Having generated tens of thousands of business leads for companies in many different industries as well as managing salespeople in my own companies, I have some shocking news for you. Here's the real story about business leads that most people don't know about:
Confused about business leads?
Having generated tens of thousands of business leads for companies in many different industries as well as managing salespeople in my own companies, I have some shocking news for you. Here's the real story about business leads that most people don't know about:
Leads Made the Right Way
Looking for leads? It can be quite confusing when you are looking for a good lead company. Almost no one tells you HOW THEY GENERATE THEIR LEADS, so it is hard to evaluate what is good from what is bad . It is also possible that you have used what were supposed to be leads before and came away severely disappointed. Before we discuss this subject further, you should note that it is important to understand what business leads are now, as compared to what they used to be in the past, before the internet.
What Leads Used to Be
Many years ago when a company purchased leads from a marketing company, what they received in return was very valuable. The leads were generated in many cases through direct mail campaigns that generated responses who would then be called by outbound telemarketing centers. The respondents would then do a quick interview with the telemarketer and an application would be filled out showing "real" interest. These leads would then only be sold once for an initial 3 or 4 week exclusive, and after that period the lead would be recycled or sold again. These prospects were "gold".
What Leads Are Not
What passes as leads today makes most people shudder but here are some examples of what leads aren't:
FALSE LEAD: In this case it can come in many forms such as an email record, an application, or a form; but they all have the same thing in common: the person did not knowingly request information about which you are calling or emailing them back. In many cases, they have no idea why someone is contacting them. In some cases their email address has been hijacked by some software program, stuck in a list, and is then "called" a lead and sold --and sold--and sold--and sold --and sold--on and on and on. That action of just gathering up email records (called harvesting) is now illegal according to the "Can Spam" law. If someone approaches you about buying 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 leads for a couple hundred bucks, you better turn and run away because those are most likely harvested lists.
UNPRODUCTIVE LEADS: Now there is another class of leads which were possibly legitimate leads AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, but which have since been sold many times over and are now technically "not" leads.
This is because the person requested data some time ago and has since received data (many times over) and now is either signed up on a program or not in a program at all because they didn't want to. They are done. The problem here is that they are continuing to be sold over and over again and yet no longer interested. They are not a lead. The key here is "freshness", with the ideal lead being an EXCLUSIVE, REAL TIME email lead. People on the internet want instant gratification, so when they request information from a site they want service NOW. Before the internet waiting a week or two to call the prospects back was not optimum, but would still get you decent results, but now, even an hours delay in calling the prospects means they just bought from someone else who was more organized. I have seen this in many different industries.
That is why buying leads gets a bad name. Many companies that generate leads keep reselling these leads weeks or months later, and they are almost worthless. Yes it is more expensive to buy exclusive real time leads but on the internet they are the only ones you should buy. You need to ensure that your sales force knows that the only way to make this work, is the second that lead comes into their email box, they should be on the phone, not 10 minutes later.
The Search Engine Solution
The most effective way of generating leads available today involves the use of a properly developed search engine marketing campaign (go to http://www.intouchmediagroup.com/sem to see exactly how this is done) which is pointed at an effective lead generation page, not a full web site. When people are trying to purchase anything of importance these days they go to Google or Yahoo to gather vital data. This is where you want to be to attract these hot prospects. If you then steer these people to a highly focused lead generation site that is simple yet effective you have a winning combination. This will ensure that you reach the prospects when they are really at their hottest in terms of interest. Believe me, a prospect that is truly interested is MUCH easier to sell.
Hope this helps sort out some confusions for you,
Bob Cefail