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.

]]> http://www.lead-distribution-software.com/how-to-use-back-office-lead-systems-to-acquire-and-retain-lead-buyers/feed 0 http://www.lead-distribution-software.com/leadpro247-launches-insurance-lead-tracking-and-management-resources-blog-for-insurance-agents-brokers http://www.lead-distribution-software.com/leadpro247-launches-insurance-lead-tracking-and-management-resources-blog-for-insurance-agents-brokers#comments Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:52:27 +0000 Paddu http://www.lead-distribution-software.com/?p=93 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.

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.

Determination of Priority Criteria

Lead Distribution can be carried out based on several priority criteria, such as:

• Pricing
• Volume
• Loyalty of the Customer
• Lead Availability (Demand and Supply)
• Lead Profile Filters (as such Geography, Demography, Services, Source, etc.)

When you are dealing with a number of customers and large volume of leads, it will not be easy to apply rules manually and determine the priority.

Lead Distribution Software

Employing a suitable Lead Distribution Software will help automating the lead distribution process to a great extent. However, note that it is not a panacea for all ills. Still considerable thoughts and efforts are to be invested in crafting the distribution rules and strategies.

For example, as a lead seller, you can assign a higher priority for a customer based on their loyalty and past business.

If you are in real time lead distribution business, it becomes all the more difficult. When a new lead comes in from a lead generation source, a decision has to be made in seconds. Obviously, price offered by a lead buyer alone may not be a suitable criterion. For example, a buyer who intends to purchase a small volume of leads might offer a high price; however your long term buyer may be offering a slightly lower price, but the volume may be much higher.

Lead Distribution Rules

Depending on your business and nature of operations, following rules can be used to distribute the leads:

• Based on Exclusivity:

• Exclusive Leads (Lead will be sold to ONE exclusive buyer)
• Semi-Exclusive Leads (Lead will be sold to TWO semi-exclusive buyers)
• Non-Exclusive Leads (Lead will be sold to multiple non-exclusive buyers, subject to Maximum Number of Times a Lead can be sold)
• None (Exclusivity not specified – Can be sold to one or more buyers based on the demand)

• Based on Round Robin Method
• Based on Price Offered (Highest Bidder)
• Based on Buyer Priority

The lead filters will be applied before determining the price, as the filters might impact the final price of the lead. If every other parameter remains equal for more than one lead buyer, then a round robin rule can be applied – in addition to other rules. Depending on your vertical and industry practice, combined with your specific scenario, you have to decide on the strategies to be employed such as round-robin, ping tree / auction /bidding, or buyer loyalty. Usage of a flexible lead distribution and sales tracking software solution helps you to apply these rules with ease.

Lead Delivery Methods

The most widely used method for delivering lead information is the internet EMAIL. If your buyers are business savvy and more sophisticated, the web services based API or web form posting based interface and direct application access to your Lead Capture, Distribution and Management system are the fool-proof methods.

Real Time Lead Alerts

Even if you use direct interface with your buyers systems using the interface or provide login access to your lead database, the customer may still need real time alerts to get notified about the arrival of the new lead. This is where the real time email alerts get their star status. If the buyer contacts persons (such as insurance agents) are not fully office based but constantly on the move, email alerts are unavoidable. With the proliferation of Blackberrys and smartphones such as iPhones, email alerts have become very useful to reach the prospects within minutes of sign-up.

Email Delivery Issues

With the increasing spamming issues, delivery of internet email is becoming more problematic. In fact, none can gurantee the delivery of emails via internet, whatever their claim may be. Especially, many of the small lead buyers use the email addresses provided by the their ISPs. Encouraging them to use their corporate (private domain) emails will help improve the delivery rates.

Fax and SMS as additional Delivery Options

If your buyers have access to fax with an office based employee (even if the recipient is traveling), sending lead information via fax is a good add-on option. Many of the good lead distribution software solutions available in the market place will have fax delivery as an option. Please note that delivering lead information via fax involves per page cost. However the cost, around 15 cents per page, is not prohibitive considering the value addition.

Another option to deliver leads to your customer is using the Text Messaging option. Text messaging is also known as Short Messaging Service (SMS). However, you may not be able to  transmit the entire lead information, as the text message has to be less than 160 characters. Important information such prospect’s name, telephone and email address can be easily transmitted via SMS. Keep in mind that delivering lead details via SMS also involves additional cost to the buyer. And the buyer’s cell phone must be subscribed to and enabled to receive text messages. Generally, the lead management systems send the SMS messages as emails to the wireless carriers (ex. phonenumber@sprintpcs.com).

While these additional lead delivery options many not be for everyone, these may be certainly great tools for some of your deserving customers. As a lead seller, consult with your lead buyers, educate them the pros and cons of using Fax or SMS as lead delivery options, and let them decide if they want to leverage these tools.

If you are a GSA (General Sales Agency), the lead distribution is essentially a function of assigning the leads to your agents based on certain rules and policies.

Lead generation firms and lead sellers distribute the leads based on their sales lead distribution rules to meet the requirements of the lead buyers (independent or captive agents and / or insurance agency firms).

Distribution for Insurance Agency

Since over 75% of US population is using the internet and the internet is increasingly used to buy and research  products and services such as insurance policies by the consumers, internet based insurance leads have become a source of business for insurance agencies.

Whether you are generating your own leads on the internet or purchasing leads from internet lead vendors, quick and efficient distribution of leads to your agent is of prime importance.

Using an automated lead distribution and management system, the leads can be captured from your web sites as well as the lead vendors’ systems. Entire process of manual entry of prospect information into the lead management system can be avoided by picking a suitable lead distribution software system. Of course, the leads collected by traditional means such as networking meetings, seminars, personal visits and phone calls can also be entered into the system, so that the leads can be managed and tracked in a central database.

Once the prospects are in the system, these can be distributed to your agents in real time using preset rules. Some of the options for distribution are:

• Geography (such as County, Zip Code)
• Seniority of the Agent
• Type / Profile of Lead
• Round Robin method

Distribution Options for Lead vendors

Lead Vendors can use an effective Insurance Lead Distribution System to collect the leads in the database from their own lead generation sources and third party sources, distribute the leads to their clients in real time based on extensive filter criteria, process payments based on order conditions, track and process lead credit requests / returns, and obtain sales reports.

The following criteria could be used for real time insurance lead distribution:

• Geography (State, County, Zip codes)
• Lead Types
• Lead Profile parameters (such as preexisting conditions, current insurance situation, past incidents, etc.)
• Client Priority
• Exclusivity (ex. Exclusive, Non-exclusive, Semi-exclusive)
• Number of Times Lead Distributed
• Carrier Restriction
• Volume Pricing
• Price of a Lead
• Payment Status

The leads can be delivered in real time using instant email alert notifications to the agents or agencies. The lead information can also be provided as an attachment in CSV or XML form depending on the lead buyer requirement.

The lead buyers can also be provided access to the lead tracking system, so that the leads can be tracked online for increasing lead conversion rates. This could be a great value addition for the customers.

The insurance lead distribution and management systems such as LeadPro247 will generally support unlimited leads clients and online payment processing based on the payment terms agreed on. The clients can also make credit requests for invalid leads using the online system, which will lead to increased customer satisfaction.

Insurance Lead Types

Many insurance lead vendors and agencies deal with multiple insurance verticals. The insurance lead distribution and management software systems generally support the following lead types, unless it is a specific industry oriented system.

• Health Insurance Leads
• Life Insurance Leads
• Home Owner Insurance Leads
• Mortgage Protection Insurance Leads
• Auto Insurance Leads
• Renters Insurance Leads
• RV / Motorcycle / Boat Insurance Leads
• Annuities

However, the system must be capable of handling the specific lead profiles for each insurance type.

The system must also be configurable and flexible to suit your specific requirements. LeadPro247 Insurance Lead Distribution System is one such system tuned to the requirements of the insurance marketing vertical. Whether you are a muti-agent, national marketing insurance agency or a lead provider catering to the insurance lead buyers, the system will help you distribute, track and manage the leads. If you are an independent or captive agent, the system can be beneficialy used to track, nurture with drip email marketing (with built-in autoresponder service) and track the leads for better conversion.

If you are in business or a marketing professionals, then you know how various terms and definitions are used. There is no one ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ usage. Hence understanding the variations will help you doing research on the Internet, discussing with your peers in networking events or talking to your lead management software supplier.

Also, the experts use “Sales Lead” instead of using just “Lead” in order to minimize the confusion and increase the clarity. Some marketers also use terms such as “inquiry” and “opportunity”. Again, these terms might be interpreted differently. However, internet marketers generally use the term “lead”. Another term used is “prospect”.

Hence the following phrases may represent the same; or differ slightly depending on who you talk to! I will be using these terms without any major differentiation.

• Lead Management
• Prospect Management
• Inquiry Management
• Opportunity Management

However Contact Management is different from the above. You may use software applications such as Outlook, ACT or Goldmine for Contact Management.

Lead Management is also much wider in scope when compared with Lead Distribution. Since businesses and marketers use these two terms in a similar fashion, we will also expand the scope of the Lead Distribution i.e. the scope of this web site.

Again, several terms such as Lead Routing and Lead Assignment are widely used to refer to Lead Distribution. Let us explore the subtle differences in the terminology in future posts.

Lead Distribution can be defined as the process of assigning responsibility to a specific sales entity for the purpose of following up with the prospect and convert the lead to a customer by completing the sale of a product or service. The process may involve the application of simple or complex business rules based on the nature and complexity of the business.

The sales lead distribution can be carried out manually (as was done traditionally by small business professionals) or automated using a lead distribution software solution. If you are using internet for generating and capturing leads (directly or indirectly), it may not be feasible to carry out the process manually. In other words, you may not be really leveraging the advantages of the internet leads.

As mentioned earlier, depending on the nature of your business operations, you will be looking at the functions and requirements of the lead distribution software differently. Let us look at the various permutations and combinations of lead distribution on these pages in future.

This blog resource will serve as a resource focused on sales lead capture / acquisition, lead distribution, routing and assignment domains.

The phrase “lead distribution”  means different things to different industries / verticals / professionals. In this respect, I hope to discuss and cover as widely as possible. Though I will be referencing to LeadPro247 lead distribution platform in many examples, the underlying concepts, strategies and implementation processes can be used in other best of breed software or in your home grown solutions.

Also, as the internet matures and web 2.0 strategies take a stronghold in organizations, particularly in small / tiny businesses and medium sized organizations, the application of technology is bound to grow exponentially. This will result in new processes and innovation in technology. As we go forward, we will try to revisit the concepts discussed in older posts and update the new developments in the industry.