Good Sales Leads
A good sales lead is only as good as your delivery process. What does that mean? It means that a good lead can seem to have less value than a truly bad lead if it is not delivered correctly. A good lead needs to be delivered in real time, in a usable format, posted into a lead management system and to the clients specifications.
When a new lead buyer starts with your company and does not get leads delivered per their request then most of the time lead quality does not matter. A lead buyer that does not get leads on time, in wrong format or has a slow start is going to label your lead company as a bad source. You could have the best sales leads on the market but the perception is that you have bad leads. To assure this does not happen to you is pretty easy and not related to your lead quality at all. It is all about customer service and communication, something some lead generation companies lack.
To start it is best to not be overly aggressive with your start time. An eager lead buyer is good to have but many lead sellers get caught up in agreeing with conditions in order to get the sale. Remember getting the sale in the lead industry is really not hard or the issue. Keeping them as a client is the hard part. So when your new lead buyer says, “Can we start today or tomorrow, I really need to get the leads fast”, you need to take the time to see if you can start the campaign at the requested time. If not just give a starting time you can live up to.
Even though every lead generation company will recommend a lead management system not all lead buyers have them. Why I do not know, but we will save that for a later post. If the client is receiving leads via a lead management system or by email it is best to test the post and assure delivery is set up properly. This can and will delay a scheduled start if your post is not correct.
The biggest factor in the lead delivery process is your delivery rate or speed. A lead buyer that gets 20 leads dumped on them at one time is going to think you do not have real time leads. However; if you are using some high traffic media outlets it is not uncommon to generate leads in burst that can produce 5 or 10 leads over 2-5 minutes. If you do not get these leads to them in an organic real time flow then it is going to be a red flag. You may not even be doing anything wrong but again it is all about perception. To combat this it is highly recommended that lead sellers also use a lead management or lead delivery system. This will assure your clients are getting leads in real time and you can put in delivery filters to assure an organic flow to all your lead buyers.
I know this post is more geared towards the lead seller but it is important for both sides of the equation to have some insight into each others operations. Remember keep the communication up and it is usually easy to work through any issues that may come up during a lead campaign.