, even if it’s just an email of 300 people, you should be hitting them up every week” Ayman I Al-Abdullah (Outgoing) CEO of AppSumo

But here’s the kicker. Unless you send great, personalized, well-targeted email sequences, you’ll piss your subscribers off and that’s when you will see your churn rate skyrocket. 

In other words, if you send generic, non-targeted email broadcasts or automated drip emails, even if the subscribers have a huge crush on your company, you will end up bugging and pissing them off. 

But before you start sending more emails, there are a few things you need to know.

Firstly…

Know Your Business

Data from marketingsherpa show that 91% of people love to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with. And sending promotional emails helps companies improve their average purchase rate (aka make more money). 

But before you start beating that drum, you need to take a step back and look at your business model, the service you offer and your target audience. Only this information will help you determine if you need to send more emails or not.

Here is an example.

If you do business with AppSumo, chances are you own a SaaS company or any product you’d want to promote.

And since AppSumo helps SaaS companies promote their service by offering them good deals, you will be interested in the many deals (aka emails) that AppSumo will offer you. The idea is that deals don’t perish, the more you get better deals, the more you’ll love it. 

However, if you use SEMRUSH, you wouldn’t want to know anything about the company. You simply renew your plan, gain access to the software and that’s it. No promotional emails needed. You are most likely to be like:

The idea is that the company doesn’t have anything to offer you anymore (except maybe guides that will help you better use the software) and you won’t want emails that will be useless to you. 

Secondly…

Know Your Audience

You need to know your audience. If you don’t know your audience then nothing else matters in your marketing strategy. 

Knowing your audience is the central key to any email marketing strategy. If you get it right, your emails will always appeal to your subscribers, then you will become their favorite email correspondent and of course you will make more $$$.

AppSumo has put email marketing to the frontline since day one. So, they knew firsthand that knowing their audience is vital to email marketing success. The company has always been digging to learn more and more about their audience. 

“You got to take a step back. It took us six years to get to that point, seven years to get to that point […] the only way we could have gotten to that point has been through knowing our audience over the past 7 years.” Ayman I Al-Abdullah the CEO of AppSumo

Clearly, you don’t have seven years to learn and get to know your audience. Here are a few tactics to help you nail this down quickly. 

• Create surveys and ask your audience questions that will help you paint a sheer picture of who they are.
• Conduct a market research to know whether the audience you’ve selected resonate with your brand and product – vice versa.
• Create customer personas to better ideate your target audience.
• Monitor the comments and engagements around your work or social media post to develop a set of patterns to better conceptualize your audience.
• Learn everything you can about the way your competitors market their business as they share the same audience as you. Steal from them what works and what does not. 

Takeaway: The secret sauce to making more money with email marketing is sending more emails.

But first, you have to ensure your email content is personalized, well-targeted and valuable to your audience. If this is checked, then you can send tons of emails without pissing your recipients off. That’s how you make more money with email marketing. So make sure you do it.

Step 3: Write kickass copy

According to the outgoing CEO of AppSumo, Ayman I Al-Abdullah, it takes their creative team 3 weeks to finalize an email. One email.

Here is the procedure they follow to write such witty emails.

Be concise and to the point

Have you ever come across an email as long as an ebook? 

If so, have you read it all? No one would blame you if you haven’t. 

The point is that it’s hard for someone to spend about an hour reading one email when they have 125 others to explore. 

Don’t get it wrong. We’re not saying that long-form emails don’t work. When if it’s well crafted and centered around a story, people read and love it. 

But, again, that’s no reason to copy-paste an entire blog post and send it to your list. In doing so, the recipient becomes confused and misses your message.

If you want a better clickthrough rate, you’d better go to AppSumo school and learn how to write short, clear, and concise emails. 

For each email, AppSumo has a specific goal. It could be to promote a product, a YouTube video, or to make a flash sale. That’s why their emails are streamlined and to the point.

Don’t be pushy and salesy

Most people have a bad experience with email marketing simply because they don’t know the difference between spam words and valuable content.

Email marketing is a two-way street: you have to give before you can receive. No room for fluffy and salesy emails. And AppSumo has figured this out early on. 

If you’re on the AppSumo list, you’ll probably have noticed that their emails have two characteristics.

1. They are loaded with humor.
2. They show and tell what’s in it for the reader. 

• Humor

AppSumo uses humor to appeal to the reader’s emotional instincts, while improving open rates and building loyalty. 

That makes their emails memorable and creates a stronger connection with prospects and customers.

• Show and then tell 

Show, don’t tell is one of the most common pieces of advice given to marketers. 

Well, the copywriters at AppSumo follow this advice to perfection and even make it better by “showing and telling”.

Each of AppSumo emails begins with an image of the interface of the software or product they’re promoting. Then, using carefully-chosen power words, they try to convince you to buy or click.  

Think of this technique as the Swiss army knife of email marketing. It kicks ass!

Leverage FOMO

In marketing, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is a technique that triggers your audience’s innate fear of missing out in order to make them more likely to take action.

Using the Countdown technique, AppSumo triggers emotions that encourage the email recipient to convert or click to ensure they get the exclusive offers before it’s too late.

But it’s not just countdown timers that drive FOMO. Simply writing that the “deal or offer ends soon,” also creates a sense of urgency in the reader’s mind, which encourages them to click.

Write catchy subject lines

If you want your email content to be opened, read and clicked on, then spend a little more time on your subject line, just like AppSumo.

AppSumo subject lines are short and curiosity-provoking. 

Here is the simple reason why this type of subject line works. 

Sometimes subject lines work because they directly translate what’s in it for the reader. But other times, by maintaining a sense of mystery, you manage to pique the recipient’s natural curiosity and interest.

This compels them to open your email for more information – which translates into a higher open rate.

There is also a scientific explanation for keeping subject lines short and sweet. 

Statistics show that subject lines longer than 10 words have very low open rates. At the same time, subject lines with few words get a lot of clicks.

Never use more than 2-3 CTAs

The number of CTAs you have in your email can make or break your click-through rates. 

Think about it. What would you do if you had an email that asked you to do a zillion things at once? 

You would be confused. No doubt about it. Anyone else would be. 

Well, AppSumo improves clickthrough rate by using very few CTAs. Two or three at most. 

Keep in mind that having multiple CTA buttons does not mean having different CTAs. You can have 2 to 3 CTAs that all do essentially the same thing.

It is also important to remember that AppSumo in each of its emails is focused on a single action or offer and in such a case, a visitor does not need more information on another product. That’s why Noah Kagan and his team opt for multiple CTAs of the same type.

Also note that in every AppSumo email, there is a CTA button. This type of CTA is effective because it is more visible and emphasizes the action to be taken.

Statistics show that you can improve your click-through rates by 127% with a button-based CTA.

Step 4: Be serious about segmentation

As you can imagine, segmentation is one of the key elements of a successful email marketing campaign.

AppSumo’s email marketing empire would have crumbled by now if the company didn’t double down on segmentation.

In fact, segmentation is one of the first personalization tactics long before the use of variables like {First name} and {Company name}.

AppSumo uses this tactic to send appropriate messages to its fans according to the stage of the buyer journey or funnel where each one is. 

Here is a break down of the sequences AppSumo uses in each of its email campaign: 

3 email series welcome sequence

Only 39% of companies send a welcome sequence after a user subscribes, and AppSumo is one of them.

The AppSumo welcome sequence has a series of 3 emails.

The first one is just a welcome message with a goal to get the recipient acclimated. It’s very simple and the CTA doesn’t ask for anything BIG.

The second one is an email that explains a little bit about how AppSumo works and details a little bit what the recipient should expect up front.

The third one is also a welcome email with the only difference that it offers a 10% welcome coupon on any purchase on AppSumo. This is the email that introduces the promotional email sequence.

Note that each of these emails are 1 day apart – making the welcome sequence a 3 day series. 

Promotional emails sequence

Once the recipient is acclimated by the welcome sequence, they’re taken to the promotional email sequence.

At this stage, every day, Appsumo sends them emails containing offers. These emails range from Limited-Time Offers and Sales Promotion Emails to Subscriber-Special Offers. 

Sometimes there are also Seasonal Campaigns and Giveaway Emails, like the last year when Noah Kagan gave away his Tesla during Black Friday. 

As seen in the Email Copy Teardown section, each of these emails is concise, to the point and not aggressive from a sales perspective. 

When the recipient clicks on the offer link in the email, they are taken to a landing page where there is more information about the product. At this point, there are two possibilities.

The first event is that they decide not to buy the product and leave the page. After a while, AppSumo sends them an email to try to encourage them to return to the page and make a purchase.

This kind of email is called cart abandonment email. Its purpose is to try to win back a person who was close to buying an item. It has been proven that 50% of the users clicked purchase after being sent a cart abandonment email. 

The second possibility is that the person decides to buy. At this stage, it is taken in the post purchase email sequence. 

Post purchase email sequence

AppSumo’s post purchase sequence contains just one email. The purpose of this email is to thank the buyer and solicit feedback on their experience with the purchased product.

Post purchase emails are an excellent way to increase overall satisfaction. It allows you to maintain a good relationship with your customer base, and to easily upsell and cross-sell when needed. 

After the post purchase email, you are taken back to the promotional sequence and continue to receive emails on a daily basis. 

Email Marketing Tools AppSumo Use

KingSumo

KingSumo is a WordPress plugin and platform that allows users to grow their email and fan lists through viral contests and giveaways. 

It is ideal for small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to generate tons of new leads.

Using KingSumo, you can offer your own product, physical and virtual goods, partner products, PDF, etc.

One of the benefits of KingSumo is that it allows you to get leads at a fraction of the cost of Instagram influencers and Facebook ads.

Sumo

Sumo is a powerful tool that helps businesses grow their email lists, increase conversions and generate more sales. 

It is the email collector that has helped AppSumo get over a million emails on its list.

SendFox

SendFox brands itself as an “email marketing platform for content creators,” making it easy to “automatically send personalized emails to your followers, subscribers, and fans.”

SendFox is part of Sumo Group’s suite of offerings that were created by Noah Kagan, and are now used by millions.

Key Takeaways

Growing a business through email marketing is not easy. Nevertheless, email marketing is always fruitful. So you need to approach it the right way to achieve optimal results. Chances are, this article has helped you learn a bit more about how to take your email marketing to the next level. Here are a few things we’d like to leave you with.

• Understand your business

Understanding your business is the foundation for the success of every action you take to move it forward. Failing this, everything goes downhill from there. 

In addition, understanding your business will help you better conceptualize which audience you need to address in order to create a better product for them. And remember, successful email marketing is all about a great product/service. So make sure you understand your business.

• Grow your email list

Your email list is your customer and prospect base and this is how you should view it. These are the people you will be promoting your services to through your email marketing efforts. So, the bigger it is, the better. Develop a great strategy and capture as many email contacts as possible.

• Write email your subscriber will love

People like emails they can relate to. And this comes down to knowing your audience, segmenting your email list and personalizing your email content. Learn from AppSumo, don’t be too strict with your content. Let people feel alive in your content and they will like it more. 

• Send more emails 

As you’ve seen, sending more emails translates into more money. But don’t just close your eyes and bombard your subscribers with promotional content. Understand your business first. Then find out on what basis you can send more emails.

• Run giveaway campaigns

Giveaways are always nice, people love giveaways. It helps appear as a cool brand. Plus, it creates a lot of buzz for your business. Give away valuable products and grow your business through word of mouth.

Trying to hire a lead generation agency to fill the pipeline for your sales team but don’t know where to start and have a lot of questions?

You might probably be wondering:

• How to select the best lead generation agencies?
• What to consider when comparing agencies?
• What’s the cost of a lead gen company?

If that’s the case, we got you covered. In this article, we’re covering how to vet agencies, the best lead gen companies, and more.

What Does A B2B Lead Generation Company Do?

There are two types of B2B lead generation companies:

• B2B lead generation agencies who help companies generate leads and book sales-qualified meetings.
• B2B lead generation software companies who provide agencies and in-house sales teams with the tools and data they need to run successful lead gen campaigns. 

Most B2B lead generation companies of the first category offer the following services:

• Appointment setting
• Building the contact lists
• Personalized marketing campaigns
• Database management
• CRM integration
• Account management
• Lead nurturing
• Dedicated management team

If either of the above is something you need help with, here are the top 11 of the best lead generation companies and agencies you might be interested in.

11 Best B2B Lead Generation Agencies

There are tons of other lead generation companies out there, but our list only includes the ones we see and hear pop up in most conversations. 

1. Nerdy Joe
2. Single Grain
3. CIENCE
4. Belkins
5. Martal Group
6. Pearl Lemon Leads
7. WebFX
8. Callbox
9. Lead Cookie
10. Apollo
11. Upgrow

Let’s detail and discuss what you need to know about each of these agencies and companies.

Lead gen agency 1: Nerdy Joe

Nerdy Joe is a B2B digital marketing agency that only offers email marketing and outbound lead generation services (i.e., cold emailing).

We keep our lead generation service offerings narrow because we like to keep only a few tricks in our box and perform them excellently. 

Working with us is pretty straightforward as we don’t require you to commit to a certain number of months, and you know exactly what you get when you choose to work with us.

Why’s Nerdy Joe the Best B2B Lead Generation Agency

Here are some reasons why Nerdy Joe is one of the best lead generation companies in the US.

We offer results — not the number of emails we send

If you’ve done business with one or two B2B lead generation companies, you know there are four types of lead generation agencies:

• Lead gen agencies that charge their clients based on the number of emails they send or the number of contacts they put in your list.
• Lead generation agencies that charge you a monthly fee and promise you’ll get the best leads ever but never deliver on their promise.
• Lead generation agencies that call everyone who’s downloaded an ebook or PDF  a LEAD and charge you for that.
• Lead generation agencies that charge based on the number of QUALIFIED leads they generate for your sales team.

To be fair, the best lead generation companies are those who charge based on results. And at Nerdy Joe, we live and breathe client ROI (return on investment).

When we start working with clients, we always make it clear that the prospect list we build and the number of emails we send are not their business. 

That’s basically because we believe that the number #1 pain point of a company that needs help with lead generation is that they’re simply not growing at the rate they want and need LEADS. 

As simple as that.

So, our lead generation experts and appointment-setting specialists take pride in providing value and leading with metrics that matter — not vanity metrics like open rate, bounce rate, clickthrough rate, etc.

Metrics we lead with include: 

• Number of positive replies
• Number of meetings booked
• Lead to close rate.

For instance, if you want to work with us to increase the number of guest posts your team writes per month, we’ll report:

• The number of YES we get from editors. 
• The number of positive replies we get.
• And the number of high domain authority websites you get mentions from on a monthly basis.

If you’re a B2B company selling to accountants, we’ll only charge you for the number of appointments we set for your sales teams. 

Our offering varies depending on your company’s overall goal and what outcome matters the most to you.

We personalize every single email — we don’t believe in the numbers game

The lead generation/appointment setting industry has changed dramatically over the past few years.

Simply go on Twitter and check what type of advice or strategies most self-proclaimed lead generation experts are chanting.

Most people believe that you need to send 1000 emails daily to get the results you want (i.e., success is a matter of volume). 

Well, this tactic probably works for some companies, but it certainly guarantees the following:

• Both ESPs and ISPs will flag your email and IP addresses as spammers.  
• You’ll kill your company’s reputation and get a bad rap on social media. 
• The quality of the leads you get will be subpar. 
• Your domain will face severe deliverability issues.

At Nerdy Joe, we spend time learning about your ideal customer profile (ICP) in and out before we send a single email.

This is because we want each recipient to feel like you know them and wonder why you didn’t cross their paths months ago.

We also do that because we don’t want to send 1000 emails to get 4 meetings booked. Our ideal scenario is that we send 20 emails, we get 15 replies, 10 positives, and get you 4 sales-qualified meetings.

Now, don’t get this wrong. By personalization, we mean we make each email relatable and timely. We don’t just add [[First name]] and other variables to the email subject lines. 

Just for some context on how this works for us, here’s an example of a reply I received as I reached out to a Global VP of Marketing, but the timing wasn’t great. Still, she took the time to reply and communicate an appropriate time when it makes sense to touch base.

Personalization is what makes people who are averse to cold outreach reply to your cold email.

Here’s an example where we reached out to a VP of Marketing who has historically blocked or reported SPAM to anyone who’s sent him a cold email.

Here’s another example where we pitched a Head of Marketing, and here’s the response. 

Contrary to what these gurus suggest, most of our outbound lead generation campaigns are run towards 10 or 15 people, not 1000.

That’s because we simply believe that the best sales strategy is to build trust and relationships. That’s why most of the responses we get are:

• “Wow, such a nice email, Ernest.”
• “Thank you for the nice words and compliment, Ernest.”
• “Let’s catch up next Thursday.”
• “Ernest, love your email. Can you follow up on the 25th?” 

Where do we get information about each prospect or member of your target audience we use for personalization?

Glad you asked.

• We listen to podcasts your potential customers have been on.
• We read blog posts they wrote. 
• We read their LinkedIn, Twitter, and Mastodon posts.
• We read discussions on forums they’re in.
• We call their mom. 😂

Using this aggregated data, we find unique angles that we use to craft personalized first lines or icebreakers.

Here’s what it looks like in real life. I pitched CoSchedule’s Head of Content Ben Sailer and asked him if I could write for them.

Here’s what he replied 1 hour later.

Here is another successful example from a similar strategy.

As you can see from both screenshots, the cold emails sent to the prospects were so compelling that they couldn’t help but acknowledge it before offering to hire us.

We use quality, manually built data — and thus only book sales-qualified leads.

One of our core policies is that we don’t use client data when running lead generation campaigns. And unlike most lead generation companies, we don’t use data fetched from data intelligence tools such as ZoomInfo or Lusha.

We don’t trust these data sources because they only aggregate technographic and demographic data.

For example, using these tools, it’s easy to find data regarding companies that: 

• Are in the accounting software industry, 
• Have 30 to 65 employees,
• Are series B-funded companies,
• Are in Europe,
• Use Slack or Digital Ocean as part of their tech stack.
• Have a ping pong table at the office. 

The problem with this data is that it can only serve to craft obvious personalized first lines like:

So, if you want to go further down with personalization, you have to make use of psychographic data and other types of data.

How do we do that?

One of the first things we like to do when we sign a new client is to ask our clients questions about their ICP.

We ask questions like:

• Which type of clients have the highest lifetime value?
• Which type of clients is easiest to close?
• Which type of clients churns the fastest?
• What are the top 3 objections you hear from prospective clients during sales calls?
• Why did you start your company? 
• What pain points were you trying to solve?
• Etc.

The answers to these questions help us know precisely who to target and why. And this type of information makes the difference between: 

“We’re targeting series A tech companies,” 

And 

“Our ICP is a VP of Sales at a b2b software company selling to HR professionals, and his main pain points are lack of organization, time management, and team collaboration. He often refers to XYZ podcasts to get insights as to how to manage his team efficiently.” 

Once we have a clear understanding of who the ICP is, we proceed to manually build our list, and that’s what we use to run our lead generation campaigns.

We require no contract — you’re free to renew or stop your subscription based on satisfaction.

Unlike most lead generation companies that require you to sign a 3 to 6-month contract, Nerdy Joe is a subscription-based business. 

Working with us means you get results starting from Month 1, and you pay and renew your subscription depending on how satisfied you are with our service and your budget.

Also, because you know exactly what you are paying for, we don’t send you proposals based on surface-level information we have about your company. We also don’t waste your time with useless meetings. 

You get what you pay for — depending on your chosen plan, you know exactly what you get. 

Nerdy Joe’s offerings and pricing are clear — and this is probably why we’re one of the best lead generation agencies. You choose a plan based on your budget and needs, and you know exactly what you get at the end of the month.

• No, “it depends on a lot of factors.”
• No, “Your account manager swallowed the key to his office and couldn’t work.”

If you have product-market fit and are solving a problem that most people have, it is almost everything we need to get you results.

But if you’re still figuring out who your solution is best for, then we’re probably not going to be of help.

Pricing

Our lead generation service’s pricing is crystal clear. We’re three plans:

• Silver: It costs $499/month and only gives you two warm LEADS.
• Gold: This is the plan we recommend, as it gives you the biggest bang for your buck. It costs $999/month and gives you 6 hot and sales-qualified appointments or LEADS.
• Platinum: This plan is for mid-level to enterprise companies willing to fuel their sales team with up to 15 sales-ready leads on a monthly basis.

Our email marketing pricing includes the following:

• The tech stack we use to build your prospect list and send and monitor your campaign.
• A complete list of prospects that fit your buyer persona and ICP.
• The campaign setup fees.

Lead gen agency 2: Single Grain

According to their website, Single Grain runs innovative growth campaigns for remarkable companies. Note that Single Grain is mainly known for being a CRO, Paid Ads, and SEO agency.

They offer full-service lead generation to their clients — assigning a dedicated campaign manager to each one of their clients.

Although its website does not provide much information about its lead generation strategies and service, Single Grain has made a name for itself, working with companies such as Salesforce, Uber, and Amazon.

Single Grain’s offering is not self-serve, meaning you have to download one of their gated content, then a sales rep will reach out to you and probably send you a proposal if you’re both fits.

That also means the agency has custom pricing and requires clients to sign a certain duration contract (probably 3 to 6 months). 

Lead gen agency 3: CIENCE

CIENCE is primarily a B2B lead generation company offering outbound lead generation technologies like ZoomInfo and Lusha. They help you grow your business using a variety of outbound lead generation strategies.

The company offers a set of outbound lead generation tools, including:

• Sales intelligence software,
• Intent data software,
• Conversational sales platform,
• Appointment setting tool,
• Data enrichment tool,
• And more.

On top of these tools, CIENCE also offers lead generation services to tech companies. CIENCE mainly offers SDR-as-a-service solutions to brands that need to level up their sales game. 

On its website, CIENCE claims it makes use of social media marketing, email marketing, phone calls, and many other lead generation techniques to get results.

Contrary to Nerdy Joe, CIENCE requires a minimum contract of 3 months, and you should go through a long sales funnel before the agency starts generating leads.

Also, their pricing is not available on the website, so you have to fill out a form and talk to an SDR and receive a proposal later. 

Lead gen agency 4: Belkins

Belkins describes itself as a B2B appointment-setting service for companies across more than 190+ industries. And they claim to have worked with the likes of Berkeley University, Born & Bred, Cemtrex, and more. 

According to information on their website, they have a 4 pronged approach to B2B lead generation:

•  As soon as they sign you up, you get to meet some of their specialists to talk about your company, its goals, and your lead generation strategy.
• After that, their data mining experts then go on and build your prospects list. 
• They then assign you an SDR who runs the lead generation campaign on your behalf.
• The final step is where they book sales meetings in your calendar. 

Although Belkins’ pricing hasn’t been mentioned anywhere on their website, they seem to work with clients on a contract basis. 

They require a minimum of a 6-month contract, and one campaign can last up to 12 months for the Startup and Growth Plan. 

For the Enterprise Plan, they require a minimum of a 12-month contract. 

Looking at their ROI calculator, it seems like for a list of 850 prospects and 64 appointments booked across the year (5 – 8 meetings per month), they charge $51,000 or $4250 per month. 

Lead gen agency 5: Martal

Martal Group is a B2B appointment-setting agency similar to Belkins. The Martal team uses many B2B lead generation strategies to book client meetings. They combine their knowledge of account-based marketing with inbound marketing and sales funnels.

Just like most B2B agencies, they require a minimum 3-month contract, and their pricing is only available upon request. 

The Martial Group has three pricing tiers, and each of them gives you:

• A fractional sales executive
• A fractional research manager
• A sales operation manager

All of these three specialists cost about $11,500 per month if you’re to work with the Martal Group. That’s roughly $140,000 a year. 

Lead gen agency 6: Pearl Lemon Leads

Pearl Lemon is a UK-based lead generation company that serves clients across America, Australia, and Europe. 

The company offers a variety of outbound and inbound lead generation services, including cold calling, call center outsourcing, outsourced sales team, appointment setting, demand generation, account-based marketing, and many more.

They work on a contract basis, and for their fully managed lead generation services, they charge about £3000. They also charge the same price for their LinkedIn lead generation services.

Lead gen agency 7: Callbox

Callbox is a multichannel marketing company. They’re similar to CIENCE and combine email, SEO (search engine optimization), and chatbots to increase your lead conversion rate. 

Working with Callbox means you get:

• Client Success Manager
• Production Manager
• Sales Development Rep
• Email and Social Marketing Specialist
• Research and Data Analyst
• Quality Analyst

This lead generation firm works with Pipeline and HubSpot to automate your campaigns and fill your sales pipeline.

There’s no information available on Callbox’s pricing on its website, but if you want to work with the agency, you can request a quote. 

Lead gen agency 8: Lead Cookie

Lead Cookie describes itself as a full-service outbound marketing agency. They claim to have booked meetings with big tech companies like Google, Cisco, AT&T, and Microsoft.

Lead Cookie’s experts combine their knowledge of LinkedIn lead generation, cold email, and cold calls to fuel their client’s lead generation machine.

Their process is as follows:

• You book a sales call with a sales representative.
• You go through your company’s needs, and they get back to you with a proposal.
• You sign a contract, etc.

Lead gen agency 9: Apollo

Apollo is a lead generation SaaS that provides firms and cold email agencies with contacts and data enrichment solutions. 

Similar to ZoomInfo, Lusha, and Seamless AI, Apollo is not a B2B lead gen service provider per se, but it equips you with the tools and necessary training to launch and run successful lead generation campaigns.

So, if you want to run your email campaigns by your in-house sales team instead of outsourced lead generation, Apollo is the right tool for you.

The tool costs $39 for the basic plan and $79 for the professional plan. It also integrates with most tools, such as Zapier and Hubspot, and supports CRM integrations.

Lead gen agency 10: Upgrow

Upgrow is primarily a digital marketing agency before being a B2B lead generation service provider.

The company has worked with the likes of Lyft, TalkDesk, and Single Store, and their lead generation process is multi-channel. 

They require a 6-month contract for every client engagement, and their lead generation agency charges at least $2,500 depending on your needs. 

Lead gen agency 11: WebFX

Although they claim to be a lead generation company, WebFX mainly offers content marketing, SEO, paid ads, and email marketing services. 

They also claim to have 1.6 million hours of expertise and more than 500 marketing experts. WebFX has worked with the likes of Auntie Anne’s, Fujifilm, and Hilton.

If you want to work with WebFX, you have to request a quote for one of their services, and they’ll take it from there.

3 Things to Consider When Hiring a Lead Generation Firm

Hiring lead generation companies is not always black or white. It implies tons of things and can make or break your company’s success.

Here are five things to consider when hiring a lead generation company that guarantees you’ll get qualified leads. 

1 – What’s the lead generation company’s definition of a lead?

Every company and marketer has their own definition of what a lead means. 

For instance, a lead for a software company can be when someone signs up for a free trial. Or maybe when someone purchases a software license for the next two years.

For a marketing agency, high-quality leads mean someone requested a quote and agreed to hop on a call or that someone agreed on a sales call to discuss how the marketing agency can help them.

There are tons of B2B lead generation companies, and each of them can have different definitions of what a lead means. 

For instance, for the lead generation company you’re talking to, any person that downloads an ebook or a whitepaper is considered a lead.  

So, ensure to clear that from the get-go before agreeing on any sort of engagement. Failure to do that will lead to having  

2 – Does your B2B lead generation company specialize in your niche?

This principle applies to every type of digital marketing campaign.

If you’re a B2B SaaS company, working with a D2C lead generation company is not going to get you more leads, you’ll only get crickets.

It’s easier to generate qualified leads in a specific niche market when you already know how the industry works, how to find leads in that industry, how to set up the right sales funnel, etc.

And this is where niche expertise comes in.

If you’re a B2B company, work with B2B lead generation companies. This can make the difference between generating qualified leads and only generating low-quality leads. 

And that brings us to the next thing to consider when vetting B2B lead generation companies.

3 – How does the B2B lead generation agency ensure you get high-quality B2B leads?

Top lead generation companies have a clear lead generation process they use to build their prospect list.

Scraping the web and adding thousands of email addresses of people who don’t know you is only going to make your email deliverability worse. Not more.

On the other hand, working with the right lead generation agency can be crucial to your business growth as they’ll make sure your lead generation efforts bring in new leads that are qualified and fit your ICP. 

Which Lead Generation Agency Is Best For Your Company? 

As you’ve seen, many so-called lead generation companies offer services and marketing strategy that have very little to do with lead generation and the results you actually want.

If you’re just looking for an agency that’ll use paid ads or content marketing to promote your product, Single Grain and WebFX are the lead generation agencies for you.

But if what you’re looking for is:

• An agency that runs custom lead generation campaigns.
• An agency that charges you for results, not tasks.
• An agency that doesn’t require you to commit to a contract.
• An agency that does not waste your time and that’s affordable.
• A group of experts that care about your company’s reputation and relationship with prospects.

Nerdy Joe is the lead generation agency you’re looking for. We do the market research, identify leads, do the lead research, lead management, and bring you qualified leads, we are part of your team.