Another trend that is gaining steam amongst the most flexible and robust online lead generation companies is that of granular lead targeting. Today, your lead provider should be able to target leads according to any parameters you establish, no matter how liberal or restrictive.
Many industries require various methods of targeting. For example, if you're selling refinance solutions, you may need your leads targeted to specific geographic areas. If you're selling debt consolidation services, you may only want to work with prospective customers who have over $50,000 in unsecured debt. If you're buying education leads, you may need them targeted to prospects who want to attend an online university (as opposed to a traditional school). Your lead provider should be able to deliver leads targeted by any combination of parameters, including:
- age
- gender
- home ownership
- state of residence
- level of debt
- work experience
- etc.
Online lead generation is the perfect environment for increased lead targeting choices. Your lead provider should have a powerful set of tools and systems at their disposal that allows them to establish a strict set of filters in delivering prospective customers to you. That's the way to ensure you receive the leads that make the most sense for your business.
Generating leads online offers the unique opportunity to capture prospective customers at the moment they're searching for solutions. In effect, it's the opposite of cold-calling prospects. Rather than calling someone and pitching your product, leads that are generated online are actively looking for your product. This creates enormous value in each lead and makes closing sales easier.
For example, when someone visits Google.com and searches for long-term care insurance, they are essentially raising their hand and telling you that they're interested in buying a policy. Similarly, when someone fills out a lengthy form online asking for a mortgage broker to call them with refinance options, the value of that prospective customer has increased exponentially over someone you've cold-called. Leads that are collected online can carry much higher value than leads generated through other media.
Market Segmentation
Some markets have greater complexity than others. In complex markets, you'll find some lead providers are skilled at certain aspects of the lead generation process. For example, a lead provider may excel at acquiring a high volume of traffic that ultimately yields lower-quality leads. By contrast, another lead generation company may be expert in filtering and collecting a smaller volume of higher-quality leads. In both cases, the value of the respective leads will be based upon each pool's conversion ratio.
When you work within complex industries, providing solutions to highly-motivated leads, having access to lead providers who are experts at various tasks is a major benefit. You want your lead generation company to excel at...
- identifying traffic sources that yield high-value leads
- filtering the leads based on your specific criteria
- creating lead-collecting systems that are tailor-made to your business needs
The lead provider you entrust to deliver prospective customers to your doorstep should be able to accomplish all of the above tasks.
