Many businesses have neither the time, nor the resources in terms of budget and skills that are required to maintain a marketing department to generate sales leads. Large advertising campaigns can also be very expensive and yet because they are not honed and targeted to the customer you are looking to attract, may not deliver the results that justify the effort and resources directed into them
For many businesses, the answer has been to turn to a lead generation service to deliver high-quality sales leads consisting of prospects that are already highly engaged in the buying process and have been directed to you because they have already demonstrated that they might want to buy your product or service.
How a Lead Generation Service Works
A lead generation service specialises in providing highly qualified sales leads. This means that they have the expertise and established networks at their disposal to deliver the results that you need and prevent you from expending your own resources on following up less targeted results. They will employ various methods both on and offline to provide you with the type of highly qualified leads that would take vast amounts of time, effort and resource, for you to generate yourself. They will work with you from the outset to identify the best methods of inserting your business into the buying process, so that they can make you aware of a prospect that is already looking to buy what you are offering. This is of course, a sales lead. Some of the ways that this is accomplished are;-
Internet Lead Generation
Search Engine Optimised websites: The lead generation services can often access highly optimised syndicated websites that appear high in search engine rankings. Your product is then featured on a page designed to showcase products exactly like yours. The page may include articles and news items related to your product or service. There will also be some way for the prospect to register an interest by using an online form. It is these details that are then passed out to for you to follow up and close the sale.
Pay per click campaigns: Although the process of setting up and running a campaign using Google Adwords or similar Pay-Per-Click (PPC) platforms seems very easy, it is actually a much more specialised process because unless targeted properly, your money may as well have been tossed in the waste bin. A lead generation service once again, has the expertise to run these campaigns in a way that delivers you the best possible results in terms of highly qualified prospects.
Lead Generation by Telemarketing
Telemarketing is offered by many of the lead generation services. This is particularly effective for a business that is looking to sell a product or service to other businesses. An effective telemarketing campaign requires a specific set of skills and a lot of time and resources. A service that can offer this type of campaign on your behalf can not only save you a lot of time and resources, but also deliver the prospect of a substantial growth in sales due to the highly qualified nature of the leads that are forwarded.
How Much Does it Cost?
Using a lead generation service may not necessarily be expensive. One of the many positive reasons to use such a service is that it puts you in charge of the budget and also the timing of the campaigns. Some services will allow you to register for free and simply top an account up with funds, while others may charge you an initial setup fee. Generally you pay per lead and the cost of this can vary according to how difficult the process of obtaining the lead is. You are only paying for high quality leads that have already been pre-checked by the service. This increases your conversion ratio and makes it a very cost effective option. You also have much more flexibility because you can choose to stop or rerun a campaign at any point. All in all, a win-win situation.
For more information on lead generation services please visit McDowall at http://www.mcdowallcommunications.com/