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What To Look For In An Online Financial Services Lead Company

By Brett Kitchen

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 19Jun2009 Word count: 986 Viewed: 309 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

SOMETIMES...

It is necessary to augment your lead generation methods with a little instant gratification or quick fix...

namely purchased leads or lists.

After all, you might be new to the business- you don't have a big network built up yet... or you haven't learned a lot about self lead-generation at this point in your career.

Or perhaps you have been successful at lead generation but without warning, one of your systems starts to fail. It can happen to even the best conceived marketing campaign at some point, and while the Insurance Mavericks continue to advise against using online lead generation companies in general, we know that there are always those of you who will feel compelled to do so anyway.

With that in mind, we decided to offer our own advice as to how to find a decent (well, as decent as they get anyway) lead company; advice born out of the bitter experience of having been burned by several lead generation companies ourselves over the years.

A little time and effort on your part to research companies before you purchase from them will go a long way toward alleviating the grief that comes with getting ripped off.

How to Choose A "Better" Online Lead Company

1. Look at the website: Notice if it looks as if it was put together at the last minute by a class of 3rd graders or if it "comes and goes." You visit it one day and it is "down due to maintenance" or "this page has moved." If the company seems a bit transient to you- it probably is.

On the other hand, if a website looks "TOO SLICK" it might be another shiny apple luring you into biting. Follow the company in question over course of a month or so at least to get a sense of it's stability.

2. Do a GOOGLE and/or Yahoo search. This seems like a given, but I am surprised how many advisors fail to do this simple step. Look for red flags when you search, such as repeated complaints by customers, negative mentions on forums, lawsuits, etc.

3. CALL the company and talk to a salesperson. A big NO-NO are companies who make it impossible for you to contact them. Call the numbers listed on the website and shoot off a query email. If your email bounces back, or your call is NEVER answered- stay away.

4. If you do manage to get ahold of a salesperson at the company in question: ask him or her a few hard-hitting questions:

*Do you require a set-up or start-up fee, and if so, what does that pay for? -very often the so-called set up fee is little more than a spiff paid to the salesperson. (you should not have to pay a set-up fee at all, in my opinion)

Be sure to remember to factor in any such fee when computing the cost of those "bargain" leads at $7 each may actually wind up to be $10 or more when you factor in the signup fee.

* Are my leads EXCLUSIVE, meaning: "Are these leads sold only to me.. period?" Lead companies can be very cagey in this area- claiming things such as "no insurance agent will get these leads." What they often don't say is that the list HAS been resold to mortgage brokers, car dealerships, cosmetics people, etc.? That in turn means these poor people have been telemarketed and direct mail solicited to the point where they don't even want to pick up the phone or go to the mailbox. Make sure EXCLUSIVE means EXCLUSIVE.

* If the company claims their leads are "generated on the internet in real time," you should take this with a huge grain of salt. It is worth asking:

*How many people are currently using your program? For how long does your typical client stay with you? How many leads do you generate in an average month? Listen, it's hard to generate good leads on the internet, especial exclusive REAL TIME leads delivered straight to your in-box. The numbers, bound as they are to the laws of mathematics, should be fairly low.

*Do you have some verifiable testimonials, people I can call?

*Do you ever supplement your real time leads with purchased lists, aka "third party list vendors." I can almost assure you that they DO this, even if they won't admit it.

The thing to remember here is that the pool of qualified leads is so low that any company attempting to exist solely on website-generated leads would probably go out of business if they didn't "pad" their lead lists a bit.

* Ask the company exactly HOW they generate their leads, Ask to see a copy of the ad and the websites where the lead generating ad supposedly appears. If the salesperson's answers are vague or they say "we use rotating ads and banners so it's hard to go and see one

Always ask "Can I see your ad at work right now?"

* Ask (in your most innocent voice, of course) Do you use co-registration pages to gather leads? If you are wondering what a co-reg page is and why they can be very bad as a lead generation tool, you can find several articles online which explain the whole co-registration issue.

*What is your return policy and may I please have a copy in writing? This is crucial. If the company does not have a return policy or if the policy is convoluted or poorly written, getting credit for the inevitable duplicate or obviously bogus lead will be nearly impossible. You need to know this before you place your first order.

There is a lot more I could say about not throwing good money after bad leads, but I think by now you are starting to get it:

Don't set your expectations too high when using online lead companies and ask lots of questions before you hand over that credit card.

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