Lead generation website - Marketing Quotes

[AshSmith]

Hey,

I'm currently balancing my full time marketing job with regular web development freelancing - with a view to eventually switching.

I'm currently getting my clients from friends and colleagues , and slowly gaining referrals from these projects.

I'd like to start getting more diverse clients and am considering signing up to a lead generation service.

Currently looking at Approved Index .co.uk and Marketing Quotes .co.uk - but there might be others.

Anyone used the above? Did / do they work out?

 

i used both and the leads were awful, they are not qualified, some to the degree that they were not even looking for my type of services. I would steer clear.

 

[Delta_Software_Services]

run a mile from approved index....

 

[NextPoint]

run a mile from approved index....

Ha - tell me! I signed up with them and all of their leads were poor. Most wouldn't answer their phone and I had enough when went to travel to Manchester with my colleague to meet two of their leads - both of them didn't turn up and the second one kept arranging to meet up, but never turned up. As this trip cost me and my colleague a day away from work, our total loss for time and expenses came to over £350. We never got any business from Approved Index, just wasted time and money.

 

[jmbusiness]

I have used approved index, they often sent me leads that were for products I didnt sell and many of them were not serious buyers.

However I made some sales with them but only because I quoted very cheap, so in the end it was not worth it for me.

Because you are competing with 5 other companies (although I think they have lowered this now) it means you have to quote very cheap or offer something different from everyone else to make the sale (in my experience)...

 

[virtuallysorted]

Haven't used these particular ones but I know there are some who charge advertising fees essentially, I'd probably prefer a pay per click charge instead.

Can you try it for say a month and check the quality of the leads? I took myself off yell.co.uk's pay per click leads because it was either other virtual assistants clicking thru or people wanting really small jobs without much profit in them. As with all marketing, test and measure!

 

[Michael_Anthony]

I would suggest that anyone looking to buy leads asks the seller for..

- Contacts from existing satisfied customers, whose credentials should be checked carefully.
- Sample data sets and an opportunity to pose as a potential applicant themselves.
- Cast iron replacement policy in writing.

I would also advise steering clear of anyone whose first post is an offer to supply leads, and/or whose posting history has been nothing but similar offers.

Having been in the online lead generation market for over 5 years, the one thing that never changes is the amount of scammers out there.

 

[mr magoo]

I would suggest that anyone looking to buy leads asks the seller for..

- Contacts from existing satisfied customers, whose credentials should be checked carefully.
- Sample data sets and an opportunity to pose as a potential applicant themselves.
- Cast iron replacement policy in writing.

I would also advise steering clear of anyone whose first post is an offer to supply leads, and/or whose posting history has been nothing but similar offers.

Having been in the online lead generation market for over 5 years, the one thing that never changes is the amount of scammers out there.

Hi Michael Anthony
Do you have any leads for scotland?
mr magoo

 

[Silent Web Solutions]

Currently looking at Approved Index .co.uk...
Anyone used the above? Did / do they work out?

I tested Approved Index out about 16 months ago and can confirm that I did make some sales but also lost a lot of money. They say that the leads are genuine and charge you £25 for each one but in my experience there is only a very small amount of leads that will generate you the sales. I even sent them a detailed analysis of each lead and why I did not think that they was genuine but they did not care.

My advice is to invest the money in generating your own leads as you will have a greater ROI.

 

[Michael_Anthony]

My advice is to invest the money in generating your own leads as you will have a greater ROI.

Agreed. Provided that you have the time and/or money to do so, it's always going to be cheaper to cut out the middleman.

This said, no matter how good you get at generating your own leads, there will come a point where you can't grow the volumes any further. That's the point at which you need to find other sources.

 

[lupton]

I think it is where you are based in the country, we are based in the North of England and they have no other suppliers in our area and we have converted 80% of the leads into sales.

I have been impressed compared to interchannel.com which i have found very poor leads so far however the customer service has been very good.

Worth a try! just ask for 5 to start with then make a judgment.

Also they have just put prices up


Lupton

 

[faz]

Tried approved index and found it wasn't worth the investment

 

[AshSmith]

Hi chaps,

Thanks for the feedback.

I fully agree that your going to get the best ROI with your own efforts, however at the moment, time is more precious than the costs per lead of buying them in.

Think I'm going to go with the suggestion of trialling the Marketing Quotes service for a month and see what I can make of it.

Cheers,

Ash

 

[pcservicenetwork]

anyone tried getbiz.co.uk?

I was looking at their site last week so interested to hear feedback.

Dave

 

[Michael_Anthony]

Getbiz supplies the lead to 5 companies and then you have to compete for the customer's business, which is a model I've seen used elsewhere to maximise the revenue for the lead supplier.

However, I'd recommend working with someone who provides leads that are exclusive to you. They'll probably be more expensive, but much more likely to convert into sales.

It's similar to the difference between data and leads - if you use data, say for example people who applied for a mortgage in the last 3 months and got turned down, chances are you'll convert one in a hundred.

If instead you took leads that were more exclusive and more tailored to your specific requirements, chances are that you'll convert 20-50% of them.

And the costs associated with making 100 phone calls per sale - staff, rent, office space, also need to be factored in.

 

[igrieves]

Following on from the above I tried using Marketing Quotes.co.uk, was relieved of UKP80 for which I got two 'leads'. One refused to answer the phone and the other said he had sent in his requirements three weeks ago, was promised three quotes and then heard nothing until I called him. By that time he had found a supplier and was very unimpressed himself, as was I.

I emailed MQ for a refund but no prizes for guessing their response. A humourous comment that a refund would stop me taking about their business resulted in them threatening to sue me for blackmail which I think says all you need to know about them. Avoid.

 

I think the moral of the story here is that someone could make a real killing if they did the qualification of these leads properly, if this was a telemarketing campaign done by us we would never allow some of these leads to go through to the client.

I have tried all the ones mentioned in this thread and they are all as bad as eachother, i got one today from interchannel which was a B2C lead.....SEVERAL TIMES i have told them we only deal with B2B!!! they dont listen, they just invoice you.

 

[Penny Haywood]

Have you done all you can to generate more business from existing customers (always the cheapest new business!) by offering additional services and maybe keeping them up to date with a short infrequent e-newsletter?

And offering incentives to happy customers to recommend you - strangely money rewards don't work as well as nice gifts - flowers, a bottle of something pleasant... I think it feels less mercenary to the recipient. People who like you are likely to know others that would like you - the birds of a feather flock together effect. It works with bad customers too - people who are trouble tend to bring others like 'em!

What about networking to extend your contacts? 4networking.biz has lots of groups and you can go three times for a tenner a meeting (includes a cooked breakfast and they start at 8am, so it's not too early) before you have to join to continue. You get a chance to introduce yourself to the room (a 40 seconds sales pitch) plus three 10 mins business appointments at each meeting. While it's unlikely that you'll have meetings with people who immediately need you, everyone you meet has a circle of contacts and the more new people you meet, the more you increase the likelihood of someone who knows someone who needs you. If they like you, they'll be likely to recommend you.

 

Hi ,

Im currently working for a company who may provide leads to many big telemarketing companies.
If you would like me to run a count and quote for you I could. We may also be able to provide you with a sample for you to test the data before hand?

Kind Regards
Linzi Hall
01474 561046

Linzi

Just so there is no confusion, the thread is about leads/qualified leads ( people with an interest in using the services on offer ), and not data, i have neevr understood why data companies call the data: leads, they are not, its just information like address, tele number, correct decision maker and email address if available.
Just did not want any confusion as i am sure Linzi is not offering thousands of qualified leads.

Michael

 

I never get calls from indirect channel, but since making the comments above YESTERDAY i have received 3 missed calls and a voicemail from Paul saying " call be back i want to talk to you about something"....something? I can only assume he is reading these messages and wants to talk to me about them, well everything i have said is true, he may want to consider NOT harrasing people, and rather think about how he can better his service.
If you are reading this please take me off your system i no longer want to use your services. Well Done hopeit was worth it.

Michael

P.S. Dont call me again.

 

[telemax]

I tested Approved Index out about 16 months ago and can confirm that I did make some sales but also lost a lot of money. They say that the leads are genuine and charge you £25 for each one but in my experience there is only a very small amount of leads that will generate you the sales. I even sent them a detailed analysis of each lead and why I did not think that they was genuine but they did not care.

My advice is to invest the money in generating your own leads as you will have a greater ROI.

Exactly you get what you pay for, £25 is nothing, so it's no surprise you get nothing in return.

 

[david.f]

We are a marketing company who carry out events around the country in shopping centres and similar venues. We carry out short surveys with members of the public about selected products and services. We highlight a need from the consumer for the product and gain their permission to be contacted by the provider.

We are a Nationwide Company and interview people of all age and ethnic groups but each lead is tailored by your own company’s requirements.

We have been trialling our concept over the past few months and found that it works fantastically well. Over the coming months we’ll be increasing our marketing dramatically and are looking for reputable product providers to build lasting relationships with.

We can generate a great number of enquiries from people interested in purchasing many different services. If you are interested I would like to speak to you about the cost of the leads, the number of leads you require and any other information you may require. Feel free to PM me at david.f "at" creativeconceptmarketing .co.uk

 

[Business1Solutions]

I'm looking for some SEO leads at the moment - MarketingQuotes.co.uk LOOKS quite good but after reading this I think I will just stick to referrals and Google bringing me in leads

 

[leadbuyuk]

I'm reading this from three sides of the fence here and it's very interesting.

No.1 As a representative of leadbay
No.2 As a Marketing Professional
No.3 As a purchaser of leads for unrelated services

No.1 Our uk sales leads are exclusive sale only, 1 company. Our offline leads, the more robust, are generated via surveys conducted in the street. Questions are tailored to the company who has placed the order so we qualify them how they want. There is a returns policy in place which we honour. All of this makes for a great lead buying experience.

However, not every lead is a sale. A few companies we have worked with have unrealistic expectations of what leads actually are and what the working of leads involves.

Also, on the note of free trials, everyone asks for them but thats not something we offer. We know the strength of our leads, we stand by that, either the company is interested to make money via leads or not. We can arrange for a reduced price as a tester but if you give away leads for free, as we have when beginning, as people have not paid for them they dont care about them, they dont get worked properly and then people complain! Quite ridiculous. (Called one customer back a week later and they were still in the draw!)

Which brings me to
No.2 The process of buying leads is a marketing activity, or at least should be administrated by someone of similar mind who is fanatical about one thing. Return on Investment. They should also be someone who is able to correctly calculate this, taking into account ALL FACTORS.
Ensures the sales process in testing the leads is run properly and results accurately guaged. Margins on the leads may be tight but the business management needs to decide on many things following a trial. Could they be worked better? Are the Margins enough? Can capacity increase? And so on. Only then will it be known if buying leads is profitable.

No.3
Have used approved index for unrelated services and agree with the comments made.
Poor service, unfair contracts, often poor lead quality, there process of qualifying is where it falls down I think. Not stringent enough on what really is a "Qualified lead". And the cost is partiuarly high. As always though, refer to point 2, it may prove profitable even given the competition. Would still consider using them, if the ROI works, but they aren't preffered.


Lead buying is misunderstood pratice I feel and it's interesting to see it from these different angles.

 

[hallli01]

Linzi

Just so there is no confusion, the thread is about leads/qualified leads ( people with an interest in using the services on offer ), and not data, i have neevr understood why data companies call the data: leads, they are not, its just information like address, tele number, correct decision maker and email address if available.
Just did not want any confusion as i am sure Linzi is not offering thousands of qualified leads.

Michael

Sorry Michael, I didnt really explain myself very well.
I am a data roker so I do mainly deal with data lists.
However I do have a supplier who generates qualified leads. There is a huge difference between data and leads I agree, but I do deal in both.

Sorry for any misunderstanding!

Linzi

 

[Michael_Anthony]

I'm reading this from three sides of the fence here and it's very interesting.

No.1 As a representative of leadbay

Unless you are one of the several people recently made redundant by Leadbay's recent bankruptcy, it might be worth editing that post.

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

I had read above that lead's from marketingquotes.co.uk were weak, so I offered Dave from Marketing Quotes a commission if I won the business. This was his response:

"this sounds like a kind of back hander that you give to a friend down the
pub if they pass you the name and phone number of someone that is looking
for a website.

Not really how lead generation works Barnaby, not in the big world at least.

TBH I think this client is looking for a larger agency.

Thanks anyway

David"

I didn't reply and have moved his emails to the spam folder.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

You have revived a 4 year old thread and based your perception of the companies on those 4 year old comments.

Can't speak for the others but I know that Marketing quotes gets its leads from Google enquiries, they are genuine enquiries. The leads are limited in how many can buy them, and they vary in price based on quality. All leads are qualified as in confirmation is gained after the lead is captured.

Their business model is pay per lead, so in fairness @FreeRangeWeb your request to step outside of the system and have something for nothing was always likely to be greeted with that sort of response.

May I ask why you didn't just pay for the lead if it was of interest to you?

I hate to say this but this really does appear like dummy spitting because you couldn't get a free lead

 

[Mike Owen]

Hi there, I used Approved Index for a number of years which was rather expensive and not particularly wonderful, however it did bring in some business so I can’t complain all that much as every lead generation service out there does cost a rather lot... I haven’t tried marketing quotes so cannot comment, but what I have personally found as a far better option is using leads from Experian providers like refresheddirect .co .uk, you can basically breakdown the individual criteria of the type of people you are looking to target including finding out if they can even afford your product/service…, these leads are really up to date and can convert well as long as the second part of this process is well thought out, and that is the message you then convey to those individuals, this really makes or breaks the deal.

 

[Smokin Donut]

We thought it all looked too good to be true. Thanks gang. Will stick to making our mums proud & put the effort in..

 

[Michael Nguyen]

TBH, its all about the qualifying and how good a sales person you are. If the leads are not exclusive then you're going to need to be good at qualifying and asking deep questions to reveal whose a buyer and not.

I've purchased leads from companies and have managed to turn it into business but I think a good sales process is needed.

Know how to qualify, have a good follow up process and know when to quit and move on to the next lead.