Lead Generation

[harvey_harvey]

Hello,
Sorry if this has been posted already.

I've been doing some research on new marketing ideas and came across 'lead generation'. I think I grasp the concept - you pay for someone to find you the leads - the ones who may buy your product.

But having looked at websites, none of them (naturally) don't provide an idea of cost. Has anyone any experience in using these companies? Where they good? Did it benefit your business? Would you use it again? Also, what kind of cost did you pay?

Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[NextPoint]

I have one thing to say - "Don't do it!". These lead generation companies (at least the ones I tried) get their leads from Google Adwords and are mostly very low quality leads that they pass to several companies, meaning that there is less chance of you getting the work - that is if the enquirer is genuine in the first place. You are better doing a pay-per-click campaign with Google and/or Yahoo - it's a bit more expensive, but you will get a much higher return on your investment if you do it properly.

 

[Fresco_Creative]

The above advice couldn't have been put across better

Be very careful. As mentioned, try and utilise the search engine as a means to get in front of the most relevant prospects and go from there.

Though I have never dealt with Jam answering service, I do get the idea they generate a lot of business from coming up well in google.

As an idea, I hope this helps in some way

 

[harvey_harvey]

I have one thing to say - "Don't do it!". These lead generation companies (at least the ones I tried) get their leads from Google Adwords and are mostly very low quality leads that they pass to several companies, meaning that there is less chance of you getting the work - that is if the enquirer is genuine in the first place. You are better doing a pay-per-click campaign with Google and/or Yahoo - it's a bit more expensive, but you will get a much higher return on your investment if you do it properly.

Brilliant, thanks. We use Google already, but just looking into other areas too.

 

[cassar]

Cost of leads could be anything from £1.50 to £8.00. Quality is not too good and you could look at converting 2%. It all depend on how the lead generator is advertising. If its a comepetition generated lead then the quality is very bad. If the advert is specifically pointed towards your product then they could be OK.

 

[termsandconditions]

Leads can be generated through a variety of channels. The cost per lead is entirely dependent upon the market. Have focused a lot in the past upon phone-generated leads and have paid up to £32 per qualified lead. Of-course, it's down to you to convert the lead into a sale.

If your business model can take this level of lead generation cost and if you are prepared to work with the lead gen company to build up to an acceptable level of leads, then PM me and I'll pass on details of the lead gen company used.

Best Regards

 

[RadiusBPO]

Harvey - Whats your business?

Buying leads works better for some than others.

 

[DeadlineData]

...Can cover a wide range of channels.

We specialise in highly segmented data lists across the UK for DM, Email and Telemarketing. The latter we do ourselves more as a data cleaning tool than anything else.

From my experience Google offers the best ROI and recently I have used an Affiliate partner which has delivered a better return. The problem with the Affiliate partner is the long term commitment ie contract, so if anything does go wrong, we may end up paying a cheap cost per lead but lack of conversion.

You can use an affiliate partner on a national campaign so you get all of the leads tailored to your need. Can be costly but if you have a large budget, I would highly recommend it.

 

[TJS1980]

I find Lead Forensics fantastic for generating leads from our website. Rather than me explain it, it's probably best you just see for yourself at Lead Forensics dot com

 

[marketingquotes]

Hi Harvey,

There are lots of different sorts of lead generation around.

What sort of leads were you looking to have generated?

Regards,

Marketing Quotes Support.

 

[Matt Fenn]

Hi All,

We've just launched a new lead generation service called Jumplead, it works by analysing website traffic and filtering the quality leads (similar principle to lead forensics), this is combined with team based lead management functionality.

The nice thing is that you know the leads are in the market for what you have to offer because they've checked out your website.

There's a free trial so you can see if it works for you, generally pretty good for B2B leads. We're getting some nice results so far...

 

[whoisvisiting.com]

Hi Harvey, it's great if you can find a CPA model with lead suppliers that proves profitable. This means not just tracking and understanding how much it costs to purchase on a per lead basis but actually what the effective cost to acquire a closed sale.

Lead generation companies can work extremely well and be sustainable if you build this model correctly.

At Whoisvisiting.com we identify companies who have visited your website and not engaged. This is at a fixed monthly cost starting at £29 per month so you don't incur a cost per lead but instead identify companies and at your discretion profile, approach and close.

We have a 14 day trial so anyone who is interested to try for yourself, no obligation please do give us a try.

Thanks

Nick

 

[martinjones]

One of the best way of lead generation is a video. Research shows that video has the capacity to convert 50 % strangers to leads. More than a blog or an article, going for a video is the best way and easy technique to generate leads. The video could be a review or a testimonial by your clients.
For example: >>Mods Note: Video deleted<<

 

[StevePoster]

By using video and blogging platform will provide you lead generation because these medium is usually used by your targeted audience to know a lot more regarding product and services.

 

[drdialeruk]

From my experience Google offers the best ROI and recently I have used an Affiliate partner which has delivered a better return. Lead generation companies can work extremely well and be sustainable if you build this model correctly.

 

[altonroot]

As far as quality of lead is concern, I am not much doubtful. But my experience is they sell those leads to many people so competition increases on the same lead which means the price always comes down and it becomes eventually low quality leads. I wouldn't do this. Rather I know agency which offers good service of SEO based on leads. Set a Goal in analytics and decide pay scale on each goal (which you call lead)

 

[JonnyMP]

Lead generation is not something you want to outsource to a stranger. If you have someone on your staff who could do this job for you, then that might be a slightly better option. Otherwise, you will want to generate your own leads.

One very good way to generate leads is by adding interested prospects to your email list. At least this way, you have a chance to talk to the people who might be interested in using your product. This is going to be one of your best lead generation resources.

 

[intelligentppc]

I've done lead generation via PPC (mainly Adwords) for almost 10 years now. It can work for both affiliate and lead buyer, but you need to be absolutely clear before you start on the criteria for a valid lead, with a rejection policy in place to ensure that risk for both parties is limited.

It's easy to say 'avoid lead generators like the plague' or 'do it yourself', but in reality lead gen CAN and DOES work for certain industries. It's the high lead-value sectors where it works - finance, insurance, home improvements - because these companies can afford to pay a higher price per valid lead. For instance a life insurance deal is very valuable - buyers are paying up to £40 per valid lead as long as that lead hits a certain criteria.

What doesn't work in my experience is the lower value leads, e.g. less than £10 per valid lead. The reason for this is pretty simple:

- Adwords provides the highest converting leads, as customers are actively searching for that particular product
- Adwords is expensive for this reason
- Affiliates have to pay upfront, and per click, regardless of whether their clicks convert into leads.
- To make a margin, affiliates must target the 'long-tail', longer keywords and phrases which are cheaper with not so much competition from the 'big boys'.
- By targeting the long tail, the volume a single affiliate can produce is limited.
- On a £10 lead, the affiliate is only making (if they can do Adwords properly) maybe £1-3 per lead. If they can't do huge volume then they simply aren't making enough to make it worthwhile.

On a £30-£40 lead, the affiliate may be able to make £5-10, which means that lower volume is OK and they can still earn a half-decent amount from their endeavours. As long as the buyer is good at converting leads, then it's usually a win-win.

Pro tip: there are genuine 'premium lead providers' who only use paid advertising to generate expensive but high quality leads. Then there are the shoddy data companies who recycle old data, use co-reg, incentives etc to generate high volumes of poorly-converting leads which clog your call centre and will cost you a lot of money.

My advice is to start off with a small test of maybe 50 leads with the option to cancel sooner if the leads are clearly terrible, and take it from there.

Lead generation can work very very well - I have made a living from it for nearly 10 years - but as a buyer of leads you have to be very careful.

Another avenue to explore is mobile leads, as these are currently cheaper than traditional leads and convert very well in our experience. Quick though as any opportunity like this will become saturated.

 

[inventive007]

With the help of Google Adwords we can generate more leads. For quality leads we have to optimize our adwords campaign very well. Adwords optimization includes relevant keywords, ads text, geo location, our bidding, if we care these things then it will create more quality leads through adwords.

 

[Carlo Matteo Scalzo]

Hi Harvey,

I run an online advertising / lead generation company, so I might be able to shed some light on the subject.

Traditional lead generation companies work like this:
- they set up advertising campaigns (Google Adwords, display advertising, Facebook Ads, etc.) to collect leads that are interested in a specific kind of service (e.g., insurance)
- they sell each of those leads to four or more companies that provide that service
- these companies pay a fixed price per lead (the actual amount depends on the industry and the average sale value in that industry)

Other lead generation companies (like mine) use a different approach:
- they set up advertising campaigns (Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, etc.) to promote YOUR company, not just a generic service (i.e., the ads promote YOUR insurance services, not insurance in general)
- they collect the leads generated by these advertising campaigns
- they only send the leads to YOUR company
- you pay a fixed monthly fee to the lead generation company: if your ROI is positive, you can increase the ad spend and get more leads

The advantage of this approach is that you don't have to fight with other companies over the same leads, and you also get high-quality leads (because they've been "pre-sold" on your company right from the first ad they've seen).
This kind of leads, called "exclusive leads", convert at 20% or more.

P.S.
If someone here is interested in generating leads for their business, my company is offering a free phone strategy session to help you do just that.
Just send me a PM and I'll book a free session for you.

 

[Thermodynamic Man]

That's all very well...and obviously exclusive leads are better than non. But it still comes down to the same old chestnut...money up front without knowing the quality. As I have said previously...have heard it all before.... then these companies disappear with the money.
Too long in the tooth and burnt too often to go down that route. Not out of choice but door lnocking seems to pay better dividends for us.... not that we would do it if there were are a better way.... just haven't come across it yet

 

[Carlo Matteo Scalzo]

Thermodynamic Man,

if you don't trust anyone, can't you just get an agency that will charge you per lead (or per sale) ?

In the past, I've done a deal with one of my clients where we got paid a percentage on the sales generated from our leads.

Sure, it's the exception rather than the rule (I knew the client, and I was confident about his conversion rate), but I'm sure you can find a similar deal.

 

[Thermodynamic Man]

Thermodynamic Man,

if you don't trust anyone, can't you just get an agency that will charge you per lead (or per sale) ?
l.

You would think there maybe somebody out there that would like that arrangement wouldn't you?
Not had that type of offer yet though sadly to say. The payment on a sale would be rather productive I think as the conversion rate is usually 1 in 3 to4 but there is quite a bit of meat in the deal, even including commission for the rep