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Apr 11 10

5 Key Considerations to Choose a Lead Distribution Software Service Provider

by Paddu

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.

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Mar 20 10

How to Get Ideas for Blogging and Generate More Sales Leads

by Paddu

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.
Blogging Ideas for Generating More LeadsHere 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!

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Mar 18 10

State Of Social Media Survey Results Show Positive Outcomes

by Paddu

MarketingProfs, a leading online marketing research organization, conducted a survey with over 5000 professionals regarding the usage of Social Media by B2B and B2C companies. The State of Social Media Survey results seems to show that the social media is beneficial to marketers and will help silence the skeptics.

Here is the summary of the survey results:State of Social Media Marketing by MarketingProfs

  • 81% of businesses surveyed gained positive exposure
  • 61% increased their online traffic or subscribers
  • 56% created new business partnerships
  • 52% boosted search rankings

This is a comprehensive report with over 240 pages containing detailed charts and statistics. Note that this is a paid report, but may be worth the money for those who are into social media as a marketing platform. If you are a lead generation /distribution agency or demand generation consulting service provider, the report contents would be a great addition to your knowledge base.

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Feb 28 10

Will Facebook Advertising challenge Google AdWords in Lead Generation?

by Paddu

In the recent weeks, I have noticed a theme running in the internet marketing industry and inbound marketers with the question “will Facebook Ads challenge Google AdWords?”. The quick answer is no; at least not any time soon. However the emergence of such a thought itself is a good sign for the industry. Some sort of credible competition is good ifor the online advertising. Facebook, as a leading social media tool with over 300 million members is growing as a credible advertising platform. As a lead generation business professional, it is essential to take a critical look at the Facebook Advertising platform. Obviously, any new medium should not be ignored for the sake of it.

Will Facebook Advertising challenge Google Adwords?

Facebook Advertising

There are several advantages of advertising in Facebook. Here are some:

  1. The primary factor  is the phenomenal growth of  Facebook user base. However whether it will turn out to be a major search platform competing with Google is doubtful. Google’s ads are basically driven by people who search for products or services.
  2. The prices are cheap when compared with Google. How long it will stay that way is anybody’s guess. The moment it gains critical mass, advertisers will flock to the Facebook Advertising platform and the prices are bound to go go up significantly.
  3. The targeting with keywords and demographics is much better with Facebooks Ads.
  4. Even the basic ads support images in the advertisement. The text copy can go up to 135 characters (unlike Google’s 75 characters).
  5. The overall userbase is much younger. This could serve well for advertising in certain industry segments and verticals such as dating, music and entertainment, consumer electronics, beverages, education, etc.
  6. Conversion rates are much higher. Again, as the ad volume increases the rates will go down.

While some project that Facebook ads will be as big as Google AdWords, many are not so sure. But did you ever guess two years back that Twitter will be creating such a revolution? Hence keep your options open, evaluate your lead business vertical(s) and start sampling the Facebook advertising.

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Feb 28 10

How to Ensure Lead Quality while using CPA Ad Networks and Affiliate Traffic for Lead Generation?

by Paddu

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.

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Feb 28 10

How to Compare Competitors’ Advertisements on CPA Ad Networks using Offer Vault service?

by Paddu

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.

Offer Vault Service to view offers from CPA Networks
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.

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Feb 28 10

How to Use CPA Ad Networks for Lead Generation and reduce dependence on Google Adwords PPC

by Paddu

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.

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Feb 21 10

How to use Back Office Lead Systems to acquire and retain Lead Buyers

by Paddu

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.

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Dec 25 09

Using Q and A as part of your Social Media Strategy for Lead Generation

by Paddu

You should be using Question and Answers (Q&A) as part of your internet / social media and lead generation strategy per Jason Falls, one of the leading social media experts. Question and Answer forums such as Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, LinkedIn Answers, etc. drive a lot of business leads.

Business.Com has released a Social Media Benchmarking study results recently. Polling over 900 professionals, the study has revealed some interesting facts. Question and Answers forums are more popular than even Twitter. Consumers and business are finding Q&A increasingly useful. While LinkedIn Answers leads the category, Yahoo Answers follows distant second.

The Social Media Best Practices: Q and A Forums report is available for free download from Business.Com. You need to register, if your are not a member already. You may also download the full Social Media Benchmarking Study report from Business.Com.

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Dec 13 09

Video Blogging for Lead Generation and Distribution companies and Internet Marketing professionals

by Paddu

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.

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