Ten Tips For Selecting Lead Generation Companies
With more than 100 lead generation companies listed in the Business.com directory, how do you choose the one that’s right for your business? This questions is asked by professional firms and small businesses every day. If you are considering lead generation companies to jump-start your sales or save time and money in this difficult economic climate, here are some tips to help you decide.
- Be sure you want to work with one of the lead generation companies at all. There are, of course, trade-offs between the cost and your time. There is also the trade-off between outsourcing to one of these businesses and hiring your own sales staff. It might be worth doing the math.
- Do the usual due diligence before hiring anybody. Check out the company. Be sure you are hiring a reputable company. Check with the Better Business Bureau and with the Consumer Protection Agencies. Find out if the company has been sued. Ask how long they have been in business and what local companies they have worked for. Then check them out with those companies.
- Match the company with the kind of leads you need. There is a difference between B2B leads and B2C leads. Many lead generation companies only do B2B leads.
- Compare the services provided by several companies for the price. The services might include a list of leads, a list of people who have inquired about your business, lead qualification, building a lead profile, telemarketing programs, direct mail programs, lead management to the first sale, customer relationship development, cross-selling, up-selling, and more.
- Check out their selling philosophy. Do the lead generation companies you are considering use high pressure selling techniques? How do they qualify leads? How much information do they gather about each lead?
- What are their methods? Do you deplore telemarketing and want to rule out all companies that use it? Do you feel strongly about email spam?
- How do you define a qualified lead, and how do the lead generation companies you are considering? If there is a serious disconnect, it is probably not going to be a good arrangement for you.
- Are you confident each of the lead generation companies understands what is involved in selling your products or services? Do you sell a simple product that just happens to be a better mousetrap? Or are you selling complex business solutions? Are you convinced each company can sell for you?
- Do you need long term results or a quick influx of new leads? The difference between the lead generation companies might be their track record with new product launches, for example.
- Can you communicate easily with each of the companies you are considering?
Evaluating various lead generation companies when making a selection takes time and care. You will want the best possible match with your business. Hopefully, these ten tips will help you.
Ten Ways to Get Internet Leads
Many small business owners and professional services firms have the erroneous belief that if they put up a three or four page web site that duplicates their press kit they will instantly generate new internet leads for their business. Generating leads for a business is not quite so easy or so hands-free. But it also is not advanced calculus.
Getting internet leads that will grow your business requires strategy and planning, hands-on work by you or someone you hire, a web site designed to convert leads into customers or clients, and a follow-up process.
We live in a time when people want and expect information. They will visit your web site and give you contact information and permission to contact them only if you offer the information they need in a format they want. This means that part of your internet leads strategy must include a content strategy. You must decide what kind of content you can offer and how you will package it. They you must decide whether to offer it free or for a price. Finally you need to decide where you will promote that content package and how you will deliver it to the people who meet your qualifications.
Among the activities that will bring new internet leads to your web site are:
- Social networking
- Article publishing
- Press releases or media relations
- Optimized web content
- High search rankings
- Video content (if appropriate)
- A properly structured web site
- Email marketing
- Google Adwords and online advertising
- A process for converting leads to customers
Whether you launch a strategy to get internet leads on the basis of your own efforts and by hiring the right people to build your site and produce your content or you decide to buy internet leads from one of the companies that sells lists of targeted leads, you must have the processes in place to convert those leads to prospects and then to customers.
Want to Lose Your Shirt – Fast? Don’t Use PPC Campaign Management
PPC campaign management is essential if you want to get the most for your money with Google Adwords and other PPC ads. PPC advertising has a direct relationship to web site traffic and your ability to get and convert leads. This makes it is a very important expense item in your marketing budget.
PPC campaigns based on keywords and keyword phrases must be attentively managed regularly and frequently. Setting up a campaign involves building a strategy, setting a budget and bidding on keywords, creating landing pages, creating the ad copy, keyword research and selection, geographic targeting, and analytics.
Once campaign setup is complete, the job of PPC campaign management begins. This include: monitoring of click-through activity and management of goals, scoring leads produced and managing the scores, daily tracking, weekly or monthly reporting, daily or weekly updates, improving ad copy, improving costs, revising ads, creating new ads, ongoing keyword research.
It is in PPC campaign management that campaigns are evaluated, upgraded, improved, modified for better performance. Sometimes it is necessary to shift to attract a different market segment. Your programs must always be carefully analyzed against your competitors.
The vulnerability in PPC advertising is that if you place ads in the wrong places or you focus on the wrong keywords (or phrases). You could be spending a lot of money and getting the wrong people to your site. This is why PPC campaign management is important.
For example, if you are an attorney and you specialize in medical malpractice, advertising “Experts in International Business Law” probably will not draw the right people. Even if it should cost less (which is not likely), the traffic it would generate would leave your site as quickly as they arrive. With bad, or no, PPC campaign management you end up throwing money down a hole.
If, on the other hand, you win bids on “helping you recover from a surgeon’s mistakes” or “when you suffer the results of mis-prescribed medication”, you would be more likely to get the kind of traffic you want. This is called quality traffic. Quality traffic is made up of people who are highly likely to be interested in your products or services and to become sales leads when they arrive on your site. This is the goal.
PPC campaign management works to analyze daily changes in your competition, competitor marketing, changes in keyword selection for searches. PPC campaign management also tests and analyzes ads and responses, then edits and tests and analyzes again to find the right ad for each keyword in each market.
PPC campaign management also analyzes every part of what happens when someone clicks through to your website. Which landing page is most effective? Which part of the page generates the best rate of response? Do visitors follow the conversion process or do they drop out at some point? Why?
Good PPC campaign management monitors prospect activity, keyword usage, customer needs, competitor activity, pricing and ad effectiveness to market your website. It then aligns all web site pages to efficiently convert leads to sales.
Because it takes so much time and work, because of the market research required, the task of PPC campaign management is frequently outsourced to campaign management companies who have the experience and expertise in designing and managing effective and cost-efficient campaigns.
3 Guaranteed Website Traffic Secrets
Almost everyone who constructs and launches a website would love to be on the receiving end of guaranteed website traffic. Some people believe there is no such thing as guaranteed website traffic. Others have tried several approaches to guarantee a certain volume of traffic to their websites.
One approach to getting guaranteed website traffic is to create a contest on your website with a really nice prize. The contest needs to be fairly difficult but look easy. You can also state that you will award one prize and that the winner will be chosen by random drawing from all correct entrants. Then place ads for your products and services around the contest entry. Then promote heavily, including an email blast, tweet and facebook post about the contest encouraging everyone to tell their friends.
Another approach would be to film an incredibly funny video and place it on your web site. Also place a teaser for the full film on Facebook and other video sites, tweet the location, and send out email announcements. If you get lucky and it goes viral, you get guaranteed website traffic to view the entire film.
The best approach is to buy guaranteed website traffic from an internet company. A simple search on the phrase will lead you to several companies that offer guaranteed website traffic. Most of these companies price the traffic at $2.00 to $5.00 per 1,000 unique visitors to your site within one month.
These companies – the reputable ones – do this by amassing a huge list of email addresses of people who want to know about new sites, products and services. They match the interests of these people to the subject of your site or product or service. They then notify the people they believe are appropriate and ask them to visit your site within one week or one month.
Some of these companies operate simple exchange networks. When you buy guaranteed website traffic, your name is added to a list for other similar needs.
But there is a caution. You need to be very careful about the company you choose. As everyone knows there are scams on the internet. Choose a company that tracks and certified the leads as real people and not a software application, guarantees that the people will have some interest in your business, and that certifies safe financial transactions.
When launching a site or launching a new product or service, guaranteed website traffic can be worth a bundle – if it is targeted to your business. Protect yourself and check out companies before you make a choice. Then go for it. It might make your sales quota for the year!
Today’s Most Underutilized Marketing Strategy: Email Leads
Do you wonder why some businesses are doing a booming business online while you are still struggling to understand how to use email leads effectively? Chances are you have not yet mastered the three stages of understanding email leads that will enable you to use them legally, efficiently, effectively and for profit.
An email lead is generated every time you persuade someone who is interested (even minimally) in the products and/or services you offer to give you two things: their email address and their permission to send them information about your business at their email address.
What is the value of email leads?
Email leads are your treasure trove of future customers for your business, practice, or non-profit organization. When an email lead meets the two critical qualifications (address and permission), you have a potential customer or client.
The value of any email lead is that you know these people have some level of interest in your business or service. What is even more valuable, you have their permission to contact them and share with them information, product or service information and advertising or promotional material. As long as you understand the CAN spam laws and abide by them, you can continue to contact your email leads.
Uncovering the secret of how to gather email leads
There are many ways to get email leads. Whether you rent a mailing list and send your information or you place an ad online or in the traditional media encouraging people to learn more about you and your products, the goal is the same: to get information about your business, store, products, services, etc. before the right people so they will enter a relationship in which they learn more and eventually make a decision to buy from you. You can also do blind mailings to the lists of business associates.
Maximizing the potential of every lead
Then you prepare a clear and concise statement of the value proposition you offer to your clients or customers. You place that statement in an engaging format and place it before the people who are your target audience. Then you monitor the activity and the responses of those people to your announcement. If only a small number of people respond, you need to evaluate the message, the medium and the audience selection. With testing and refinement your response rate will increase.
Using email is cost effective, efficient, and productive. The minimal cost of sending emails and the availability of many applications and companies to help you convert the leads to customers or clients make email lead nurturing one of the best marketing tactics available to any business today. Never underestimate the value of your email leads.
How Proximity Marketing Can Fill Your Business With Customers
Proximity marketing uses wireless technologies to deliver messages to people selected by their proximity to a specific location at the time the message is sent. Proximity marketing is also frequently called location marketing or location-based marketing. The method can be used with blue tooth enabled devices, cell phones and Internet connections.
Old Idea, New Delivery Mechanism
Proximity marketing is not an entirely new idea. It has been used by businesses for decades. The traditional ways of doing location-based marketing included some of the following tactics:
- Placing a flyer under the windshield wipers of every car in the parking lot of a shopping mall to announce the opening of a new store.
- Placing a flyer with a coupon for a free dessert at a local restaurant under the wipers of all cars parked outside a sporting event.
- Mailing coupons to every address within a 25 mile radius of a store.
- Making an announcement in a store or mall offering special pricing in a store or on specific products. (K-mart was famous for their blue-light specials, for example).
Today, most people carry with them some sort of electronic device that facilitates both identification of the location and capability for instant communication. People can simply indicate that they want to receive messages and offers and expect to receive timely and relevant special offers, information, coupons or rewards by simply being in the right place at the right time.
What Kind of Proximity Marketing Can You Do?
The limits on proximity marketing are as wide as your imagination and creativity. We are only beginning to see the results of more creative approaches to or uses of proximity marketing.
Information and offers can be delivered in a wide variety of formats: text, still pictures, animations, video, audio, VCard (business cards) VCal (calendar events). The kinds of things commonly delivered using proximity marketing include: photos, video clips, interviews, product or service brochures, wallpapers for mobile phones, discount coupons, special offers, company contact information, event announcements and much more.
Proximity marketing with wireless technology allows you to define an audience as broadly or as narrowly as you wish. Consider these examples:
You could send a coupon to everyone on a particular stretch of beach on a hot summer afternoon offering a free 32 oz. drink in your beachfront restaurant with any food purchase. Or you could make the offer only to people who have a local area code or only to people who have an out-of-state area code on their phone.
If you operate a bed and breakfast inn, you might send a photo of a guest room and a discount offer to everyone coming through the local train station with a device registered outside your local area.
If you operate a taxi company and you are located in a region that has a number of retirement communities or independent living facilities, you might select a community and send a VCard to every device within the community announcing a 10% discount on every fare for people over age 65.
There are thousands of ways to use proximity marketing and capitalize on the capabilities of wireless technologies. Although there are relatively few independent and scientific studies of response rates, anecdotal evidence claims responses in the 23 – 55% range. Considering the relatively low cost of proximity marketing, it is worth serious consideration.
How To Explode Small Business Sales With YouTube Advertising
Marketing a small business with YouTube advertising may result in the biggest bang for the buck of any marketing tactic you use to build your brand, to influence the voices that will influence your potential customers, and to present your product or service information to a broad audience. But there is a huge amount of hype in circulation about the value and popularity of the various social media, including YouTube.
There are some myths abroad about all of the social media and about YouTube advertising. Let’s see which ones need to be debunked.
- The popularity of social media has exploded in the past 18 months and can be expected to continue to grow exponentially into the foreseeable future. This is false. The popularity of social media has actually begun to decline. This does not mean it should be ignored for marketing value. To the contrary, the opportunity to reach even 1/4 of the currently active members of social sites is worth the time, cost and effort. YouTube advertising has the potential to reach 800 million people globally.
- Twitter is the most important of the social media. This, also, is false. First, according to a recent study by Marketing Profs, LLC (The State of Social Media, 2009), most businesses with Twitter accounts actually have 100 followers or less. It is primarily the media – who are the ones talking about the popularity of Twitter – who have the staggering numbers of followers.
- Facebook is more important than YouTube advertising. This statement is also false. A year ago it was more important to have a presence on Facebook than on YouTube. This is no longer true. A powerful presence on YouTube will be of more benefit today.
Marketing a small business with YouTube advertising makes a great deal of sense for small businesses for several reasons.
First, unlike television advertising, you do not need to pay for a time slot or rely on only the people who are watching when your ad runs. Posting a video for YouTube advertising is free. What is more, once posted, it is always available for people to see. Whenever someone executes a search for one of the keywords you attach to your video, it is accessible. Think of YouTube advertising as the ad that never sleeps.
Second, unlike most advertising venues, YouTube advertising is always on and can go viral at any moment. Think back for a moment to what YouTube did for Susan Boyle last year! A video that goes viral could be seen by 800 million people around the world!
Third, it does not have to cost a fortune to place an ad on YouTube. You do not need to rent a studio, hire professional actors, have a professionally-written script, and use the industry’s best equipment. Many of the most popular videos used in YouTube advertising were filmed using a web-cam or a personal video camera.
Fourth, your video for YouTube advertising actually should not be a typical commercial. People do not go to YouTube to view TV commercials. If they leave the room, tune them out or edit them out when watching TV, why would they be interested in them on the Internet? The more creative, entertaining, surprising, informative and/or relevant the video the greater will be its interest in YouTube advertising.
One of the most popular YouTube ads was a video of a man trying to mix very strange things in a blender (with a clearly visible brand name). After laughing at the crazy combinations attempted and the hilarious results, viewers saw the man finally mix the right ingredients to create a perfect drink. This was followed by an announcement that the video was presented by the manufacturer of the blender.
You can create videos for YouTube advertising at very low cost and post them to the site for no additional cost. What you will need to invest is time and creativity. Your creativity will need to be personal and relevant; the video will need to be actionable; and it will be best if your video shows how people can interact with your brand.
What can you expect to achieve? Of the people who used YouTube advertising for PR purposes, 29.1% said it worked great, while another 49.3% said it worked a little (according to the MarketingProfs Fall 2009 Survey). Of businesses that posted a video for YouTube advertising and used the analytics from the site to profile the people who viewed the video, 28.8% said it worked great and 35.6% said it worked a little.
Producing a video that is engaging, entertaining, relevant to your product or service, and personal to prospective customers can be very effective YouTube advertising. It can help you build your brand, associate your products or services with a particular group and achieve your PR goals. With a little luck, your YouTube advertising video could go viral and you could win the small business marketing sweepstakes.
If You Want to Make More Money, Improve Your Website Traffic
If you operate a professional or medical services business or practice, you cannot afford to ignore the proven fact that you get new clients or patients when you improve website traffic. This assumes, of course, that you have a web site. It also assumes that you want to grow your business. If you can improve website traffic you open the door to new clients or patients for your practice.
According to the Pew Research Center Internet and American Life Project, more than three quarters of all Americans use the internet to gather information or do research. Gathering health information has become an important reason for using the internet during the past decade. According to Pew Research Center findings, “Eight in ten internet users have looked online for health information. Many e-patients say the internet has had a significant impact on the way they care for themselves or for others.”
The same is true of professional services in areas such as accounting, financial planning, legal services and more. Can prospective clients/patients find you, or do you need to improve website traffic to your site?
The Internet is rapidly replacing the Yellow Pages when people need to find a professional. This happens more often when professionals improve website traffic. Why is this happening? It is happening for several reasons:
– There are too many competing “yellow pages” books
– Many of the yellow pages books do not reflect current information
– A professional’s website includes far more information about the individual’s background, specialties, ethics, education and personality which will improve website traffic.
– A website will probably include a map of where the office(s) is located. In addition to showing proximity to one’s home, the map provides instant directions, which saves time.
– A website can also provide information to a client/patient such as how to schedule an appointment, what to bring to the appointment, how early to arrive, where to find parking, what to do in the time leading up to an appointment, additional information on various types of problems or needs that would bring the new client/patient to you. This information will also improve website traffic.
– Good websites also indicate how you handle payments, fee structures, etc.
– Websites often include what other clients/patients say about your services
– Websites can also provide lists of memberships in professional associations or societies
– Good websites also list community activities
Your website can provide the additional information a prospective client/patient cannot obtain from the phone book or from a referral. In fact, the kind of information many people want before they schedule an appointment is precisely the kind of information not readily available anywhere. The only way to get this information – other than from a good website – is through a personal referral. Isn’t this the best reason to have a good website that will improve website traffic?
When you improve website traffic, you will receive more qualified leads to grow your business simply because of the personal information you can provide. You will also generate more leads for your business or practice when you improve website traffic because it is faster and easier for people to find you, find out where your office is located, and confirm your area of specialty (or other appropriate qualifying information).
A good website, well designed and populated with the right information will not only improve website traffic to your online presence, it will draw the potential clients or patients who are most likely to want/need your services and most likely to schedule an appointment. You can also use that website to answer questions clients/patients are likely to have after they leave the first appointment.
How to Drive Tons of Visitors to Your Site With Cheap Traffic
If you have been involved in any conversations about getting traffic to a web site, you have almost certainly heard someone talk about cheap traffic. If you are new to internet marketing, you might not know what is meant by “cheap” site traffic. The first thing you should understand, however, is that “cheap” in the context of web site traffic is as relative as the word “cheap” is in any other context.
For a struggling entrepreneur who is trying to start a business amid economic uncertainty or a small business that has just invested thousands of dollars in a top-of-the-line web site, any amount of money spent on getting traffic to that site probably will not seem like cheap traffic at any price. There are, however, ways to get traffic to your web site that do not cost everything you’ve put aside for your child’s education.
If you are on a budget (or not), there is nothing better than free traffic for your business. But it takes time to build the kind of visibility that will bring throngs of targeted visitors to your site every day. While you are creating the content and taking other steps to build your online visibility, you probably need customers or clients obtained as cheap traffic. And this is the reason many entrepreneurs, professionals and small businesses buy traffic.
What is cheap traffic?
If you are a small business, an entrepreneur, or a professional with a limited budget, finding cheap traffic is critical. Here are some ways to get quality targeted traffic and a low cost:
- Buy a small amount of targeted traffic (expect to pay $1.30 per thousand).
- Use Google adwords to pay only for the traffic that actually clicks through to your site.
- Use other pay-per-click advertising (banner ads, other ads, links on other sites).
- Use paid banner or space ads on sites that cost less than many others (instead of The Wall Street Journal, try a local newspaper).
- Cheap traffic is available if you make maximum use of local internet advertising.
- Focus on lower-cost marketing tactics (e-mail marketing, inbound marketing, article marketing, link exchanges, ad networks).
None of these marketing tactics is free. It will be up to you to decide what qualifies as cheap traffic for your business. Even some of the tactics that appear to be free (e-mail marketing, article marketing, PR campaigns) involve cost related to distribution, writing, design, etc.
With careful planning and a clear budget, you can develop a marketing plan that will generate cheap traffic (as you define it) for your web site. Just take the time to balance the tactics and look for the best quality for the lowest cost.
How To Buy Website Traffic Without Getting Taken
Are you having trouble attracting enough traffic to your web site? Are you creating a new web site and in need of a lot of traffic quickly? Do you prefer buying traffic for your site over investing the time and effort in earning organic traffic? If this is the case, you might want to buy web site traffic.
When You Buy Traffic There Are Dangers
If you plan to buy web site traffic you need to know about possible dangers and consider them very carefully. There are unethical companies that will try to scam you by simply sending anyone and everyone to your site in order to pile up a large number of clicks. They will bill you on the basis of the number of clicks they deliver to your site. Some companies use software to direct people to your site who do not want to be there. The visitor leaves instantly, but you are still billed for the click.
A second danger you need to consider before you buy web site traffic is how this will affect your site’s reputation with the search engines and with any affiliate accounts you might have. Whether you are using Google Adsense or you have other affiliate accounts, you will be held responsible for the accuracy of the traffic to your site and the number of clicks on your pages and ads.
Three Main Steps to Buy Web Site Traffic
There are several companies that sell web traffic. Some let you target your traffic. The goal when many people buy web site traffic is often either to increase traffic quickly or to jump-start traffic on a new web site. These companies collect traffic from email marketing or ads or by using pop-up or pop-under windows on other web sites.
It is easy to buy web site traffic. You create your web site to meet your goals. Test your site for organic traffic for some period of time (a week or a month). Analyze the traffic and establish a basis for comparison. Then shop the companies that will allow you to buy web site traffic. Look at whether or not you can target the traffic by geography, demographics or related interest.
Select the company that seems the best match for your needs. Then test it. Buy web site traffic in the smallest quantity possible, and measure how the visitors behave on your site. Do they bounce off immediately? Do they read content? Do they make a purchase?
If you are content with the traffic the company delivers, you can then go back and buy more traffic. If you suspect click fraud or the traffic does not seem to be sufficiently targeted, you can either try to re-target the traffic you need or change to another company. You can also test several companies and make a choice of where you want to buy web site traffic based on results.
