#1 Lead Posting / Integration Options to meet your Customer Requirements

Most lead buyers will be have different lead posting requirements depending on their lead distribution, delivery and management system. The following are some of the options, which in turn will need customization or minor tweaking:

• Basic HTTP Posting
• Advanced HTTP Posting with return of critical information
• SOAP based API
• Advanced Authentication
• Fixed / Converted  data formats

If your lead provider cannot have multiple lead posting options with flexibility, you may not be able to satisfy certain customer requirements.

#2 Capabilities of Lead Vendor’s Technical Team

Even if the lead posting system is flexible enough, the customers will come with a ton of custom requests. Unless your vendor’s technical team is capable and willing to address these requirements, customer needs cannot be met.

#3 Response Time to address Technical Requests

The vendor support team should be agile and quick to respond to the requests. The turnaround time should be short enough to service the customers. Your lead providers should be flexible to accommodate the work at short notice. For example, if you need to post 100 sample leads to a large customer’s lead management or CRM system, the same should be done within hours; not in days or weeks, unless it requires super customization!

#4 Quality of Leads

Assuming that the vendor is able to deliver leads in time, the quality plays an important role in lead conversion rate. Understanding Vendor’s Web Traffic Generation strategies and processes might help you get an insight into the lead quality. Other traditional methods such as reference check will add great value in this area.

#5 Optimum Pricing

As pricing is relative to the quality and performance of the leads, evaluating and arriving at an optimum price is critical. The pricing is very elastic and hence the vendor’s pricing should be assesses based on both objective and subjective factors.

While evaluating lead vendors and partners, the above considerations should be factored in. If you are new to the business you may be content with your lead generation using Search Engine Marketing (SEO and PPC) and Social Media / Web 2.0 strategies. However using lead gen vendors who specialize in specific verticals and have long experience is required to scale up your lead business operations. Any missteps in lead buying will lead to customer churn and loss of revenue. Hence spend some time researching the vendors and their processes, ask questions and make a decision that will be a win-win for both the all the parties concerned.

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.

Satisfying the Clients with Lead Quality

First and foremost objective is to satisfy the client. There are several factor which influence the customer satisfaction in this scenario; prime among them are:

1. delivering leads on time, as promised
2. making sure that the leads are genuine (and not bogus)
3. ensuring that the lead information is correct and complete
4. pricing it optimally

As you would have noticed, the prime criteria for customer satisfaction turns out to be the Lead Quality (and not necessarily quantity). Using right affiliates / networks, genuine lead generation methods avoiding deception and incentives, scrubbing the leads (for incomplete information, duplicate leads, etc.) and adding lead verification techniques where necessary will lead to high quality leads and hence increased lead client satisfaction.

Lead Delivery via Emails

Another important factor that lead companies and sellers often overlook is the lead delivery process and back office systems. If you are selling leads to end users who are mostly small businesses without strong technical capabilities (which will be the case 70% of the time), you will be in for a big surprise. Even if your lead distribution software system supports multiple lead delivery methods, there is no guarantee that they would have evaluated all methods and finalized a suitable method to fit their specific scenario.

Most of the clients will go with email alert notifications in real time. While this is a required and essential process, at least 30% of the emails will not get into your client’s attention. Either the email will not land in their email inbox or fall into the junk mail / bulk mail folder. Or even the client may delete some lead alerts when trying to  sort out all the spammy looking stuff in their inbox.

Even if they receive your lead via email alert, it might slip through the crack and they will never follow up with the prospect for hours or even days. Ultimately, as the new emails keep piling up in the box, older emails will lose their relevance and visibility. Unfortunately, the client will conveniently put the blame on the quality of leads (in other word, you, the lead seller) and will stop placing repeat lead orders with you! In worst case scenario, you may not get your money for the leads already delivered, if you have provided a post payment caption. Keep in mind that none of this is in your control or your fault!

Leveraging Back Office Systems

You can leverage the back office system feature of lead distribution systems to increase customer satisfaction and contribute to increase your client’s business. Yes, there is an important role to be played by you as a lead generation company and lead seller in educating and encouraging your clients to adopt the to the usage and benefits of back office systems for thier own good.

Every major lead generation and distribution management software system comes with some sort of back office system access feature for the lead buyers. Using these system not only guarantee the delivery of the lead, but also will help the clients increase the lead conversion rates by using the lead retrieval, tracking and management functions.

Flavors of Lead Back Office Systems

Advanced lead distribution systems such as LeadPro247 will have mutiple flavors of back office systems in order to meet the requirements of various lead buyers. Either you may absorb the cost (which is generally low and affordable) of these systems or pass it on to your customers. Considering their total value, it may be useful if offer the back office system as an added benefit!

The following three versions / types /flavors are most commonly found in the lead company software systems such a LeadPro247:

1. Basic version: Lead Retrieval System
2. Medium level: Lead Tracking and Management System
3. Premium level: Lead Tracking and Marketing Automation System

Lead Retrieval System

When the leads are distributed, the clients can immediately access the leads in the lead retrieval system. They can also see the purchase orders placed by them and the status of the orders. This will provide a real time view of the leads delivered and pending quantity. Access to the lead retrieval system provides peace of mind to the buyers and helps you reduce your customer support and  hand holding efforts. You can focus on your business – generating and delivering quality leads!

Lead Tracking and Management System

This version of customer access goes one step further and help your clients manage and track their leads as they follow up with their end customers. In other words, your lead distribution system back office turns into a mini CRM (customer relationship management) system for your clients. The leads delivered by you can be assigned to one or more sales reps within their organization for follow up. The clients can also track customer conversions, follow-up and call back reminders, etc. A wealth of lead tracking reports will be available for your customers.

Lead Tracking and Marketing Automation System

This is the premier level of back office access that can be provided to your lead buyers. In addition to lead retrieval and tracking management, the system can be used a full fledged marketing automation system. Drip Email Marketing is used to follow-up and nurture the leads. Depending on your buyers’ requirements, they can opt for self-payment depending on their drip email campaign volume, survey response volume, etc. This back office system would be useful for your sophisticated and deserving customers who would like to use an online marketing automation system.

Conclusion

Finally, a word of caution. Many of your lead buyers may not be ready to go the full extent of leveraging the functions and features of your lead distribution back office systems. However, you should encourage the clients to use the Lead Retrieval system at the minimum, which will pay back in no time for both of your organizations.

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.