Cherry Picking is the terminology used by the Lead Generation, Distribution, Routing and Sales practitioners to represent the choices provided to the sales agents or lead buyers while choosing their leads for purchase or active followup. Comprehensive Lead Distribution and Routing Software systems such as LeadPro247 includes Cherry Picking method as an option for sellers and lead generation businesses.

Businesses can also provide choices for their inside sales or field sale representatives to cherry pick leads available in the distribution queue. This is generally used in the Lead Pull method of the assignment process. Sales reps can pull the prospects when they are ready for next follow up. However, businesses have the option to specify if the reps can choose their prospects or accept without any choice. If the reps can review and accept or reject the prospects in the Lead Pull method, then the process is referred to as cherry picking leads.

When the term Cherry Picking is used in general by the Lead Generation industry, it refers to the usage in the Lead Selling scenarios rather than the internal distribution scenario within an organization.

Why Allow Cherry Picking Leads?

The process allows the lead buyers to evaluate the conversion probability of the prospect and then decide to purchase or reject the same. This helps the buyers to pick and choose the prospects suitable for their specific requirements. Hence this process is generally not feasible when hundreds or thousands of  leads are purchased at a time.

Also, Lead Filters used in the automated lead distribution processes (by setting up an order or profile) can only filter quantitative properties. Where as the Cherry Picking process allows the buyer to apply qualitative decision making based on the available lead parameters.

Lead Filters Vs Cherry Picking

Lead Filters and Cherry Picking are used as complimentary distribution procedures. For example, if thousands of prospects are generated daily and available in the sales / distribution queue, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to cherry pick individual leads manually. In such a case, the potential buyers will specify one or more lead filters or criteria based on lead profile properties to zero in specific group of leads. This is carried out by setting up a Lead Order or Buyer Profile (depending on the database / software system that you use) and passing the leads through the criteria.

For instance, in the case of Mortgage Leads, the buyer could specify the basic criteria such as geography (i.e. State) and type of leads (mortgage, refinance, credit range, etc.). When the user (buyer) logs in, the system will filter the records and display only the leads meeting the specified criteria.

When to Allow Cherry Picking for Lead Sales

As a thumb rule, picking and choosing selectively works well in the scenarios where the individual lead prices are reasonably high. While there is no hard and fast rule to determine the threshold for the lead sales value, a per lead price of $50 or above will be suitable for allowing cherry picking.

It is also noticed that the number of leads purchased by individual buyer is quite low, when cherry picking is employed. As mentioned earlier, if the lead buying volume is very large, cherry picking leads is a cumbersome process and hence generally avoided.

For example, specialized financial services leads sold to investment / financial consultants are good candidates for this method. The buyer can look at the available lead properties and then decide to buy the lead.

Notice that the critical information such as prospect’s name, physical address, phone number or email address will never be revealed (or displayed) to the buyer looking to cherry pick. Other meaningful data which would be useful for the buyer’s decision making process will be displayed by the system in the pick list screen.

Each business has to weigh the pros and cons of allowing the freedom to the buyers to choose their records. What  works for one business may not be suitable for other businesses. Also, some high value verticals work well with this method leading to higher customer satisfaction, while other verticals do not.

LeadsCouncil was launched recently by Dave Wengel and Jay Weintraub who are known for their LeadsCon conferences. Prior to this Dave was with TargusInfo as Vice President. It is reported that over three dozen organizations have become members of LeadsCouncil. The current roster of members seems to be pretty impressive as most of these companies are high profile organizations.

Per LeadCouncil website, the organization’s objective is to create and increase awareness about online the lead generation and distribution business. In addition, it will also help to connect the lead buyers and lead sellers using tools such as directories, research studies, certification, etc.

Online lead technology vendors who provide software and related services for lead generation, distribution, delivery and management will also be part of the membership organization.

The impact and success of the organization will become clear in the next few months. We need to wait and see how small organizations will be brought on board, as most of the online lead vendors and buyers fall into this category.

Apart from evangelizing, I assume that the organization will take up public policy and advocacy related activities in the longer term. You may take a look at the LeadsCouncil website and explore if it is worth associating your business with the independent alliance.

Here is a checklist with 10 signs that shows your business needs an automatic web lead distribution system. If you are new to the internet lead generation business or a recently established the lead company and you are not using a lead distribution software system, compare your lead gen and delivery operations with this checklist. You might be surprised what opportunities (that will help you in scaling up the business) are being missed.

If you are already using some sort of lead management system and you still some of the problems described in the checklist, then it may be good time to reevaluate your software solution and match with your business requirements.

#1 Too much time spent in emailing leads: Are you spending too much time in emailing the leads received from your lead generation websites? When you started the business, probably it was good idea to focus on lead gen and business development. You could have emailed the few leads received to a handful of lead buyers. But, if you are following the same process, then you are not growing your business.

#2 Leads fall through the cracks: Are you missing the leads and the captured leads never reach the intended customers? Every lead missed is money wasted – in terms of lead generation efforts and cost. When you go on vacation, what happens to the leads? Either you need to subordinate to take care or your customers might slip away from you.

#3 Wasting time in re-formatting Emails to Customers: Even if you are dealing in a specific vertical such as Education Leads or Insurance Leads, each of your customer may be needing the lead data emailed to them in a specific format. If you sign-up more customers, more pronounced will be this problem. Your lead distribution and management system will support multiple email layouts and format to meet each customer’s requirement.

#4 Have to ignore potential buyers since they need automated Lead Delivery: I am sure that every has to avoid signing up one or two clients for some important reason. However, ignoring customers for want of an automated lead delivery management system will fatal to the business. Sophisticated / savvy / large customers will demand more automation features.

#5 Have more than a handful of websites or leads generated: If you have a more than a few websites, then managing the capture and distribution process is tedious. Also, measuring the performance of each website is essential to optimize your leadgen efforts. Even if you have one or two lead capture websites, if the volume of leads generated is high, then you will face the same issues.

#6 Using Google / Yahoo / Bing PPC for leadgen: Are you using PPC (pay per click) programs with Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing AdCenter to drive web traffic and generate leads? If so, you cannot live without a solid lead management system to manage and analyze the leads captured on your PPC landing pages. Don’t waste your inbound marketing efforts without fully monetizing.

#7 Don’t find enough time for Lead Generation: Are you spending too much time on your operations management? You must be focusing on traffic generation strategies and activities. Another important aspect needing most of your time is the business development and enrolling more customers. Deployment of a lead company operations management system can take care of capture, delivery and tracking.

#8 Lead Buyers complain about delay in lead delivery: Have you heard any complaints from your lead clients that leads are not reaching them on time? If you promise real time leads, the leads should be delivered in real time. It means that the data should be delivered within a few minutes, not after 30 minutes. Remember, the first responders have the advantage of converting the prospect to a customer.

#9 Losing Revenue: Are you leaving money on the table? If you don’t automate the distribution process, you may not route the prospects to all buyers. If you are promising multiple quotes for the prospects, you need to deliver the lead info to multiple customers. For example, if you are generating insurance or mortgage leads and the routing is based on geography (zip code or state), imaging how error prone the delivery routing process will be.

#10 Spending time on analyzing leads: Do you know where the leads are coming from and how these are distributed? What is your profitable lead source? Unless you know answers for these questions you cannot optimize your investment and generate revenue. If you are not using a good lead distribution database system which will provide instant answers on questions such as these, you will be wasting time in trying to get a grip of the business operations.

If you think that even one or two signs are visible, then it is time to take an in-depth look at your business operations / practices and analyze if an automatic lead distribution system can help you.

There are tons of recent news items in the internet on online lead generation industry. Social media, coupled with web 2.0, revolution is increasing the decibel level. It is often difficult for newbies to select a niche and get into the web lead generation and distribution business.

Even experienced professionals and established businesses have to play catch up at times. Online scams and poor oversight bring in a lot of bad publicity for online lead vendors. However, invention and popularity of devices such as iPhone and iPad are bringing in more tech savvy consumers into the internet as potential online prospects. The number of areas of lead generation possibilities is growing rapidly. This provides new opportunities for entrepreneurs and small businesses in online marketing world.

Traditionally, online lead generation is restricted to very few verticals with large market sizes but ultra competitive environment. Newcomers may not even go near these business segments, unless they have deep pockets and business background. However, things are changing overnight and enormous new opportunities are opening up.

This is a good time to take stock of the industry scenario and review lead verticals, both old and new. Let us look at each one of these verticals (and possibly more) in the upcoming posts. Here is the list of vertical segments (or niches, as some would like to call these), both traditional and recent ones.

• Financial Services
  • • Mortgage leads
    • Insurance leads
    • New Credit Card leads
    • Pay Day Loan leads
    • Business / Commercial Loan leads
    • Loan Modification leads
    • Debt Settlement leads
• Franchise Opportunity Leads
• Biz Op / MLM leads
• Real Estate leads
• Education leads
• Satellite TV leads
• Time Share leads
• Auto Warranty Leads
• Home Warranty Leads
• Home / Improvement Services
  • • Windows and Siding leads
    • Basement Finishing leads
    • Remodeling leads
    • Pools and Supplies lead
    • Lawn Care leads
    • Painting leads
    • Solar leads
    • Home Security leads
• Home Care leads
• Home Care Medical Device leads
• Accounting Services / CPA leads
• Onsite Catering leads
• Auto Loan leads
• Automotive / Vehicle leads
• Medical Spa Service leads
• Dentistry Service leads
• Legal Service leads

If you are already in the lead generation business, you may be looking for expansion and diversification opportunities. If you are new to the industry, you must do in-depth research in the niche market you are planning to enter. Keep in mind that as a lead generation and distribution company, you need to find your customers as well as the leads for your customers.

Our LeadPro 24|7 Lead Distribution and Management Software System customers leverage the technology, internet industry knowledge and domain intelligence to succeed in their lead gen businesses. I am sure that everyone can succeed in their venture by applying the knowledge and right skills as there is enough space for growth. The industry will grow furiously in the coming years, although some niches may see growth fluctuations.

P.S. If you are an expert in a niche or vertical segment (whether listed above or not) or in the leadgen industry, please share your ideas and thoughts here.

Choosing a lead distribution software service provider is a critical decision to be made by lead generation companies. If you are new to the online lead generation industry, you may be facing a number of options while considering a decision in this regard. Especially, the fees charged by various software providers may be all over the place and zeroing in on a provider based on pricing alone will lead to issues and consequences in future. Once you have selected a system provider and invested significant efforts, switching to another system is a time taking process in terms of the learning curve.

Here are 5 key considerations that you should take into account while choosing a Lead Distribution Software Service for your business.

#1 Flexible Software System

The lead distribution software should be flexible to accommodate all your requirements. A large / complex system may not necessarily mean it is flexible. You should weigh your current requirements and needs in the near future. If you are new to the lead generation and distribution business, invest some time in understanding the systems in the marketplace, industry practices, and technology developments. Remember that online lead generation and distribution business is closely tied to the internet technology trends.

#2 Match your business requirements

As mentioned above, a ton of features in the lead system may not address your business specific requirements. Understand your verticals, do some research or consult with couple online lead generation and distribution consultants. Money spent on these aspects will be worth the investment in terms of risk avoidance and mitigation.

#3 Agile technical support and services

If the software service provider is a behemoth and you are small business organization, probably they may not match your speed. Success of internet lead generation and distribution is all about timing and great customer support. You cannot be waiting for days and weeks to address specific technical support requirements. Remember that the internet works 24X7 and consumer lead requests are generated 24X7. If someone says that “our implementation team lead is on vacation for couple of days and hence the lead posting integration has to wait until next week”, better watch out. You customers (lead buyers) can just opt for another lead provider in a matter of minutes.

#4 Full Service as an option – a must

While you may prefer to go with self service options in the initial phases of your lead business, full service option will be way to go once you establish yourself. You must focus on generating leads and signing up customers, not on day to day technical operations management, unless you are restricted to a small niche which will leave you with plenty of free time. Make sure that your lead distribution software provider has the full service option when you need it.

#5 Double as your Business Consultant

As I mentioned above, the internet industry and online lead generation practices undergo constant change. You might be often needing help in using the technology trends to your advantage. A good lead system service provider can help you leverage the technology in terms of lead generation as well as distribution and delivery improvements. Small customizations and tweaks to the processes would be able to bring in significant benefits and maximize profit. For example, if you are generating internet leads using Pay Per Click (PPC) method with Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., managing the campaigns could be integrated with the real time lead delivery system, so  that you can save money when sufficient lead orders are not available. If your system can help in Tracking and managing the demand for real time leads, it will be a great help for you as a business owner / executive. You would be able to figure out other improvements and benefits by working with your service provider acting as a consultant.

While there are several other factors to be considered while choosing a lead distribution system, these five key considerations should be the top ones in your mind. Whether you are operating in one lead vertical or in multiple industry segments, you can leverage lead distribution the tool to grow your business.

Whether you are a veteran in the internet lead generation and distribution business or just a rookie, driving affiliate traffic via CPA Ad Networks should be a key part of your leadgen strategy.  You may take a look at my earlier post How to Use CPA Ad Networks for Lead Generation and reduce dependence on Google Adwords PPC, if you are yet to get into the game!

Lead Quality is Key

The success of the leadgen business depends on the lead quality and resulting ability to retain the lead buyers as customers in the long term. If you are using your own traffic generation modes such as SEO, Google Adwords, Facebook Advertising, Banner Ads, etc., you will have pretty good control over the nature of traffic and resulting lead quality.

When you are using CPA Ad Networks, essentially you are outsourcing the traffic generation. In such a condition, you have very little control over the quality of the web traffic driven to your landing pages. As a result the lead quality may suffer, which will affect your business in the long term. This holds good even if you are using the leads generated for your own purpose (and not reselling leads).

Here are some key factors to be taken care of (while using CPA Networks) in the lead capture process, which will help you ensure lead quality to a great extent.

• Research, test and choose a right Ad Network in the first place.
• Design and test Landing Pages for proper / good conversion. Conversion rate alone should not be criteria.
• Track the leads by source. If you are using multiple networks, you should be able to analyze the performance of each network based on lead quality.
• If required, you may use multiple landing pages depending on your offer and ad network used.
• Depending on the quality of leads delivered, stop  / start using those ad networks. Typically, ad networks provide a 10% cushion for bad / invalid leads. However, this may not be acceptable to your customer!
• Customize landing pages as required; do not go with a basic lead capture form. Include filters, dropdowns, etc. so that the information captured will be relevant.
• Make sure that basic validations such as phone number, etc. are handled in the lead capture page in order to avoid bogus entries.
• You may also include security features such as CAPTCHA entry, which helps avoiding bot based submissions.
• Include additional lead verification processes after capturing the lead profile data in your lead capture, distribution and delivery system such as LeadPro247. Based on the verification results, you may filter out the leads to the lead buyer. Note that the lead verification process using 3rd party provider services such as TargusInfo, ServiceObjects, etc. incurs additional expenses (on per lead captured basis).

While implementing these ideas would not acheive 100% quality, it will certainly help improve the quality significantly, save money and retain customers.

Many lead business customers using our LeadPro247 Lead Distribution and Delivery software system that I spoke with have started experimenting with CPA Ad Networks in their lead generation strategies. During the discussions, I strongly encouraged them to test the waters with solid research and well planned strategies.

Since there are dozens of ad networks operating in the marketplace, it is essential to do a thorough research about the companies’ practices and support services before putting your offers on the networks. Also, the process is an ongoing one as new networks keep popping up in the field and some fade out of the scene.

Another area of research and exploration is that of the competition. By understanding the advertising strategies and offers of your competitors, you can avoid of a lot of mistakes and reduce the learning curve substantially.

Offer Vault service brings CPA Ad Networks and Ad Publishers together. The ad publishers (i.e. website owners and operators – known as affiliates) can compare the offers from various networks and pick the suitable ones. The ad networks send their offers (from various advertisers) to Offer Vault on a regular basis in order to attract more publishers. Your landing page and offer related information will be made available to the ad publishers.

Offer Vault service was founded by Mark Roth and I understand that Howie Schwartz, a well known internet marketer is also involved in it. The Offer Vault is completely free for anyone who registers on the site.

As a lead generation company and advertiser, you can leverage the features of the Offer Vault service to  compare advertisements from competitors and offers through other CPA networks. For example, you can visit and compare landing pages of other leadgen companies in your market segment.

CPA Ad Networks can be leveraged to maximize the return on your  lead generation efforts and reduce dependence on Pay Per Click (PPC) strategies. With the Google Adwords pricing sky rocketing in recent times and Google enforcing strict rules for quality assessment of websites and landing pages, it is critical that you diversify your leadgen practices, tools and strategies.

There are dozens of Ad Networks in the marketplace and hence you have a wide selection to choose from depending on your budget, nature of business and industry vertical.

How the Ad Networks operate?

The ad networks are basically centalized portals acting as intermediaries for publishers and advertisers. As an Advertiser you can submit your advertisements to one or more networks. Web site owners or operators (known as Publishers) choose the advertisements based on their specialization and preference and run the ads on their sites.

Typically you have to specify a rate per action performed, which is nothing but a lead acquired. This is referred to as CPA or Cost Per Action. You have to provide a suitable landing page to which the advertisers will drive the traffic from their websites. When the web visitors submit their information successfully, a thank you page need to be displayed. The thank you page will include a tracking pixel so that the ad networks can track the successful conversions and invoice you accordingly.

Importance of Landing Pages in Lead Generation via Ad Networks

As mentioned above, the Landing Page is the most important component of the lead acquisition process. Even if you get a ton of traffic to your site, if the landing page does not convert (i.e. visitors do not submit their info) you are not going to get any value out of the traffic. Make sure that the landing page is designed to convert and tested well.

You may take a look at the blog post on landing page design and optimization for lead conversion.

If you are using third party media planning / buying / ad agencies, they should be able to help you design the landing pages, negotiate the offer rates, choose suitable ad networks and track the ad performance.

CPA Ad Networks

Start with a small budget, test out the results and then ramp up your leadgen efforts with a network. Note that some offers (i.e. your advertisements) might work well with some networks and may not work with others. Also, the same ad might produce results at one time and might fail to perform at another point time. Since there are so many variables in play, it is very difficult to generalize and rate the networks. However, you should be able to evaluate their business practices, support levels, etc. over a period of time.

Here is some of the popular and not so popular networks listed not in any particular order. Note that there are dozens of networks operating in the marketplace and hence this is not a comprehensive list.

• Ad Canadian
• AdMedia
• Adjuice
• Adjump
• Admax Media
• Adscend Media
• Axon Media Group
• Clickbooth
• Click Fusion
• Commission Monster
• Commission River
• Commission Junction
• Convert2Media
• Copeac
• CPA Underground
• CPaway
• CXDigital
• DirectLeads
• eComLeads
• FluxAds
• GetAds
• HybrydAds
• Hydra Network
• Leader Markets
• Lead Expose
• Market Leverage
• Max Bounty
• NetPartner
• NeverBlue
• Offer Fusion
• PeerFly
• Pepperjam
• Revenue Ads
• Revenue Loop
• Revenue Street
• UniBlue Systems
• Unique Leads
• Y Multimedia
• Zeno Ads

Advantages and Disadvantages of using CPA Ad Networks for Leadgen

Just like any other mode of lead generation, using CPA Ad Networks has its own advantages and issues. If you understand the issues, you can plan and reduce the impact. Let us reserve this discussion for another post.

Back Office Lead systems, also referred as Lead Delivery Systems or Lead Management Systems, can be leveraged as great tools to acquire lead buyers and retain the existing clients. As a lead generation company, just like any other business operation, you need to focus on signing up more lead buyers and sell them more leads on an on going basis.

Many lead generation firms and vendors focus their energies on affiliate management, web traffic generation, lead acquisition, lead quality and lead distribution processes, but often times forget to develop their own client base. Acquiring leads for their customers and signing up their own buyers are equally important tasks for one to be successful in the lead generation business.

Lead Back Office Systems

If you are using a lead capture and distribution system such as LeadPro247, you can easily leverage the lead back office solution offered as part of the software for client acquisition and retention. The back office systems can serve the following functions, depending on your software version and subscription plan:

• Lead Retrieval
• Credit Request
• Sales Tracking
• Lead Nurturing

Lead Retrieval

While you may be delivering leads to the lead buyer by email or SMS text messaging, it is preferable to provide a back-office access so that the client can login and retrieve the leads. Many savvy and experienced lead buyers insist on a back office access as part of the contract. Lead retrieval system access also allows them to download the leads at their convenience and they won’t miss any leads due to email issues.

Credit Request for Invalid Leads

It is natural that a small percentage of leads delivered to your client will be invalid. Using a lead back office system automates the entire process of credit request and approval. The clients can make requests online and you would be able to review the requests and process at your convenience. There is no need to use email.

Sales Tracking

If your customers are end users of the leads purchased from you, you can provide a value addition by providing the sales lead tracking and management feature as part of the lead retrieval system. Your customers need not go for lead tracking and management software from another service provider. You may provide this service as free or charge a small monthly fee. Your customers can capture their own leads in the system along with leads provided by you.

Lead Nurturing

The lead buyers can leverage the drip email messaging feature available with lead retrieval and management systems to nurture their leads until conversion to sales. Drip email marketing is a lead nurturing process where the system sends marketing and informational emails automatically to the prospects based on certain triggers and events. This will be a great value addition to your lead buyers and if they are the end users of the leads.

Lead Distribution Systems

Lead distribution software systems such as LeadPro247 include these value added functions. You may have to select the required version based on your customer requirements. By leveraging such services, you can step out of the basic “lead generation” business and become a full fledged “lead service provider”.

You may also refer to this earlier post on Back Office System features and comparison of functions.