Get ready for 2010, advises Justin Rees of LeadPoint.
It might seem like a long way away but before you know it, it will be Christmas and then the New Year. After a very difficult couple of years, most advisers will be hoping for a change in fortunes for 2010 and many will be thinking about using lead generation for the first time to help get the year off to a flying start.
The good news is that there are many successful lead buying firms but the mistake that many prospective lead buyers make is that they think the hard work stops after choosing a good lead provider. In reality, all the planning before you buy any leads is probably more important than where you get your leads from.
Now is the time to start planning your lead generation strategy so by 1 January 2010 you can start buying leads with a much greater chance of success.
There are a number of factors that make up a successful lead generation campaign but probably the two most important things are 1) your website and 2) your contact plan, i.e. how are you going to follow up and process the leads.
Online lead generation is often sold as the internet marketing solution for those with no internet experience. This is because by buying leads you are effectively buying the positive results of somebody else’s marketing spend. However, this shouldn’t mean you can neglect your online presence. The simple fact is that for an adviser to be successful from lead generation they need a good website.
Consumers searching online and filling in forms to be contacted are more likely to care about your website than somebody finding your company in the local yellow pages so you need to make a good first impression. Most lead providers have the technology to display your company details to the consumer once they have submitted their details online and you will be able to input your website address. Many consumers will visit your website before you have even made contact so you need to make sure it looks good. As a lead buyer, this will be the first real interaction that the consumer will have with your company and can often influence the consumer’s decision before you’ve even picked up the phone to call them. If they don’t like what they see, they might just ignore your call or go back online and fill in another form.
The other important area that needs proper planning is how you are going to contact the leads. The more consumers you speak to the more you will convert into business. Many lead buyers fall down at this stage because they haven’t dedicated the resources to following up the leads efficiently. Best practice recommendations are to follow up leads within the first few minutes of receiving them. Studies show that even following up leads in the first ten minutes compared to after the first half an hour will have a material difference on contact rates and conversion rates.
It is also vital that you have a contact plan for following up leads if you don’t manage to get through to the consumer at the first attempt. Do you have the resources to call every lead four times a day for five days to increase your chance of making contact? Do you use a lead management system to process your leads? Do you have an email programme to send emails to every lead you don’t contact at regular intervals? These are just some of the things you need to consider.
Prospective lead buyers should spend some time over the next few weeks to understand all the elements that can affect the outcome of a lead generation campaign so that when 2010 does arrive everything is in place to make lead generation a success.