Ok, lead cleansing doesn’t have to sound like you have bad leads on your hands that only Ajax can handle.  There are many theories on how to really get the best leads from your lead sources and get rid of the ones that can lead to a nasty outbreak.  The simple truth is that if you are getting bad leads from a particular source and you don’t catch it right away, it can be like that nasty little virus your kid brings home and infects the whole family.  In today’s world with DNC, CAN SPAM, and many laws regarding the collection of information, can you risk infecting your company with a bad lead source?

 

The simple answer is that you cannot.  So how do you protect your company from an $11,000 DNC fine, a spam law suite, or potential customers sending letters to your state district attorney?  There a couple of proven methods we have found to work at ClickPoint Software for our customers.

 

#1 Call Verification

           

Step 1: It doesn’t have to be high tech and cost you thousands of dollars to start this preventative measure that could save you some serious marketing dollars.  If you call verify your leads as they come in with one telemarketer costing you on average $400 a week, you could potentially save your company from an infection of bad leads.  Call verifying your leads also weeds out bad providers, helping your company only work with the best lead sources.  Luckily both of our systems support PSTN (standard phone lines) and VoIP telephony solutions to help you call verify your leads.  You will save by weeding out bad phone numbers, duplicate leads, non interested leads, and out of criteria leads only passing along the leads your company really desires.  In 5 years of working as a marketing company vice president I never came across one mortgage company that practiced call verification regularly.  This goes back to my article on waste.  I would start this process as the first step as a marketing director at any mortgage, insurance, or similar company that relies on affiliate traffic from Commission Junction, Link Share, or any affiliate network.  I would especially start this process if I was buying from internet lead providers.  I am amazed that some of these fortune 500 companies will spend $10,000+ on a law suite rather than put this practice into place. 

 

#2 Weed out dupes and non criteria leads

 

Step 2: Implementing a high tech system that kicks out duplicate leads and leads not meeting your criteria.  It also gives instant results to your lead sources.

 

Approxiamately 50% of fortune 500 companies I dealt had horrible affiliate management systems that were so antiquated they used Excel reports to communicate with their lead providers.  If any CEO’s read this please realize if your company is doing this you are missing the boat and losing thousands of dollars if not millions annually.  It’s very simple.  Let's say your company buys 1,000 leads a day at a cost of $10 per lead.  That is equal to $10,000 a day and $200,000 a month on leads.  I found working in a marketing company that 20% of leads on average were dupes or leads not meeting criteria.  So, were talking about $40,000 of your marketing budget monthly going to waste.  It may not be that bad you could be using the antiquated system I was talking about that communicates with your lead providers via 3 marketing professionals working 40 hours a week with those pesky Excel reports.  Let’s see, that’s probably costing you $40,000 a year per entry level marketing associate and $60K for the marketing head.  With a good system you can eliminate the two entry level positions and at the very minimum save your company $80K a year.  Not to mention you have a tight ship and better reports than the ones I got from entry level marketing associates who make lots of mistakes.  You could spend a couple hundred thousand creating this system internally. With no real past experience other than your marketing director that has no clue of what it takes to build one of these systems and you could lose out.  Or you might want to try trusting the professionals to implement a system they use to cleanse thousands of leads daily for lead companies.  Yes, we work with lead companies that make their living on the thin margins of sales leads.  10% - 20% of leads that are not quality is the difference between a profitable lead company and not.  So, we work with lead companies to make sure they are profitable and can handle thousands of leads daily that are only the leads they want to pass along to their customers. 

 

 

 

 

So now that you know we help lead companies get the margins they need to stay in business, what more do you need to know?  If you want your company to get the best leads, reduce risk, reduce employee cost, and help your company grow by taking in the best leads possible ClickPoint is a choice you can’t overlook.