Lead Generation Businesses

[JDIII2007]

I am obviously new here but have a few questions about lead generation businesses that perhaps some of the more experienced folks can help me with.

1. How do you like to go about your research on deciding what could be a good lead generation business? I have started by looking at general search numbers for broad keywords and more local ones. I also take a look at the number of ads that are showing for these keywords that pertain to specific businesses in that niche. I also look to see how many competitor type sites are in the niche. What other things do you look for to see if a niche could be a good choice?

2. In MJ's interview with mixergy, he talks about spending money in what would now be Google Adwords ($20,000 a month) to help solicit businesses to sign-up for his directory service which he later shifted to a lead generation service. For those who are doing lead generation, how do you solicit new businesses to join? Would you recommend using PPC in a similar fashion or have you found better results with using Facebook or even a more direct method like emailing/cold calling these businesses? I have read some posts where some folks have had trouble getting people to signup for various reasons. How did you folks start to get the ball rolling? Start local with even face to face meetings?

3. A couple of other words or acronymns that I am not familiar with that were used in that interview: "beak to beak" and "CFO" I have included them with their sentences to give them some context but would like to know their meaning if anyone here knows?

Andrew: There was no Google at the time, but you’re saying you were buying ads from Goto from Overture, right? Okay, so they would do a search, the limo companies, they see your ad, they’d click it, they’d come to your website. Your website would make the sale, and at the end of the sale, they’d be in your directory, and that’s where the revenue came from?

MJ: Yes, technically I was beak to beak because limousine companies were my revenue sources. Although my target … excuse me?

and

MJ: That was just through simple Internet searches. I did a lot of FCO. I learned that all on my own. Advertising, marketing through … you know, it seems to go through a phase. Back then, it was Goto, then it was Overture, then it moved to Yahoo then it moved to Google, and nowadays it’s Facebook. So I believe, you know, you have to monetize the big property, otherwise you’ll never, you know, you’ll never grow.



I have plenty of other questions but am feeling a little guilty about the length and the simplicity of my questions. If you guys have any other books, resources, or forums that you would recommend to help a newbie looking into lead generation businesses, please let me know. I really value any help you guys can give me but don't want to waste your time with other basic questions I can maybe find elsewhere.

 

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[Mike39]

I am obviously new here but have a few questions about lead generation businesses that perhaps some of the more experienced folks can help me with....

Thanks for starting this thread,
Would be interested as well, thanks JD07!

 

[Toiletcake]

Jd - I have been in lead gen since 2007 in a large vertical, maybe I can offer a hand with some of your questions.

1. For my situation I didn't go looking for the lead gen niche, I fell into it because I was on the other side of the business model and needed more traffic to feed my growing business. Imagine if you had a limo company and needed more rides for example.

Once I begin learning the basics of targeting traffic with PPC and Seo I quickly learned that other business owners were in the same boat as me. I reached out to them via email,fax and calls. These companies were receptive and started buying my leads. I saw real fast the power of an automated service business that ran 24/7 just like you read about in Mj's book. I sold off my original business that required overhead and personal and of course problems and grew the lead gen business. I have grown into a few other niches from here and sales have increased year after year thankfully.

I would say that the best way to find a good niche is to identify a service that people need. Look for something that everyone will use at some point "national level of course" and then try to find other lead gen sites that are doing the same thing, same thing Mj preaches about. Study them and go after it. I would throw up a basic site without over thinking it to much and dive in. If you see other lead gen businesses running in the niche you are studying then you can bet there's money to be made. You just need to do a better job at it to be successful. If you create another "me too" styled service you can get moving and make some money until you identify a way to improve on the service you are offering. The worst thing to do is to over think it imho. Get out there and give it a go. The other thing I quickly noticed is that businesses will have money to spend if it benefits them. If there is other lead gen guys in the niche then its nothing new you are pitching and I bet they will try you out. If your good then they will stay with you.

Customers come into our network of sites from the major search engines. Businesses find us about 25% of the time from seeing our ads that are aimed at the customers. They know we offer leads to we get a call or an email. I keep a staff that spends their days reaching out to business owners, this creates a buzz and many times they aren't ready for our leads now but in the next month or 2 our phone rings.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[JDIII2007]

Thank you for the response. I really appreciate it. In fact, I do have a couple of questions based on your response.

I would say that the best way to find a good niche is to identify a service that people need. Look for something that everyone will use at some point "national level of course" and then try to find other lead gen sites that are doing the same thing, same thing Mj preaches about. Study them and go after it. I would throw up a basic site without over thinking it to much and dive in. If you see other lead gen businesses running in the niche you are studying then you can bet there's money to be made. You just need to do a better job at it to be successful. If you create another "me too" styled service you can get moving and make some money until you identify a way to improve on the service you are offering. The worst thing to do is to over think it imho. Get out there and give it a go. The other thing I quickly noticed is that businesses will have money to spend if it benefits them. If there is other lead gen guys in the niche then its nothing new you are pitching and I bet they will try you out. If your good then they will stay with you.

1. Would you be discouraged by a niche that had only 1 or zero competitors in it.? Would your thinking change at all if it was a sub-niche that a company like ServiceMagic covered? Basically, I am just curious if I should be seeing these niches as untapped niches or is it more likely at this point that others have tried in failed in those niches and the traction simply is not there?

2. What are common ways of making lead generation businesses better than their competitors? One way that I think could work could be transforming a basic lead generation business into a booking business like what happened with limos.com. This would be harder to duplicate. Another way could be improving the quality of the leads. One thing I noticed on some niches is that their automated system would take leads and send them to companies even when I was putting in ridiculous information. I could certainly see how you could take steps to improve the lead quality. However, I am a little unsure of how this would be done in an automated system. Sure, you could put in paramaters that require full names, don't accept certain names like Mickey Mouse or require a real phone number or even ask for more narrowly tailored information. However, it would still seem like you would need an additional step of direct oversight where someone was going through the lead information? Am I missing something here? I could also see that you could provide better customer service like MJ did by simply directly answering emails timely. However, I am a little confused on how you would get this automated at a a later point. Would you simply get someone to take over these duties for you after you learned enough to teach them how to do it at a SUCS level? What other things could you do to improve a business? I have thought about how you could provide a greater promotion similar to what MJ did by giving away certain leads or has been discussed elsewhere in this forum but would think that stuff could be easily duplicated and may also create a price war that would ultimately be counterproductive.

Customers come into our network of sites from the major search engines. Businesses find us about 25% of the time from seeing our ads that are aimed at the customers. They know we offer leads to we get a call or an email. I keep a staff that spends their days reaching out to business owners, this creates a buzz and many times they aren't ready for our leads now but in the next month or 2 our phone rings.

It sounds like you have a staff doing several different things. How did this process evolve for you and roughly what amount of people do you have doing this stuff for you know? For example, a couple of salesman, someone doing customer service, what are other job duties? Just curious what the blood and guts of this type of business looks like. Also, do you do any outsourcing to the Philippines or elsewhere?

Hope this helps a bit.

I think it certainly has. Just hearing what you have to say as someone who has already been through this is a big help. Thanks again.

 

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[Ready2bfamous]

Thats so crazy, I was just talking to someone who wanted me to help them sell leads in the auto insurance niche. I was more curious to know, how do we approach? Is it better to call? Fax? EMail?

Also how do you figure the pricing? He's willing to sell the leads to me whole sale, but I don't know how to price to the end user.

Thanks for starting this!

 

[Toiletcake]

Jd-

1. If its a sub niche I would be sure there is a national audience that needs the service. How much volume do you see in the keyword search? Make sure you focus in on Exact searches and in the local category. Local meaning national.

2. Improving the lead service? Well I would say your thoughts are spot on here. Much if it depends on the market. I do know that if your leads convert your customers will stay with you. You wont stop all the bs leads from coming in, I believe most business owners understand this. Make sure that you do your best to minimize junk obviously.

3. You will find that it doesn't take to many staff members to manage the operation. Im a "do it yourself-er" and I am always involved daily. Its not even work to me, its fun. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of any business to be successful imho. I have lots of people I work with to help out with off location activity's. I look for the best in their trade at all times. I don't do much offshore hiring, the level of quality tends to be lower.

Ready2-

Im not sure what is better in terms of reaching the businesses to buy leads. It again depends on the niche. Insurance is a tough one to get to the decision maker I would think. If it were me I would hit other insurance sites and see whos buying. Then I would email them professionally and gauge the interest.

 

[WalterBellhaven]

I'm pretty sure the two terms you asked about are transcription errors - the free transcript on Mixergy's site is auto-generated. From the context, I think "beak to beak" = B2B = business to business, and "FCO" = SEO = search engine marketing. I haven't listened to it to be sure, but those acronyms make sense in context and seem like likely auto-transcription errors.

 

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[JDIII2007]

I'm pretty sure the two terms you asked about are transcription errors - the free transcript on Mixergy's site is auto-generated. From the context, I think "beak to beak" = B2B = business to business, and "FCO" = SEO = search engine marketing. I haven't listened to it to be sure, but those acronyms make sense in context and seem like likely auto-transcription errors.

Yes, it seems like that is exactly what it was. I am actually glad to hear that because I had never heard of beak to beak or FCO in my life and was wondering what that could possibly mean. Obviously, those other terms make a lot more sense.

 

[JDIII2007]

A few more questions have come to mind with regard to the lead generation businesses.

1. What is the best way to setup your forms when you want to get more detailed form information? I read an interview on mixergy where they discussed the need of having to simplify the form by first asking for the zip code and then asking them additional questions with each click of the next button. I also have seen sites like limos.com that offer people several drop down options to choose. My question is what type of setup tends to work best and does this vary based on the niche? Has video been attempted to help with these forms like it is normally now used with a lot of IM squeeze pages? It is said to help CTRs there but was not sure how and if it is used for lead gens?

2. How well received are lead generation businesses on Google Adwords search network? It would seem to me that knowing google, they would look dimly on these sites. Just scanning a bunch of different lead gen sites out on the web, it seemed like it was 50/50 on whether they used PPC. In that same mixergy article, the guy mentions how their site for different types of online education degrees got bad quality scores for a long time for this reason. Is this the norm across the board for all lead generation companies or does google cut slack to companies that may have more of a community feel to them like say boomerater.com?

3. Have you tried the content network? Did you find it was helpful or not to your lead generation business?

4. What have been some of the more productive ways for you to find buyers? (email, cold calling, fliers, chamber of commerce and other local business meetings, personal visits, a combination of?). What do you find that you really need to show them for it to be a successful meeting especially when you are just starting out and don't have any results you can show them yet? Has anyone tried any out of the box ideas to bring potential buyers together like maybe doing a seminar where you teach them something that would help their business?

5. What other ways have you found effective to promote your lead gen business aside from Facebook, seo and PPC? I don't like relying on Google because of their inconsistency with frequent SEO algorithm and Adwords changes. What about banner ads? Twitter (i hear twitter is even starting to allow advertising)? What about offline stuff like direct mail?

6. On Facebook Ads, how would you drill down to find more specific characteristics for something that is more generic like let's say foundation repair or plumbing? Is the best way just to ask the buyers (businesses) what are the average characteristics of their customers?

 

[tincho1492]

1. It depends on how much information you need from a lead to be a qualified one. Try to find what businesses asks to customers when they are requesting quotes/estimates.

4. Didn't started with that yet. But will go with all you mentioned above. I'm planning to giving them free leads for a while until I start to receive enough leads.

5. I'd try a more traditional way (printing, stickers, flyers). The idea is to create a brand that will be on people's minds so they will go to your website when they need what you offer.

6. I think that is difficult to target a specific niche on Facebook, only if you want just to brand your business. Otherwise it will be difficult because imho there are no characteristics that could define people to target repair or plumbing. If they need one they will go to Google. Unless you're doing something like "Plumbers for designers" Why not researching if there are some local websites where you can advertise and surely they will cost you too much less than Facebook.

Just my 2 cents, since I'm also starting on this field and will be launching my services in the next few days.

 

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[JDIII2007]

6. I think that is difficult to target a specific niche on Facebook, only if you want just to brand your business. Otherwise it will be difficult because imho there are no characteristics that could define people to target repair or plumbing. If they need one they will go to Google. Unless you're doing something like "Plumbers for designers" Why not researching if there are some local websites where you can advertise and surely they will cost you too much less than Facebook.

Tincho,

I still think there is a way to target these smaller niches on Facebook. You might need to use some counterintuitive steps to find the answer but I think there should still be some ways you can narrow it down and be effective. I was just curious how others out there have done this. For example, perhaps those who are buying a new home that is being renovated or those who are buying real estate. There has to be some common characteristics of buyers there even if they are not readily apparent.

 

[tincho1492]

Yes, agree with you in that point. What I wanted to say was specifically to the segment tool of Facebook to publish ads. Do you understand what I mean?

 

[JDIII2007]

Yes, agree with you in that point. What I wanted to say was specifically to the segment tool of Facebook to publish ads. Do you understand what I mean?

I am not sure based on what you just said. Go ahead and explain it further if you have the time.

 

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[tincho1492]

Sure. I mean that when you're creating a new ad on Facebook it lets you only to filter things like age, place, school, and interests. Yes, the last could helps you to target a specific niche, but in your case I don't know how you can do to filter people that could be interested in your website, based on interests. For example, if I'm creating a PSD to HTML service, I could search for people that is interested in Design for example, since sometimes they don't know/want to code their designs by themselves.

 

[JDIII2007]

Sure. I mean that when you're creating a new ad on Facebook it lets you only to filter things like age, place, school, and interests. Yes, the last could helps you to target a specific niche, but in your case I don't know how you can do to filter people that could be interested in your website, based on interests. For example, if I'm creating a PSD to HTML service, I could search for people that is interested in Design for example, since sometimes they don't know/want to code their designs by themselves.

Ok, that is what I thought you meant. Good stuff.

 

[JDIII2007]

I have another question about the businesses that I am generating leads for. Is it better to be very selective in what companies you promote leads to with the belief you will provide better value to those companies and the actual customer or can I not afford to be so choosy to generate enough leads? I am noticing that in some zip codes, the talent pool is dry in terms of finding companies that have the certifications, BBB ratings, customers reviews, etc.

What policies do you guys use to screen your business that you would build leads too? Can I realistically expect to only work with top companies?

 

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