davis.noah•9d agoMost Upvoted

I spent $2,500 on a 'done-for-you' lead gen service that sent me nothing but junk contacts.

I'm torn because part of me thinks outsourcing lead gen is smart for agency growth, but after this experience, I'm convinced you can't trust a third party to understand your ideal client profile, so what's your take: is any outsourced lead gen ever worth it, or should it all be done in-house?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jana9d ago

I read a case study where a marketing agency spent even more, like five grand, on a similar service and got the same garbage results. The problem is those services work off a generic checklist, not a real understanding of your business. I believe you can outsource the work, like list building or cold email sending, but the strategy and ideal client profile have to come from you. So maybe a hybrid model works, where you control the targeting and they just do the manual labor. Otherwise you're just paying for a list of random names that will never buy.

the_linda9d ago

Yeah that's exactly what I had to learn the hard way. I tried one of those full service lead gen packages and it was a total waste. What finally worked was me sitting down and really figuring out who I wanted to talk to, like their exact job title and industry. Then I just hired a virtual assistant on a site like Upwork to find those specific people and build the list. I gave them a super clear template to follow. The quality was way better because I did the thinking part.

the_lisa9d ago

How did you finally figure out your exact ideal client? I got burned the same way with a full package deal. What clicked for me was basically doing the opposite, I made a super simple one page guide about who I was looking for, like their actual daily problems. Then I gave that to a freelancer just for finding people. It took a few tries to get the guide right, but once I did the list was actually useful. The prep work is boring but it's the only thing that made outsourcing work.