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.

Why many Online Marketers Struggle with Lead Generation Management?

Online Marketing professionals and businesses such as digital marketing agencies just getting into Lead Generation and Distribution business plan out their business strategies (i.e. lead generation and selling) very well. They are generally very good at picking the niches and lead verticals, lead generation sources and methods, affiliate and advertising tactics, etc. In other words, they get the “idea” part of it.

However one major area where they lack in planning is the executing the operations. This is where many startups and entrepreneurs in the lead business struggle and meet with significant difficulties. Though they are good in the “marketing” aspect, they struggle with the systems and processes. Unfortunately, in the leadgen industry unless you master the “operations” part of the business, there is no real business success.

Lead Generation Management

For example, you do not need to be a technology nerd to be a successful an online marketer. However, capturing, aggregating, distributing and delivering leads generated (on the internet) is a different ball game altogether. Every affiliate and lead supplier will demand a different specification for pushing leads; most buyers will also demand different delivery methods, systems and exception handling (for duplicate leads and other lead returns). For instance, using “ping” method for lead delivery means different things for different vendors and clients! While most systems and tasks can be outsourced, you should understand and differentiate different services, solutions and processes. If you are a large team, then you should have someone taking care of this serious stuff!

Though most lead distribution software providers will support HTTP Post, Real Time emails, SMS text messaging and SOAP / XML based delivery methods, these do not work by simple flipping of switches; it needs extensive assessment and technical support. Data transformation adds another level of complications and issues.

Wait, I am not suggesting that you have to go out and get a masters degree in database structures and computer science if you want to be successful in lead generation business! You need to pick and choose the right processes, people, software systems and tools.

Lead Distribution Software

Assessment and selection of Lead Distribution Software cannot be carried out with a checklist. As I mentioned earlier, most lead distribution systems will meet the criteria, at least on “feature list”. Hence, schedule some time with the prospective software providers and discuss in detail about your specific business requirements and ask them how (in detail) their solution can meet the same. Better yet, request them to show it to you after plugging in your lead data and distribution rules from a sample source.

If you cannot or not willing to spend time with lead system provider initially, then probably you will regret it later. Remember that the industry, technology and practices change so fast, there is not a single “perfect” solution. Similarly, if your perspective lead distribution technology vendor cannot spend time with you, in all likelihood, it will not be a suitable solution for your lead generation business.

Email Lead Distribution

I added this phrase in the topic title for simple reason that most business owners use “Email Leads Distribution” for capturing internet leads (from landing pages or emails) and delivering prospect information via real time email alerts. Unfortunately, email is the least dependable method from both your and your client’s perspective. Try to educate the clients and leverage other reliable delivery methods (such as HTTP/ SOAP / XML / CRM interfaces, SMS Texting, etc.); better yet, post the leads to your lead back office system and request them to access it online. Another advantage of using a back office system is that your clients can use the system as a their Lead Management (CRM) and Tracking solution with minimal incremental fee.

Note: If you are a SMB and looking for a lead distribution and management software system to assign sales leads within your inside sales or field sales organization (not to third parties or buyers), then try the sales lead tracking system version of LeadPro247 (i.e. LeadPro247 has 2 system versions catering to (1) lead distributors and (2) SMBs for lead tracking).

As home care services are highly regulated by the government and industry bodies, online lead generation has not mushroomed as in other industry verticals. However, the opportunities in this industry are very large. As the population is aging quickly and the health care costs are skyrocketing uncontrollably, consumers are looking forward to technology for researching products and services, cutting costs and improving  health care. As more and more healthcare systems get automated in the near future, the rules and regulations will be more clear and easier to follow.

Home Care Leads Generation

Since cold calling is not allowed for sales promotion, lead generation services providers still depend on traditional marketing and leadgen channels such television, radio and print advertisement. Once the potential customers see the advertisement and call the telephone number advertised, the agents carefully screen the calls and then pass on the leads to the  service providers and product suppliers.

Home care leads fall into two major categories: Home care equipment and Home care services. The lead generation companies have to wade through lot of legal issues and make sure that they are following rules such as HIPAA regulations, state rules, Medicare regulations and other privacy regulations.

Lead Distribution and Management

The home care providers also exercise great caution when buying leads from third parties, as they are ultimately responsible for the issues, if any. For example, a consumer could have called a lead generation service and the leadgen company could have passed on the contact information to the service provider. The service provider must have clear record of the entire conversation / communication, so that they can defend themselves in case of issues; the buyer also will have the right to inspect the processes of the lead generation company.

Home care lead generation firms have started using advanced lead generation management system software such as LeadPro247 for distribution, delivery and tracking of leads. The lead distribution systems supports recording of telephone conversation and tracking entire lead movement from end to end.

Home Medical Equipment (HME) companies have to make sure that they are buying from established lead suppliers and foolproof systems and procedures are used by the firms concerned.

The lead generation companies should make sure that express consent is obtained from the prospective customers. Internet lead generation is to be carefully planned and executed. For instance, the lead company should specifically inform them that they will be passing on the contact and related information to another third party (i.e equipment / service provider). Even in such cases, the communication is considered as marketing and hence payment is not a referral fee. Hence the lead generation firms and the lead buying home care companies enter into a business associate relationship.

The lead companies are not allowed to discuss medical conditions or prescription information with the potential customer, while they might check the insurance eligibility.

In such a scenario with highly regulated business environment, it is essential to follow the rules by the book. Automation will certainly reduce some manual efforts, so that more critical business tasks can be focused.

Automated lead generation management systems can help lead companies operating at regional or national levels gain maximum benefits by reducing the manual process errors and increasing the efficiency of the lead distribution and tracking process.

Lending Tree, a leading online mortgage lead generation company filed patent infringement suits last week against other well known companies in the internet leadgen sphere, including Zillow, NexTag, AdChemy and QuinStreet.  Lending Tree has claimed that patent numbers 6,385,594 and 6,611,816, both entitled “Method and Computer Network for Coordinating a Loan over the Internet”, are infringed by the companies mentioned above.

It is well known that Lending Tree started its mortgage lead generation operation long time back and provided opportunities for the consumers to chose from multiple mortgage companies. The banks and mortgage brokers competed and provided quotes to match the loan requirements. While it was a pioneering initiative those days, it is pretty straight forward like a basic math operation nowadays.

No doubt, long legal battles will be fought in the court to decide the merits of the case. I am not a lawyer and have no knowledge about how the patent system works through the courts. In my personal opinion, Lending Tree has been weakened, not by these competitors, but but by the maturity of the internet and applications; the natural withering process has started. I don’t see this action any thing different than that of the reactions of the traditional telecom service providers for the introduction of VOIP. Probably the company is trying to reduce the competition and make some money in the process. Recollect how these smartphone manufacturers are fighting each other over minor patents; and finally settle without much noise. Let us wait and see what happens!

EduDirectResponse, a voice on online education marketing, conducted a research study over a period of four months. The detailed study has shed light on the mindset of the prospective students who are looking for online college education. With controversies swirling around the online and offline marketing practices of the for-profit colleges, more such studies and surveys would be of significance for the industry.

The study was based on paid leads generated on Classes2Careers, an online EDU lead generation website. While the scope of the study and the scientific approach are not robust enough, it is a good starting point. The study results are summarized in the short pdf report, which can be downloaded from the EduDirectResponse site by clicking on the image.

According to the report, the following are the highlights:

1. More females than males are interested in online classes.

2. Over 60% of prospective online college students have a High School degree or have at one time in the past attended college.

3. Business and Health Care are the two most popular majors for prospective online college students.

4. 90% of prospective students want additional financial aid information after agreeing to receive information from a college.

5. Over 80% of prospective students want to receive a college related newsletter.

6. Prospective students do not mind entering their email address and other personal information but feel that their phone number is the most intrusive piece of data they give.

For lead generation and distribution companies operating in the EDU space, this survey report provides some useful information.

It was confirmed last week that BankRate.com has acquired NetQuote.com as well as CreditCard.com. It is reported that BankRate paid $205 million to buy NetQuote, the leader in insurance lead generation industry. CreditCards.com is a leading online credit card marketplace, bringing consumers and card issuers together. CreditCards.com is acquired for $145 million by BankRate.

While BankRate is well known player in the lead generation industry, NetQuote and CreditCards.com are equally popular in their own verticals. Note that BankRate owns InsureMe.com, another player in the insurance lead industry.

What does this mean to the lead buyers in the insurance and credit card verticals? Will it increase the lead prices in the long term? Does it lead to another mega company stifling innovation and flexibility? Only time can provide answers to these questions. Obvious positive benefit would be the addition of legitimacy to the online lead generation industry.

If you are using WordPress as a Content Management platform for your Lead Generation websites and blogs, a simple plugin can solve duplicate content issues with the search engines. Obviously, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is great way to bring in leads and attract traffic to your content websites. URLs pointing to duplicate content is a big no-no for SEO.

For more about duplicate URLs and use of canonical links, see the following video by Google’s Matt Cutts.

You can get the Canonical URL Plugin for WordPress from Yoast.com. Note that the canonical link concept explained above can be used in any of the websites (not just WordPress sites). If your sites are based on WordPress, then this plugin will automate the process.

It is a well known fact that you need to generate and deliver quality leads to your customers – to signup new customers and to retain the existing clients. However, it is very difficult to maintain the consistency of lead quality if you are using multiple sources and channels for online lead generation.

Many lead distribution companies and agencies, especially when they are new to the online lead generation and distribution business, struggle to survive and grow. While it looks easy and enticing from the outside world, it is often laborious and error prone, unless you understand the intricacies of the web lead sales business.

Customer Feedback

The other day, I was speaking with one of our long time customers who has branched out recently into online lead generation for a specific industry niche. Whenever I have a chance to speak with the clients, I always make sure that I inquire about their business with questions such as (1) if they are doing good, (2) how is the industry doing, (3) how their CUSTOMERS are doing, (4) their sales projections and actual sales numbers, (5) technology trends in the industry, and (6) how we could help them further by adding / enhancing our lead distribution and management software solution.

I make sure that this conversation is casual and personal, rather than formal and rigid. If you ask these questions genuinely, most of the customers respond positively and open their thoughts. It gives a chance for them to reflect on their business from a different (supplier’s) perspective. Unlike formal online surveys sent via email invites, which is a great tool to collect customer feedback and opinion, this personal one-to-one discussion can be constructed instantly based on the situation without any pre-planning. The conversation could be a couple of minutes or it can be 20 or 15 minutes depending on the customer’s comfort level and positive engagement.

Leadgen Case Study

Coming back to my specific discussion with a client, I inquired about quite a few support requests from him. He responded immediately saying that several of his customers have dropped out immediately and he had to make changes in the system configuration to alter the lead delivery flow for other customers.

When I probed further about the reasons for clients dropping out, he mentioned that they were buying leads from a new internet lead generation media agency and it seems that the conversion rates for these leads were very low.

He immediately started researching the lead sourcing practices. As you know, many leadgen companies will not give you the sources or methods of their leadgen practices. He found out after some research that the leads were generated using co-generation method! Obviously, it was not their first choice of the online subscribers. Probably the visitors were either forced or enticed into opting into the additional service categories.

Generally, the leads generated using co-registration methods will convert less. These could be used  for long term nurturing or up-sell processes, but not for immediate telephone follow-up.

This scenario shows how your lead quality can be affected without even your knowledge. Hence lead sourcing (or buying internet leads) should be taken as a continuous improvement process. The quality of purchased or outsourced leads can change overnight as the affiliates and media agencies change their processes.

Solution

If you want to be successful in lead generation business, you have to leverage third party lead vendors. If you need to use vendors, you have to be proactive in doing the research on their leadgen practices and make sure that the led quality is on par with the leads generated by your own company using pay per click (PPC) or search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Also, measuring the consistency of lead quality on an ongoing balance is an essential step. As mentioned earlier, you don’t need a special measurement tool for this; just speak with your clients. Another easy check is to see if they are placing repeat orders with you. If not, you have a problem on hand and you need to diagnose the same for treatment. Happy selling!

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.

Higher Education Lead Generation is one of the major verticals in leadgen industry. There are several large, established companies involved in education leadgen business. Since this vertical is matured, several new entrants are coming into the market. The industry which started with catering to the requirements of traditional schools and colleges has now expanded into the online schools and universities.

With the recession in the economy and squeeze on student loan availability coupled with increase in tuition fees has led to significant growth in the online education industry. The lead volume requirement has gone up significantly because of focus in this segment by several universities.

In the education leadgen practice, content is the king. Unlike in other verticals, where lead companies focus on small websites and per per click (PPC) strategies, education lead generation businesses build significant amount of web content in order to attract the potential student community. While this is certainly a barrier to the easy entry into the education marketplace, the same fact serves as an attractive niche if you can build and generate useful content to attract student traffic.

Generally, the education leads are distributed to the schools in real time. Hence using a robust lead distribution and delivery system is a basic requirement. Also, most of the leads are delivered as dedicated, exclusive leads, though there is some market for shared leads.

Of late, there is a lot of buzz in the education lead generation industry. Quite a few M&A activities are also rumored and / or reported. It is reported last month that All Star Directories is in the market. All Star Directories is a Seattle based company which helps educational institutions attract students in a dozen disciplines, from engineering and business to culinary arts and psychology. Founded in 2001 by former Microsoft manager Mike Mathieu, All Star Directories met with early success through its lead generation model first designed to pass on qualified candidates to nursing schools. By 2005, the company was profitable and had annual sales of $15 million. Later on it was sold to Austin Ventures. The company says more than 5,000 schools use its lead generation service, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, University of Phoenix and DeVry.

In another development recently, EducationDynamics, higher education’s leading marketing services company, announced the acquisition of Education Connection, a valuable resource that helps prospective students find colleges that are ideally suited for their academic and career interests. EducationDynamics acquired Education Connection from Kaplan which is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company. The acquisition of Education Connection marks an expanded student prospecting portfolio held by EducationDynamics, which also includes several high-visibility websites such as eLearners.com, EarnMyDegree.com, GradSchools.com, StudyAbroad.com, and more than 50 special interest microsites. The company also offers a full suite of web-based solutions for higher education institutions proven to drive enrollment growth and increase student retention.

Western Governors University marketing director announced that she is noticing a surge in online education and they are ramping up online lead generation and conversion efforts.

When speaking about Lead Conversion, a recent survey pointed out that over 30% of the prospects do not receive a call from the school! If the prospects are not contacted within a few minutes, the chances of further follow-up and conversion is very remote.

This is another area of opportunity for small businesses entering into education leadgen vertical. If you can provide additional support to the schools by way of immediate telephone follow-up, that will serve as a value addition. However, engaging generic call center or agents will not help in lead conversion; in fact, you might lose prospects if the agents are not professionally trained. The team has to be a dedicated, fully trained team with a long term perspective.