The Prospektor - Uncovering Qualified Lead Generation

5 Questions to Ask...

Precision Prospects is thrilled to see articles like the “5 Questions to Ask Your Online Lead Generation Provider” recently written by Matt Wise of Q Interactive.  For years now, we have been telling our clients that there is an important difference between co-registration which tends to provide volume but (typically) lower quality, and high quality programs.  We like to call it CPQ – cost per qualified lead. 

A few other components that our program lives by:

• Provide an educational incentive whenever you can, don’t just make it about the brand.  This builds the relationship and creates goodwill between the advertiser and the potential customer.
• Precision Leads only sends highly qualified leads based on specific screening criteria.  Regardless of qualification however, we insist that ALL respondents receive the offer.  Otherwise, it could create a negative brand image.  This is particularly important with tangible offers (not just email or PDF) programs.

While our contractual responsibility ends at the delivery of a quality lead, we also like to make sure that our advertisers understand how they should use the information they just purchased to enhance probability of an ultimate sale . Quality lead programs should also help them by:

• Collecting more than just personal information (investing style for example).  We believe that knowing more about an individual will lead to a “warm call” instead of a “cold call”. Sales should use this information to build relationships.
• Though “fresh” leads are important, we actually look to convince most clients to delay calling – not dialing as soon as the name is submitted.  Let the consumer have time to understand the offer you have just extended before the phone rings.

Measuring ROI is another important topic which we covered on our January 11th entry.

Marcela Shine
Vice President of Marketing

Resources: the original article can be found at www.mediapost.com
Media Post’s Performance Insider Newsletter
“5 Questions to Ask Your Online Lead Generation Provider”
by Matt Wise, Thursday, January 25, 2007
Matt Wise is President and CEO of Q Interactive

MediaPost's Performance Insider - Response

“5 Questions to Ask Your Online Lead Generation Provider”
by Matt Wise, Thursday, January 25, 2007
Matt Wise is President and CEO of Q Interactive

Gary Kreissman Respond:

Matt is on the right track in focusing on the value of targeting.  However, targeting using traditional DR methodology such as offer optimization should only be the starting point today. 

In the Precision Leads program, we’ve found that ROI is a lot better when an advertisercan determine the precise criteria that define an ideal prospect – and then only pay for those who meet those criteria.  Because respondents are willing to qualify themselves to get an offer, it’s a fair exchange.  Advertisers find that targeting users who qualify themselves in addition to opting-in, can substantially reduce acquisition cost.

We also made some important additional points on our blog, which can be found at www.precisionprospects.com

Resources: the original article can be found at www.mediapost.com
Media Post’s Performance Insider Newsletter
“5 Questions to Ask Your Online Lead Generation Provider”
by Matt Wise, Thursday, January 25, 2007
Matt Wise is President and CEO of Q Interactive

What Google Knows About The Future of Marketing

I was excited when my colleague told me we were going to see Patrick Keane, Director of Sales Strategy at Google, speak to the Harvard Business School Club. As Precision Prospects provides qualified online leads to financial and business technology companies, I was interested to hear what Google was doing in this area. I quickly googled “Google + cost per acquisition” and was delighted to see the results. There were 1,070,000 results!!! And the first headline proclaimed, “Google announces CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) campaigns.” Wow, I thought, this is great. This could be a great opportunity to talk to Google about ventures, etc.

I couldn’t wait to get to the event. First of all, let me say that the Google offices are very cool. Exercise Balls in primary colors are everywhere (in comparison to Yahoo’s Yoga blocks). A Rollercoaster Bead Maze greets you at the reception desk. And the food and the wine at the reception was amazing. My senses were on overload and I was ready to talk to someone. Alas!! There was no one in the crowd wearing Google name tags. I walked around searching and finally meet someone from Google. Great guy but it turns out he heads event planning. I compliment him on the food and continue to look for someone to talk marketing or biz dev. They were either not there or traveling in disguise.

Undaunted, we sat down for the presentation with the audacious title of “What Google Knows About The Future of Marketing”. Perhaps an advertising medium can also be a psychic medium… The presentation was filled with anecdotes promoting Google Trends – kinda fun to see that OJ Simpson trumped Jessica Simpson and The Simpsons in Google searches after that book debacle. But what was missing was insight on where marketing is going, how Google can help marketers improve their returns and most important – counsel on what to consider as performance advertising evolves. Yes, Google will own everything and all advertising will be driven there – but please tell us how all the cool tools will bring our clients accountability and build their businesses.

Resolution Idea - Measure ROI

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION – MEASURE ROI (Return on Investment)

A recent article by The Wall Street Journal, "Madison Avenue Sifts Through 'Clutter'" pointed out the call for accountability:

Some are calling for new ways to measure whether consumers pay attention to their ads. In 2006, Toyota struck a deal with NBC that required the network to demonstrate that its viewers paid attention and could recall particular details about a TV show, such as its story line. Data from IAG Research, a New York company that measures viewers' response to TV programs, ads and product placements, were central to the deal. Look for more pressure from Madison Avenue for other traditional media outlets to agree to such demands and come up with data offering proof.

What this article is obviously referring to is ROI (return on investment).There’s a lot of noise from marketers about basing ad buying decisions on results and ROI. And the noise is justified. The problem is the huge gap between the interest in tracking source of business and ROI by source and the ability to actually do it. Most marketers (including some of our own clients) acknowledge privately that these vaunted benefits of database marketing – not to mention measurements like Lifetime Value – are more theoretical than practical.

We understand the challenges. To name a few we have all heard: large companies with vast resources can not get the internal support to get this programmed into their proprietary (and in some cases, legacy) systems. Marketing departments and sales departments do not always have access to the applications (or paying for those applications sits in different budgets). Small companies on the other hand may just not have the bandwidth to make this happen.

Regardless of the reason, tracking ROI should not be ignored. Accountability is important. For those of you considering this as a marketing “New Year’s Resolution” we recommend considering the following when setting up your program:

1. Demand that service providers send you a unique ID for every lead they send you
2. The data file should include source and promotion (or campaign number)
3. When using email campaigns, use auto-responders that include those ID’s as passwords or user id’s
4. If (2) or (3) above are not an option, collect additional information at each point of contact; don’t be afraid to ask the customer how he or she heard about you
5. Make sales accountable for reporting a closed sale.This is particularly easy if you coordinate reporting through “turn-key” sales management solutions like Salesforce or NetSuite for example.

And if like most of us, you fail to deliver on this year’s resolution – don’t give up!Marketers know this is important enough to keep on the list for next year’s plans.

Sources:
The Wall Street Journal Article to which we referred can be found at www.wsjonline.com

"Madison Avenue Sifts Through 'Clutter': Ad Trends Veer Toward, Fewer TV Commercials, Greater Use of Internet" By BRIAN STEINBERG and SUZANNE VRANICA (January 3, 2007; Page B3)

Internet Advertising Bureau: www.iab.net

We also recommend that you read the Internet Advertising Bureau’s online lead generation best practices:http://www.iab.net/standards/lead_generation.asp