leads for you: The Process of Lead Generation (I)

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

The Process of Lead Generation (I)

In this series of blog posts, Bill Brine, Lead Generation Specialist, explores the process of lead generation.

Have you ever purchased leads for your business? Did you ever wonder how these leads were generated and why they are typically so unresponsive? Have you spent lots of money on purchased leads, only to find that a very small percentage of these leads are interested?

The process of lead generation boils down to a seemingly simple process: offer someone a useful product or service in exchange for their contact information and permission to contact them. Then, if you are in the lead generation business, you will resell that contact information to companies who are willing to pay for fresh leads in whatever market you are targeting.

In many cases, the companies that do this sort of thing are bringing in a broad spectrum of leads that are not really all that interested in the offers that come their way. These leads just wanted to get something for free.

This is especially true in the home business industry. There are tons of lead generation sites our there giving away free things of every description, and usually there will be a checkbox on the page (already checked off) that indicates that the person would like to receive information on starting a home business, when all the person really wanted was the free stuff. Then the contact information is resold many times over. The result? The lead gets all kinds of phone calls from people he or she never heard of, trying to recruit them for many different kinds of 'business opportunities'. No wonder these kinds of leads are almost worthless!

Now of course you can increase the quality of the leads by giving more targeted free stuff. Some lead generation companies all also 'survey' the leads by phone to further qualify them. These types of leads are of better quality, and of course are more expensive. But you still run into the same problem - when you call they have never heard of you and so are hesitant to enter into any sort of discussion. Unless you are a master closer you will experience a lot of frustration and rejection.

So what's the solution?

Well, you have to learn how to generate your own, exclusive leads. Leads that are interested in your product, Leads that have already been pre-qualified as good business leads. And leads that have become familiar with your name before you contact them.

Sound impossible? Not really. Stay tuned for the next installment of this series on The Process of Lead Generation and I will show you how it is done.