Image via CrunchBase

There is no secret that the tension has been high between LendingTree and Google since the launch of Google Comparison Ads, a venture into mortgage lead generation. And it isn’t unexpected that LendingTree would strategically attempt to parry this entry into a space they have dominated since the beginning of online mortgage lead generation. The question is, can they build a better consumer decision (search) engine than Google?

That seems to be the strategy in Tree.com’s announcement of a new strategic “consumer decision making platform and customer acquisition channel for businesses across key vertical markets.” This platform is described as an “opportunity to step in where typical search engines fall short,…delivering a hub of content and resources around every major ‘considered purchase’ in life.”

They leave little question this is a counterpunch at Google in both their media brief and press release, claiming they are “going beyond a page of blue links” and “step in where typical search engines fail.” How do they propose to do that?

The scope seems to be significant, but uniquely interesting. Tree.com is proposing a solution that would allow “qualified partners” in “key industry categories, including Finance, Lending, Real Estate, Education, Autos, Home Services, and Health” to publish on and gain exposure from the LendingTree (Tree.com) brand. In essence, it seems that partners would have almost direct control over their marketing message on Tree.com properties.

This will be a very interesting platform to watch unfold and execute. Who will the partners be? How will they manage quality? Are financial services lead buyers effective content creators? If not what incentive is there for independent publishers? All intriguing questions to whether this can be turned into a thriving value chain.

Tree.com is announcing the details at LeadsCon, a lead generation industry conference, today.

Image via Wikipedia

Reply is taking its lead marketplace to Wall Street. Reply.com announced IPO intentions today—disclosing that they have “filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock.”

Following the lead of Quinstreet, who IPO’d earlier this month, Reply.com will see if Wall Street enough room and risk tolerance for another Internet lead generation company.

Image by bitzcelt via Flickr

Ring Revenue, a leading pay-per-call platform for performance marketing, is teaming with lead generation companies like First Advantage Corp’s (Nasdaq: FADV) LeadClick. The value proposition? Enhancing search and landing page listings with phone numbers—making that first contact a little bit easier.

LeadClick Media’s SVP of Marketing, Adrian van Haften, explained that “Ring Revenue makes managing, optimizing, and scaling call-based lead generation campaigns easier.” Haften also indicates that they are seeing Ring Revenue “increase their lead volume, lead quality, and improve ROI” for both the publisher and the lead buyer.

This is an intriguing collaboration as we see the 800 pound gorilla—Google (that keeps dabbling in the lead generation marketplace) playing with this notion again. Google seems to be leveraging it earlier test of pay-per-call in local ads by injecting pay-per-call into the Google mobile ads platform.

Lead buyers, what do you think of paying for these kinds of hot inbound calls?

Some people in sales think a lead is a name from a list. That’s not correct. A name from a list is not a lead–it’s a suspect, a total stranger and it does not matter if they meet some criteria (e.g. age, occupation, net worth). A true lead meets your criteria AND has expressed interest in what you offer. Specifically, the warm lead has responded to an email, a print ad, a piece of direct mail, etc. A true marketer or sales professional uses time wisely for the most part only contacting people that have first expressed an interest.

Turning Leads into Sales

You don’t call the lead and say, “I’m following up…..” EVERY sales person says this and the phrase has now become synonymous with “get ready for my sales pitch.” Your lead automatically gets defensive (no one likes to be sold) and your chance of a sale is close to zero. Rather, call the lead and say “Bob, you returned a card expressing your interest in having more…..better…(fill in the blank), is that still of interest to you?” The only words that should come out of your mouth are the benefits your lead desires. Your first task is to engage your lead, not to talk about your product.

Next, you don’t say “we have” or “my company offers” as these phrases are synonymous with “get ready for my pitch.” Again, these will make your lead defensive. You do say, “I don’t know if I can help you…may I ask you a few questions about your (business/heath/investments, fill in the blank)?” You disarm the defensiveness of the prospect by stating you don’t know if you can help.

Ask Intelligent Questions

Next, you ask intelligent questions about what’s important to HIM. The best thing you can do here is forget about the features and benefits of your product because your lead does not care. He cares mostly about what’s important to him. So to really listen, you need to forget your spiel. As your prospect reveals answers to your questions, you ask deeper questions to reveal their emotional desires. Questions like:

• Why is that important to you?
• If you could have that, how would it impact you?
• If you don’t solve that, what’s the long term cost to you?
• How does that make you feel?
• Are you satisfied with that?
• What has been your previous experience with similar projects or services?

Have Customers Tell You How to Close

Since people buy emotionally, you must get them to reveal what motivates them emotionally. Until you do, forget proceed to your next step (to set an appointment, ask for the credit card, close the deal) as you will generally fail. Too many sellers ask for the order too early and they get objections. First, get your prospect to reveal what motivates him emotionally and then you ask if he would be interested in a solution to that problem/opportunity. Only when he says yes, do you proceed to the next step.

“Bob, if there were a solution to that problem, what would that be worth to you? So if you could have the solution for only 10% of that amount, you would want to know about it? Great, then (set an appointment, ask for the credit card, close the deal).”

I know that sellers tell me they are client focused or customer focused but it’s not true. They are product focused and my-agenda focused. If your personal mission or company mission is to really help someone, then it becomes easy to turn leads into sales. Because your objective changes from “getting” people to buy your product to “finding” people who want what your product offers. You can only determine that by asking questions. And when you encounter someone that does not have an interest in your product, you move on.

The key to turning a lead into a sale is to leave your agenda to the end of the conversation and get your lead to reveal his emotional agenda first. Then you have the relatively simple process of showing your prospect how your product fits his agenda (rather than convincing the prospect why they should have interest in your agenda).

An increasing number of business entities are actively using blogs as part of their marketing strategy. Why? Blogging is providing them the ability to increase search engine optimization connections with their audience thus encouraging goodwill which in turn helps bring sales.

Marketing through Blogging

It is nothing you have not heard for quite some time now. Blogging has caused quite a stir. It has, in fact, continued to proliferate rapidly. In early days, a blog is just a personal online diary. It is a place to publish one’s knowledge, wisdom and experience. Blogs are now being used to promote a business, run a political campaign, elicit publicity, among others.

The successful weblog is an online diary of events arranged in reverse chronological order. The author of a blog is known as a blogger and writing or maintaining a blog is referred to as blogging. It is an effective medium for communicating with current and potential customers to share knowledge and expertise and foster relationships.

Blogs Increase Customer Engagement

The blog enables a company to reach out to current and potential customers, in a more personal way. A blog builds connection and links between the company and its key audience which helps the company use this network over time to improve overall business. A valuable blog informs readers about a company product or service, information, industry news, tips, tutorials or latest company developments. Links to industry-related stories can also be inserted within blog articles.

Blogs are a good venue for customers to air issues, concerns and give comments. Through a blog, customers can give their own inputs. A company can hear directly from customers and understand what they desire to get from a product or service. Once a company has insights into what a large community thinks of the product or service, the company can then further improve the product or service to meet customer requirements.

A company who listens and responds to customer feedbacks conveys the message that there is somebody who listens behind an otherwise faceless company. Because a blog is conversational, it gives the company a human voice.

The effective web blog can assure customers that there is a “real” person who will take care of their needs. Customers will feel an affinity with the company. Regular visits brought about by regular updates thru fresh blog entries will familiarize the customers with the company and make them feel that they personally know the company. In due time, trust and loyalty is built and relationships fostered. As we all know people generally buy products or avail the services of people they know and trust.

Blogs Generate Product and Service Ideas

A company that utilizes customer ideas, feedbacks, and opinions can further satisfy customer needs and wants and thus facilitates goodwill in the blogging community. It is standard practice in blogging to provide a link to a thought originator which is important because back-links are a method for search engines to rank a blog. Google.com and Yahoo.com are two of the most popular search engines.

A blog is typically written daily thus the blog post is new. The search engines index the new post more often than the regular website. The result is a high rank compared to a website. If a company has a product to promote and publishes blog posts about the product regularly, chances are one of the blog posts will be found by readers who may be looking for information about the product. Hopefully, after reading the blog post, the potential customer will visit the company website and make a purchase online.

The internet has opened up numerous horizons for businesses, but for the real estate industry it has been particularly helpful. There are many benefits to working with online leads, and their availability means that even the smallest companies can typically find more than enough leads to keep them busy. Let’s look at two different ways that you can start collecting internet leads.

Purchasing Leads

For many companies it is simply easier to purchase internet leads, especially if they don’t have a large sales department that can devote time to finding them on their own. There are many different lead providers, but they are not all created equal. Since real estate leads can be expensive, it is a good idea to ensure that you are dealing with a reputable company before making your purchase.

Take the time to do some due diligence on the provider and follow up with any references that they provide. Once you are satisfied that they are legit, you’ll be able to purchase your online leads without any problems.

For real estate leads, it is also a very good idea to work with a company that will provide you with fresh leads on a regular basis. These companies typically set up information request sites where consumers can fill out a few fields and then be directed to a company that can assist them. The costs for these leads are generally higher, but typically they are well worth the extra expense.

Prospecting for Leads

The second option is to get out there and do your own lead prospecting. There are numerous ways that you can do this, including modifying what we just discussed, setting up an information request form, as well as utilizing social networking to collect new leads.

While these methods do take more time, typically you’ll see a very high response rate. The key is finding a way to get fresh leads on a regular basis that you can rely on. Once you have these systems set up and you keep promoting them, they should continue to supply you with leads regularly.

The Best of Both Worlds

The best strategy however, especially for real estate leads, is to use a combination of both lead services to ensure that you never run low on high quality leads. By spreading out where you’ll be getting your leads, you can ensure that you will always have access to new clients, even if your own efforts are slow in a particular week, or you are trying to cut costs from buying leads.

The real estate industry is going through a tough time right now, and having access to high quality leads is vital if you want to stay in business. The market is there, but you’ll need to do some legwork to get out there and find it. Having quality internet leads is just one more way that you can work towards a stable and profitable real estate company, regardless of the segment of the industry that you are in.

One of the best ways to increase your sales and your company’s productivity is to assign different lead priority to your leads. This will help you weed out the leads that may not be as important, or likely to respond, leaving you the time to pursue the ones that will. By organizing your sales pipeline, you are in effect making it easier to make sales.

In order to segment leads, it is important to come up with a system that will work for your organization. Each company is different, but within specific industries, you’ll be able to find similarities that will cross these boundaries. Let’s look at a way that any company can segment leads for greater effectiveness.

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

The first step is to work out a lead priority system. If you have a sales manager and a sales team, you may want to make them part of the decision so that they can help you come up with a system that will work for everyone. You can divide your leads up however you would like, but it is easy to split them into three different groups – High Priority, Medium and Low.

Your first priority should be the newest leads since they will be the ones that are most likely to respond. Any leads that are gathered through permission based marketing should also be ranked in the high group since again they will be more responsive.

Your medium group can contain leads that have expressed interest in the past, but never made the final jump towards a sale. With a little extra effort, they are more likely to be convinced. The medium group can also contain leads that are not quite as fresh, but still not aged.

The final group, the Low Priority group, should contain aged leads and other leads that have not panned out in the past, but have the potential to in the future. The only exception to this rule would be for the debt industry where in some cases, aged leads may be more important.

Setting up a System

Once you have your lead priority assigned, you can begin to work out a system to follow up with them. In order to make sure that each group gets at least some attention, you can split them up into how many hours will be devoted to each, or even days. For example, you can focus on high priority and medium priority leads four days out of the week, and low priority leads on one day.

It is important to find a system that will work for your organization and this is where your sales manager or team leader will play an important role. Work with them to come to a solution that everyone can use.

Lastly, you may want to consider using a lead CRM program to manage your leads and their priority. This makes it easier to schedule follow-ups and you’ll be able to keep track of everything that is going on in one easy to use place.

Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool that can help you take your business to the next level and it is also an effective means of lead generation. If you are interested in implementing your own program, there are a few easy steps that you’ll need to take ahead of time to ensure that it goes smoothly and that it performs well.

Affiliate Marketing: What you need to know.

Step 1 – What do you plan to offer your affiliates? The affiliate marketing industry is very competitive and affiliates are naturally drawn to companies that offer terrific incentives. You may think 5% of a sale is nice, especially since they don’t have to deal with any of the hassles to make a sale, but that’s not enough. Most companies are offering at least 25%, and commonly as much as 75% commission on a sale.

While this may seem excessive, the volume of sales that you can see when you enact this level of commission can be well worth it. See what your competitors are offering, and how much you can afford to offer your own affiliates to make it worth their while.

Step 2 – Automate your system. Managing two or three affiliates is no big deal, but how about two thousand? You’ll need to have a system in place that will not only track sales, but also automate payouts. Today’s affiliates are used to PayPal, but some will accept a check. You’ll need to coordinate with your accounting department ahead of time before you actually start your program.

You will also need to consider that if you have affiliates who make more than $800 per year working for your company they will need to have 1099 forms issued to them. This means collecting information for their W2 and there are some tax implications to think about.

Step 3 – Setting up your program. Are your main goals lead generation or increased sales? Before you can take your program live, you’ll need to come up with a definitive goal. This will help your future affiliates do their job much more effectively and can have an impact on how much you are willing to pay.

Step 4 – Promoting your program. Once you have your affiliate program set up, you will need to actively seek out affiliates. It’s not enough to put a link at the bottom of your page and hope they will come. You can take advantage of online marketing techniques by using services like Twitter to encourage new affiliates to join.

You can also become a member of ClickBank, home to thousands of affiliates, provided that what you have to offer fits their guidelines.

There are many different benefits that running your own online marketing affiliate program can bring. No matter what you plan to sell or what leads you need to gather, having an instant sales force can help you turn a profit in less time and without needing to train a full time sales staff. By following these easy steps, you’ll be well on your way to online marketing success.

One of the most effective means of targeting customers is by using internet leads. Although traditional lead gathering has its place, there are some definite advantages to online leads. Let’s take a look at why these leads can be so strong and what they can help you accomplish for your business.

Internet Leads

1.    Very current. Internet leads can be collected and delivered to you instantly, right after the consumer enters their information. Whether your lead company collects the data or you do, you have the ability to follow up with interested consumers nearly immediately. In a competitive industry, this is a vital part of staying on top of your competitors.

With traditional lead buying, you have to wait for that information to travel to you and by the time you get it, the odds that the consumer already made a decision with someone else or no longer needs your assistance are very high. In the case of auto or home loans, internet leads are incredibly beneficial.

2.    Permission Based Marketing. Unlike many traditional lead companies, the majority of online leads are going to be collected through what is called permission based marketing. In a nutshell, this means that the consumer has agreed to be contacted regarding the information they requested.

While not all lead companies take this step, the ones that do have the ability to offer you targeted leads that will be fruitful. Permission based marketing takes the guess work out of lead buying and makes it easier for you to make a sale.

3.    Targeted customers. As with permission based marketing, internet leads open up the floodgates for targeted consumers that are actively seeking what you have to offer. While they may be more expensive than leads that are based only on zip codes or mass mailings, they are certainly well worth the money.

You can think of it in terms of actual money spent versus the return on your investment. If you purchase low quality leads, and spend time, manpower and money contacting them, only to have nothing to show for your efforts, you’re worse off than you were before. By spending more with targeting customers, you’re ensuring that your ROI will be well worth it.

Lead Buying

Lead buying is an essential part of doing business in today’s economy. While you can get by on the occasional lead that trickles in through your website, or by buying leads the old fashioned way, taking advantage of what online marketing has to offer your company may be the best decision you’ll ever make.

While some may view the online marketplace as fraught with danger, in reality it simply offers us a better way of doing business. There are a few pitfalls, and it is vital to make sure that you are buying your leads from quality sources, but overall, when it comes to generating leads, targeting customers and seeing a better ROI, online marketing has much to offer any business, regardless of their industry.

If you want to take advantage of the power of pay-per-click marketing, there has never been a better time to do so. Unlike many forms of marketing, the entrance cost is remarkably low and you are able to completely control all of your costs. Even the smallest companies can use PPC marketing to help grow their business and find new customers.

PPC Marketing Process

Before you get started developing a PPC campaign, it is important to understand how the process works. There are few pitfalls you’ll want to avoid and you’ll also need to be aware of some of the limitations that this form of marketing does have.

The most important place to start is by choosing the correct keywords for your campaign. They should be intuitive, and popular enough to allow your ad to display many times a day. Keyword research is very important at this stage and you should have at least five primary keywords that are well trafficked and related to what you have to offer.

Developing a Powerful Campaign

First, you need to start with developing a powerful ad message that can be displayed in about 140 characters. The headline is the most important facet of this step, but the other two lines are equally powerful. You don’t have to say too much in your ad, but it should be compelling enough to draw someone’s attention and get them to click through.

Next, you’ll need to develop a landing page. While it is perfectly acceptable to use your main page as a landing site, it is more effective to distill the information you are trying to impart in a brief promotional message. If you are selling just one product or service, a landing page helps minimize distractions and helps your prospective customer focus on your offer.

Once you have this in place, it’s time to set up an analytic program to help you track your responses. If you plan on using Google’s PPC tool, Ad Words, their free analytic program is the perfect fit. Even if you will be using another type of pay-per-click marketing, Google Analytics has some powerful features that can help you perfect your campaign.

Cost

Now that you have all the components in place for your PPC campaign, you will need to decide how much you want to spend on it. It is best to start small for the first few days to gauge response and make changes if necessary. Most PPC marketing sites will allow you to set a daily or monthly budget so that you don’t overspend.

Keep in mind that your ad will display until your daily budget is reached. Most pay-per-click advertising companies set a specific value for each keyword or phrase. Although this allows you to laser target your audience, popular keywords can be expensive, ranging upwards of $40 per more per click. You’ll be shown the value of your desired keywords before you finalize your campaign, allowing you to see how many clicks you’re willing to pay for.

PPC marketing, when used correctly, can be the answer to a small businesses need to promote at the same level as their larger competitors, even if their budget is a mere fraction of what their competitors can spend.