I’m not saying you should stop buying leads altogether from lead generation companies – in fact, I sell leads myself. Buying leads typically allows advertisers both cost advantages and the ability to scale up quickly. However, if you are a lead buyer and have not (yet) invested resources to generate a large volume of leads internally, there are several reasons (including targeted leads for more profit) that you should seriously consider building this channel – sooner than later.
One huge reason is having the freedom to drive “free” inbound calls to your sales floor. Call-ins usually represent the low hanging fruit of the buyer base and are typically not a component of leads purchased from a third party. Obviously, there is a 100% contact ratio on call-ins (as long as someone answers the phone). Beyond that, the mindset of someone calling in is better because that person is reaching out to you. Therefore, the close ratio should be significantly higher on these calls and thus an added bonus to the online leads you are generating. Not sure how to start? Here are 3 ways to drive inbounds as part of your lead generation campaigns:
Caveat: Facebook, some display publishers, and most paid search engines do not allow exit pops off the landing page. For those media types, simply build a landing page with the phone number displayed at the top. You will most likely see conversions into leads stay the same or go up. Conversely, many affiliates won’t want you to promote a phone number on the landing page for fear they will miss out on conversions (which is usually not the case). The exit shadow box is the perfect solution for these affiliates.
Caveat: If you are running email traffic, make sure to drive calls to an IVR (automated answering service) that allows an option for people to opt out, as you do not want to bog down the sales floor with people calling to unsubscribe. Notice that none of the above strategies increase your media spend, hence the “free” label. All that said, there are costs associated with building out an internal lead generation channel and optimizing it until it is profitable. If you are not set up to generate leads internally because of technical and/or media buying resources, but still want to take advantage of the pros associated with generating your own leads, maybe an online direct response agency is for you, and we would love the opportunity to speak with you about it. In part 2 of this article, I will discuss why more expensive is better. |
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