The lead generation market landscape seems like the same cookie cutter business models. Everyone trying to compete on the vapors of efficiency and lead quality. There is certainly growth, but most of it seems to be the result of advertisers shifting dollars into the media–not innovation. This is why I think the market is ripe for disruptive change. Why? Here are a few of my thoughts:

Increased Personal Connectivity: People are connected like never before. Not only to the Internet, but to each other. That makes a reference, a referral, an influence, a recommendation only a seconds away. It will influence how we generate leads, how improve lead quality, and how people want to inquire about products and services.

Online Social Graph (Networking/Grid/Fabric): Whatever you want to call it, people are increasingly connecting to people and building a group of trust-based and value producing advisers. This will be fertile ground for lead generation. The question that continues to baffle all of the Facebook and MySpace attempts–how do I get into the conversation?

Internet Consumers Preference for Conversations: Increasingly the Internet is breeding a consumer base expecting direct conversation and interaction with companies they buy goods and services from. The challenge is we can’t even effectively management and follow-up on Web form leads much less the future of lead generation–IM, text messages, Twitter, and other social media.

Mobility of Content: Content will continue to be the king of the Internet marketing and search space for the near future. Where it gets really interesting is when your content gets distributed and syndicated. Technologies and platforms like RSS, Twitter, Google Gadgets, YouTube, widgets, and others are allowing your content to be quickly re-distributed, re-purposed and amplified. All this draws new audiences and communities into yours–leads are generated.

Internet Trust Model: Where brand and company imagine made Coca-Cola and Kleenex synonymous with soda and facial tissue. Engagement, conversation, and social networks are making Stowe Boyd, Hugh MacLeod, Dave Winer, Jason Calacanis online names, and people do things when they make suggestions. Can companies create the same kind of trust-action models? Robert Scoble when at Microsoft might have been a glimpse of the possibility.

Volatility in Supply Versus Demand: I think this is the quite challenge of lead aggregators that have embraced the CPL model of business. Unlike the days of CPM and simple delivering consistent eyeballs to pages, CPL requires a consistent stream of conversion and that conversion (or customer inquiry) is perishable. A combination of numerous factors from competition to rate announcements can surge and plummet conversions. Meanwhile, lead buying clients are more churning more than ever–everyone still has nightmares about Ameriquest and New Century deals. This all contributes to a very volatile and time sensitive supply and demand inventory problem.

Inefficiency in Generating, Distributing, and Satisfying Consumer Expectations: This is one I have always thought should get more attention. In a day when companies spend enormous amounts of money and investment to deliver the best customer experience, the lead aggregation business still leaves customers feeling like they stepped into the blender or the vacuum. This will have to change or folks will cease to use these channels. The inefficiency is capture, distribution, and follow-up contributes to a broad range of experiences–most bad. Not to mention enormous lost revenue opportunity through the value chain: daily in the lead market thousands of leads are never distributed, tens of thousands are distributed to people without capacity or product, and hundreds of thousands are delivered into overstuffed email inboxes and are lucky to get one call attempt.

Opportunities

The lead generation and aggregation market is still brimming with opportunities and innovation to solve revenue generating problems. What trends do you think will change the lead generation business?