In this post, we will learn the difference between appointment setting and lead generation and how appointment setting services can help you grow your business.

The purpose of every business out there is growth. That’s why you will see sales experts throwing all kinds of terms in their training sessions. Sometimes it seems overwhelming for newcomers to get a grasp of these terms.

One such confusing pair of terms is "lead generation" and "appointment setting". Business owners are often confused about what they need. Does your business need lead generation services or does your business need appointment setting services?

Difference between lead generation and appointment setting

The purpose of both lead generation and appointment setting is sales, but the key difference between them is the nature of the activity. Appointment setting is primarily an outbound activity where an appointment setter or cold caller calls the list of prospects. The prospects on the list may or may not have heard about your business. They are chosen based on the ideal customer profile of your business.

The purpose of the appointment setting is to find new clients for your business and reach more and more clients. On the other hand, lead generation is primarily an inbound activity where the marketing department indulges in various inbound marketing activities, such as content marketing, social media marketing, and newsletter subscription, to generate inbound leads for the business using a call to action. These are the leads who know about your business. The purpose of lead generation is to find leads for your business and reach the prospects who have shown interest in your services. Thus, the primary difference boils down to the nature of the activity, which results in the difference in activities.

What do you need for your business: appointment setting and lead generation?

A business needs both lead generation and appointment setting services. Appointment setting is an aggressive strategy where you actively reach out to the prospects in order to find whether or not they are a good fit for your business and try to schedule sales appointments.

The conversion rate of appointment setting is low because you know nothing about the prospect. You need to find out:

whether or not the prospect is interested in your services

your prospect may be already using the same solution from your competitor

your prospect may be interested in your company’s solution but may not have the budget to avail of the services.

Thus, you have to qualify the lead for the business first, based on the ICP, and then nurture the lead for scheduling an appointment.

Whereas, lead generation is a non-aggressive strategy where the marketing team waits for prospects to take action. For example, you create content on your company’s website, such as blogs, and on social media handles, such as ads and social media posts of your company. Now, interested prospects respond to the call to action to show their interest in your product or services. Thus, you have a lead for your business.

The conversion rate of appointment setting is high because usually interested prospects take an action to share their details to learn more about your business.

Lead generation results in the generation of direct leads, whereas appointment setting first qualifies the prospect and then generates a lead for the business. Your appointment setting team may call the leads generated from the lead generation to schedule an appointment with the sales team.

Why choose appointment setting services for business?

Appointment setting is a cost-effective strategy to reach more clients for your business. Numerous statistics show the effectiveness of cold calling. Especially, in the B2B industry, cold calling plays a vital role in the growth of the business. Without actively reaching prospective clients, it is hard to convert sales for your business. The lead generation alone is not sufficient. You have to take proactive measures to convert your leads into customers.

GetCallers for appointment setting and lead generation

GetCallers is the leader among call center services providers in the USA. You can hire a team of outbound callers for appointment setting and a team of inbound callers to convert leads into customers from lead generation. The holistic approach will provide the overall coverage for your business and help you convert every possible opportunity for your business.