How to Choose a Lead Generation Partner

Sales lead generation can be an expensive and time consuming part of the sales process. Unfortunately, without any leads, you won’t have any sales to pursue, so it is not something you can ignore.

Luckily, there are many companies that have extensive marketing experience and focus solely on the front end of the sales process. This allows the sales professional more time to dedicate to closing a deal, and the marketers more time on warming up the deal and selecting the best candidates.

If you are considering using a lead generation company to help you with your sales, you will need to do some research with your potential vendors and ask the moral questions. Firstly, you should analyze the techniques that you have been using in house for marketing and prospecting.

Cold calling, direct mail, converse response advertising and internet marketing all attract different types of prospects and have a variety of expenses associated with them. As you shop for a vendor, consider your budget, but primarily focus on the bottom line – your return on investment. Direct mail may be one of the more expensive outreach techniques, but, because of the targeting capabilities, may produce the golden leads that offer the best close rates.

The benefit of finding a lead generator focused on your industry is that they can do a gigantic, effective direct mail campaign and spread the expense over many of their clients. This allows you to test direct mail leads, and the ROI, for under $1,000.

Likewise, television and radio direct response campaigns can also be tested for a lower entry cost when using a lead generation company. Internet marketing can be done by almost anyone with a computer and a credit card, but if you are current to it, you may find yourself going through an expensive learning curve. It can be very beneficial to rely on a partner with experience at developing the best quality lead at the lowest possible price.

As you interview possible vendors, you will want to ask the following:

• What types of leads are they producing and how much?

• Are they exclusive or semi-exclusive

• Can you filter for region, hours or other qualifications

• Are they refundable? What happens when a caller disconnects as they reply?

Many industries are structured to allow the front end effect to be generic – after all, when someone wants to get a mortgage, they aren’t searching for a mortgage from any specific lender, they want the best interest rate.

Other financial products work well with the lead generation model such as debt consolidation, debt settlement and debt management.