Lead generation for IT companies: Is it worth it?

If you’re an IT company, say a networking service specialist or a hardware company, it’s not enough 
just to be popular in your particular area. True, being in the IT market provides some advantages to 
those from other niches, but grabbing sales from target consumers can be a pain, especially in the US 
and other countries with service-oriented economies where the competition can be pretty stiff. Yes, 
there are a lot of big fishes in the pond, but there are a lot of fishermen prowling the same waters 
too.
Being ahead is well and good but what you do as a company to stay ahead or go even further is what 
truly counts. And in these times, no other statistic is as vital, or as damning, as sales and 
profits. Selling and promoting your company may seem a pretty straightforward affair with time-tested 
media advertising but if you think that’s enough, then you got another thing coming. Advertising is a 
vital part of IT lead generation campaigns but there are other components that are catching up in 
terms of importance, one of them being telemarketing.
Telemarketing has been around for decades but, until as recently as the new millennium, it has been 
used almost exclusively for hard selling. One of the more important contributions of telemarketing is 
in business lead generation, where people call businesses with the intent of trying to get them to be 
interested in a particular company’s catalogue of product or service packages. This technique is 
dubbed cold-calling and, in many instances, the companies being called on don’t expect being called.
Cold-calling also accomplishes one more important task: the task of verifying whether a business 
exists, its current address and a point of contact’s contact info. Calling lists are updated 
regularly in this manner, and qualified or interested prospects are singled out for follow-up 
protocols, which in this case is setting up the target company’s point of contact with the IT 
business representative. This, in turn, could result into sales for the IT company, depending on the 
rep’s ability to close the deal.
IT lead generation through telemarketing isn’t the walk in the park that many people believe. It 
takes a lot of smooth talking or guts to get the information needed from the company being called. A 
lot of times, it takes luck and timing as well, since receptionists are oftentimes instructed not to 
give up any info about their bosses. Considering this, it should be safe to assume that only about 1 
in 6 companies called actually give out any pertinent details about qualified points of contact or 
decision makers, given that most IT companies in the same area are using the same cold-calling 
technique. And wouldn’t that just grate into a receptionist’s, or decision maker’s sensibilities.
The payoff, however, is potentially great so whatever the consequence, many IT companies are 
expanding their lead generation campaigns to include buying calling lists and outsourcing the 
telemarketing aspect to call centers. It means shelling out a significant sum, but considering the 
success that the technique brings to aggressive companies, it’s more than worth the risk.