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.

If you have got into the blogging world recently or slow in catching up with leading bloggers and pros, you may be wondering how these folks are turning in so many blog posts. The primary motivation for prolific blogging is that it pays; provides great return on investment; number of leads generated can be multiplied.
Here is the link for a presentation on this subject by HubSpot and Vovici. While the presenters refer to HubSpot’s blogging tool, you can follow the best practices with any blogging platform. If you use WordPress, the most popular blogging software platform, make sure that you are using the self hosted version. Most of the web hosting service providers include WordPress as part of their hosting services and the entire blog system can be setup in about 10 minutes with simple clicks.

The following sources could be tapped to gather ideas and information for writing blog posts. Depending on the nature and objective of your blog, blog ideas can be generated from a number of internal and external sources.

• Your business whitepapers can serve as great inputs. However, the blog posts should be short and should not be mere reproduction of the content.
• If you are (you should be)  listening to the social media conversations around your business and industry, you can develop blog posts using the theme.
• You own customer surveys or subscriber / prospect surveys can be leveraged to create multiple blog writings. If you are using a web based survey software tool such as LeadPro247, it will be great addition to your idea gathering arsenal. However make sure that you are not over doing the survey strategy, which may backfire.
• New additions and enhancements to your product / service can provide basic ideas to explore on blog posts.
• You marketing and customer support teams are important sources to gather information that is relevant to the prospects and customers.
• If a particular idea / subject is large in scope, split the same into multiple posts. Long posts are generally ignored by blog readers. However, make sure that individual posts can standalone and will make sense, though all may be related to a specific subject.
• Keep an eye on the feedback and comments to your own posts. These could trigger ideas for additional posts explaining / improving the concept.
• Finally, blogging need not be an individual project. Your colleagues can contribute to the ideas as well as developing and publishing efforts.

By sparing a few minutes a day and keeping your eyes and ears open for blogging ideas will not only help you become a pro blogger but also bring a good number of leads leads to your business. Happy blogging!

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.

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.

Video Blogging is a great tool to leverage your demand generation and brand building efforts.  If you are a internet marketer and involved in lead generation and inbound marketing using SEO practices, I am sure all of you must be on one or more blogs, not just reading, but contributing your ideas, suggestions and best practices. Here is the take on vlogging from the lead blogger of Cisco.

While personally I am not a vlogger yet, video is a great addition to your social media marketing and inbound marketing efforts. Video is obviously not as easy and simple as text simple text blogging. For example, video search is still its in infancy. Search engines deliver video links by keywords and tags. Also, video is still not very popular among the smart phone users, as the bandwidth issues are plaguing the industry. However, it is a good time to start using the video in your blog posts so that your will be a master when the practice becomes more mainstream.

Lead Distribution and Delivery software application helps the lead generation companies, internet lead sellers and service providers and lead buyers to capture sales leads from landing pages and signup forms, distribute the captured leads in real time using distribution rules and filters and provides reporting for tracking the leads.

Depending on your business needs, you can pick and choose the features to be used and leave the rest of the functions. Though web based lead distribution and delivery solutions such as LeadPro247 are easy to use, you should understand the underlying principles and concepts of lead generation and distribution, in order to maximize the benefits of deploying such software. The above chart shows a high level overview of the LeadPro247 lead distribution solution. This is applicable for any lead generation distribution software service.

Note that the lead generation is not the core function of a Lead Distribution system. However, it helps to integrate with the landing pages and registration forms and capture the leads. In other words, lead generation websites and the lead system have to work together. For more detailed discussion on Landing Page principles, design and deployment, please take a look at the other posts on the subject in this blog.

To summarize, the following are the functions of any lead generation capture and distribution system:

• Integrate with Lead Capture landing pages (used for lead generation)
• Interface with 3rd party lead vendors, affiliates and partners to capture / collect leads from their systems
• De-dupe, Srub, Validate, and Verify leads captured
• Maintain lead buyer / client profiles, including delivery methods and payment modes
• Maintain Sales Rep info and provide sales / commission statements
• Maintain lead order parameters and filters for each client’s orders
• Distribute exclusive / shared leads to lead buyers based on filters and conditions via the Lead Distribution Engine
• Deliver leads to lead clients via Email / SMS text messaging / API interfaces / HTTP posting / Fax / Back office Lead Retrieval System, etc. based on the buyers’ preferences
• Process payment via credit card gateways or accept manual payments
• Accept credit requests from buyers for bad / invalid / duplicate leads
• Process credit requests and provide substitute leads
• Provide lead capture, delivery and sales statistics for lead distributors / companies
• Back office access to view / manage / download leads delivered

As mentioned earlier, you may not be needing all the features and functions for your business. Also, some of the Lead Distribution and Delivery systems may miss some of the features and have more frills. You need to research and evaluate the software system before finalizing the deployment.

LeadPro247, a lead distribution, tracking, and management service has announced the launch of a dedicated blog site to serve as a lead management resource for insurance agents, brokers and professionals. This would would be particularly useful for insurance agents who are generating their own leads on their websites or buying internet leads from insurance lead companies and vendor. The blog resource is available in http://www.Insurance-Leads-Management.Com web location.

The blog will include the following categories of resources, among others:

• Insurance lead management best practices
• Lead tracking tools, software and services
• Tips and tricks
• Lead management Guides
• Resource links
• Insurance Lead generation practices and processes
• Leveraging social media for customer acquisition, retention and service
• Internet lead buying – concerns, issues and best practices
• Lead distribution and routing engines
• Lead quality
• Lead nurturing with drip emails and follow-up tracking
• Lead conversion issues
• Technology trends and impact on insurance agencies
• Industry happenings
• Tutorials, webinars, etc.

Insurance verticals

The site will not be restricted to any particular vertical or segment. It will cover all segments and insurance types including individual insurance and group  insurance practices. Whether you are a single agent practice or a multi-agent, multi-location insurance agency, the site will be a great service.

Health, Life, LTC, Automobile, Homeowners, Business / Commercial, Annuities, RV/Boat, and Renters Insurance related information will be included in the blog resource.

Have you heard stories about becoming overnight millionaires by launching an internet lead generation business? Sure, tons of stories. Succeeding in an internet lead generation business takes time, consistent practices and continuous improvement. While it is easy to scale up and grow, it is easy to lose money  quickly and bite the dust too! Here are 10 tips gathered from the industry experience and insiders that will lead you in the path of success.

1. Do the ground work: If you are in the planning / launch stage, this is the time to take a re-look and assess the plan. Even if you are already in the business and trying to ramp up, revisit the basics and make sure that the plan will work. Some of the key factors to be taken into account are: Lead verticals, Customer segments,  Competition in your vertical(s), Lead acquisition strategies, Lead pricing, and Quality Issues. Every lead vertical has its own unique advantages and issues.
2. Deploy suitable lead generation methods: Leads can be generated in a variety of ways. What would be the right method for your vertical and customer segment? Research and select from: Media buying, own lead generation sites, PPC / SEO mix, affiliates, etc. Thorough market research will help you decide the right combination. For instance, there are lead companies who use thousands of their own websites. Some others use exlcusively media partners and digital marketing agencies.
3. Plan multiple Lead Delivery modes: Each lead customer will demand their own formats, interfaces and data conversion. Do not under estimate the customer requirements. Unless the lead buyers are able to reach the prospects within minutes, there is no value in the lead! You may have to deploy multiple delivery modes such as email, SMS text messaging, fax, SOAP based API, form POST, etc.
4. Choose a right Lead Distribution Software system: Many lead providers make costly mistakes in this sphere. If you are generating thousands or even a few hundred leads a day, imagine the complexity involved in capturing the leads, distributing leads to buyers, delivering leads in real time, processing payments and applying credits for bad / invalid leads! Even if you are a business person, educate yourself and see what you can and cannot do with your lead collection, distribution and management software system.
5. Right Source to Right Partners: Whether in lead generation, distribution or lead delivery, choose the right tools and partners. The operations and maintenance are time consuming and costs money. Again, do not under estimate the improtance and costs in this area.
6. Manage Customers Proactively: The lead buyers can easily switch from one provider to another lead vendor. Unless you manage their expectations, requirements and operations, the lead buyers will learn from you and move on. Retaining customers is the most important aspect, as you do not have any hold on them unlike other traditional businesses.
7. Focus on Lead Quality, not Quantity: Unless you are passionate about lead quality, it is very difficult to survive. Because, in the internet lead generation segment there are so many variables on which you don’t have any control! For example, you might depend on the media partners and affiliates to generate leads; unless you have carefully selected them and established relationship, there is no gurantee that they will provide consistent quality leads. You can also provide valued added service such as third party Lead Verification services integrated with your lead delivery system.
8. Educate yourself: You need to keep abreast of the technology development and industry issues such as legal compliance. Research and update your knowledge in the lead generation business and the verticals you are operating. Attend relevant webinars and conferences in the Leadgen domain. Even if you don’t do programming or build software, become technology savvy. Knowledge is power in this internet era!
9. Be prepared for the long haul: Invest for the long term and be prepared for the pot holes on the way. Probably you need to invest more of your personal time than the traditional businesses. The internet does not sleep; you cannot start at 9 AM and close at 5 PM. Your customers will be in all time zones and need to be ready to support them.
10. Measure, evaluate and improve: All internet centric businessese share one common thread: it is continually changing at rapid pace. Using the right tools, measure your operational effectiveness and end results. Improve the processes in an on going basis.

And finally, here is the good news. As mentioned earlier, the lead generation business can be quickly ramped up and scaled. Some leading internet lead companies have grown from zero to 50 million business in 3 or 4 years.

Now that the internet lead generation practice has gained critical mass, website landing pages have become the core components of the online marketing and demand generation process. Unfortunately many online marketers, professionals and businesses treat the landing page as just that – a visitor-landing page. And they keep driving the traffic to these landing pages and losing boat loads of money in the process! Whether you are B2B or B2C lead company or an independent marketer, this holds good for everyone.

Landing Pages

The very purpose of landing pages is to convert the web visitors into leads (or prospects). While it serves as a funnel to attract the web site visitors, unless the visitors are converted to leads with contact information there is no meaning in attracting the traffic. In others words, landing pages should be treated as conversion pages.

Typically web site traffic (for lead generation) is generated via one or more of the following practices and visitors are sent to the lead capture pages:

• PPC (Pay Per Click)
• SEO / Search Engines
• Email Marketing
• Blogs and Web 2.0 sites
• Social Networking Media
• Direct Mail (with web URL)

All of these traffic sources costs money and significant efforts. While some may term traffic from social media and SEO as free, it is really not free. Search engine optimization and social media maintenance is a time taking and long term process.

Lead Conversion Pages

How to convert the money loosing sign-up pages to profitable lead-conversion pages? While every step of the page design, development and deployment is a candidate for improvement, the following key factors are to be taken into consideration.

• Layout and Design are primary components to attract and convert visitors. Make them simple, clear and precise.
• Avoid distractions and unwanted links on the page. Address the specific product or service.
• Provide Clear Call to Action. If you want them to fill up a form, tell them clearly what to do and why they should do so.
• Include a Compelling Offer. Whether it is a Whitepaper, Quote, or a Free Trial, make it compelling.
• If you are using Advertising (such as PPC) to drive traffic, make sure the Ad and the Landing Page talk about the same offer
• Page content should be relevant, short and to the point.
• If you are using Lead Capture form on the page, make it as short as possible, unless all the data fields are required to fulfill the offer.
• Let the sign-up form be above fold on the page.
• If required, make multiple lead capture pages for different  purposes and different target audience, so that the content will be relevant.
• Validate all sign-up form fields for required content and type, ideally using JavaScript (rather than separate error pages)
• Capture the meta data such as source web site, publisher, key words, etc. which will help in the sales process.
• Provide a meaningful Thank You page with relevant information. This will set the right expectation for the prospect and will help in closing the sale.
• Lastly, do not forget to use a good lead management and tracking database system in order to track the entire conversion process.