Converting Leads by Being Credible

Similar to the fashion of gaining organic search traffic comes the concept of converting that search traffic through good 'ol fashioned credibility.

Many great sales people will testify that one of the first, and most important, steps in the sales process is to establish rapport. In fact, back in my early days when I worked for ADP, I went through their sales training program (a very good one at that) and of course the first step in "the process" they were teaching was building rapport. To some, this comes really easy, but to those that dont have that amazing level of charm and charisma (that I have :)) there actually are fairly tried and true techniques you can use to win someone over and establish credibility thus building your rapport with the person.

Well in generating a top quality lead we MUST do the same thing. Now back to the top quality lead reference, we have discussed that before. To me, the top quality lead is someone who has actively searched for something that your site has and they have either clicked on a ppc add or on your organic search result.

Search Result Credibility:

I believe that by having someone click on your organic search result you have established the best first level credibility available. IMO a ppc ad is the second. The organic result tends to lend the notion that this has already been prescreened by the search engine as being something that really strongly relates to my query. Good, level one rapport granted. They hit your site because they feel something or someone else has deemed your site worthy of being here.

A paid search result is probably on the little lesser side of the credibility spectrum (although that probably is not the case in some industries). A good amount of internet users now know that the ppc ads are in fact advertisements. So sometimes, as with any ad, some people are reluctant to act on something that they feel they are being sold on. Its definitely more of a sales pitch and therefore only 20% of internet users click the paid results. Even when they do, they tend to have a little more hesitation on the site, again because they can feel like its a sales pitch. The organic result wins the credibility battle here. I'm not even going to touch the content network banner ad stuff because it isnt even close to the two sources we have discussed, so I wont even bother. Its great for volume but not for quality.

Advantage; organic search result. Your level one credibility has been obtained.

Content Credibility:

So you have the user on your site, congratulations. Now you have 3 to 30 seconds to conquer their next level of credibility.

The first question they ask; Is the website what they thought it was when they clicked and does it contain the type of info they were hoping to see? If not, its over, see you later unique visitor. If a brief visual scan tells them it does contain the info they were hoping to see, do you have enough of the right content to win their credibility and make them convert?

Some sites take the approach of just being there to convert the actionable traffic. Little info, all about targeting traffic that is searching for their specific service. Take a look at this site. It gets strong organic traffic and a vast majority of the organic traffic comes from long tail search phrases like "kitchen remodelers monterey county". It's a little more likely that the visitor is looking for some source to get in touch with kitchen remodeling companies in monterey county, probably so they can request an estimate. Now since the landing page on this site for this query is all about telling the visitor that they can request an estimate from a prescreened contractor in that specific topic and that specific region, converting the lead is fairly likely because the visitor can read a sentence or two, or view the title tag or view a heading on the page and realize that they are in the right place. Its also pretty likely the quality of lead will be very strong because that person's intention was to find kitchen remodelers in monterey county. Now, that being said, so many variables get thrown in to that equation that you just wont convert 100% of the visitors that go through that process. But the ones that you do convert, credibility across the board and your chances of having a good lead are very high.

Some sites can be a resource and win trust through strong content that makes them look like an expert that is dedicated to the industry. Take a look at this home improvment resource site. This site tries to win the credibility of the person searching for more broad terms like cabinet refacing or shower replacement. It does so by offering commentary, tips and narrative on what is involved in cabinet refacing (or whatever). As opposed to the site above where the credibility comes from targeting the actionable search result, here the credibility derives from the pool of information that makes the user feel like this site indeed is a cabinet refacing resource. Then the site calls the user to action by offering the prescreened contractor to service this need. Its definitely a less direct approach with a softer appeal for conversion. In fact, in this case the request an estimate form takes on the look of a post-it note. Attempting to connect with the user's at home responsibility and experience. It's less of an estimate engine and more of a category resource site built for the user. This site also takes into account that the info must be brief enough to convert the lead, you can definitely lose traffic that could convery if you dont offer several, subtle but present calls to action.


Call to Action / Closing / Converting:

We have spent the last thirty seconds building the visitors credibility through 1) showing up in an organic search result as a credible source and 2) providing what they need by either targeting their actionable request or by being an expert in the field of their request. Now lets convert the darn lead.

Always Be Closing. Always make sure you have your call to action present, easy to spot and easy to act upon. The bold call to request an estimate form as the focal point of the page is probably your best bet for the page that targets the more actionable search queries like "home improvement estimates". The soft and subtle offering of asking the visitor to "let me be your resource in finding a prescreened remodeling contractor" is probably the more effective approach in more topic or category searches.

Know what type of traffic you get to your site, play to any and every factor that will lend pure and targeted credibility and rapport and Always Be Closing.

Going Green and Getting Leads

So all the buzz these days is about going green and no doubt for good reason, it's helpful in prolonging humankind. I'm all for this of course and just so we are on the same page, I am more of a "Bright Green" than anything else (not as bright green as Amy Winehouse after a weekend sharade, but I'm getting there).

There are many resources out there that give you a solution on how to make something or do something the "green way". You can look up how to green your home, how to green your office and even how to green your sex life, and thats great, who wouldn't want to green their... wait, what? Yes, that's correct. There's a green way to do everything. I know what your thinking, "(low pitch, raspy voice) but I'm already a natural when it comes to..." Well dream on pal, we can all get a little more eco-friendly.

With that being said, the lead-gen people out there are starting to realize that there are leads to be converted here. And I think I'm on to the notion of having one green resource for creating leads the green way, of people trying to buy something the green way, from companies who do things the green way so that they can do something the green way.

- dizzi - head spinning - pause - pause - recovering - and

Now that only looks and sounds silly because of the redundant theme. Realistically thats the way we want to be, right?

We have seen environmentalism and eco-friendliness be a part of our culture for quite some time. The Dark Greens used to be the only people out there who knew how to be environmentally friendly and often times their message was suffocated by their aggresive protest. Now we are all learning more and doing more to help the environment. It's not only acceptable to talk about evironmentalism and eco-culture, but it's been converted to cool now.

I think that the lead-gen people who take part in this "green lead gen vertical" are doing something for the greater good. Maybe not as good as those who we hold so high in our society: The Paparazzi, but lets keep building on-line resources like this and lets keep blogging the green message. We can actually feel pretty good about ourselves for this one.

Being both a "Bright-Green" kinda guy and a nut-job for the customer acquisition market naturally I had to get my source for converting the green leads. Its a going green home improvement website for tips, articles and of course, free estimates. Oh, and you can check this out for prescreened local solar contractors.

IT Support Lead Gen Site

So as I have mentioned before on this blog, I serve as a lead buyer from other lead gen companies in the IT education vertical. I run across many small IT business owners quite frequently.

I have been talking about the need for a major lead gen website in this vertical for a while. It just doesn't seem to be out there.

Small and Medium sized local IT business owners are generally tech savvy enough to find out the fundamentals of SEO so that they can generate at least a decent pull of organic traffic in their area. A good example is a talented IT technician that I have worked with for quite some time. He recently (a couple years ago) started up a Tech Support company that focuses on systems and network management (mainly a Microsoft guy). He does some great work and stays current on all the latest IT trends like RFID, Security, Virtualization etc. So, basically he is quite tech savvy, enough to the point that he has the know-how to do some basic SEO build out for his sites and his client's sites. If he wanted to go beyond that he would need to switch careers.

My point is that he has the ability to make local sites rank well with general longer tail search phrases in their site's local region. However, if he wanted to grow his company into a medium sized business or larger, he would need a SEO company to do it for him.

So where is the lead buying experience that can allow him to take a monthly lead buying budget and turn that into true prospects? Why hasn't a major lead gen firm taken up that vertical yet?

Many smaller businesses today have the ability to basically support themselves by paying reasonable prices for on-line leads, as we leadn gen guys all darn well know. Its way overdue in this vertical.

IT Service Industry Leads

So all of us in the on-line industry, and basically anyone who has ever wanted to own a website, is full of ideas for the next myspace.

However, a couple of friends of mine recently brought to light a seemingly obvious idea that really doesn't appear to have a major industry / vertical strongholder - IT Service Leads. My friends thought of this because they are owners of local, small business sized IT / Networking companies - http://www.newpathcom.com/ - They are more telecom / networking based and then Kent Island Maryland based computer and tech support company and actually they dont seem to know of a source for steady leads on the web. In fact, one of them wanted to start something like this. Of course, two things always seem to get in the way, time and money.

Why haven't the major national lead gen firms like Quinstreet and such taken the steps to break this vertical open. It seems like it's something that could generate a great price per lead. And I have to imagine that there are enough people searching for IT services - both businesses and personal.

I wonder what the deal is there? What's funny too is that (I deal with IT companies both large and small on a daily basis) most IT firms have NO IDEA about anything related to driving traffic to a website or even the principal of lead generation. Oh sure, they could write the code or build the database for any site all day long, but obviously so much more of it is marketing, and marketing and IT are polar opposites.

So who makes this move to give this vertical a try? Not me, not now anyways, time and money...

But it is a good idea, right?

My Kinda Lead - Search Based

My company generates search driven leads (mostly organic). Plain and simple: Joe Homeowner searches for a kitchen remodeling contractor in Montgomery county Maryland and finds one of my sites - try it, it works :) - and lands on the Montgomery county MD kitchen remodeling page and then is lead to request an estimate. Again, this is a better product (IMO) and since I also serve as a lead buyer, I have years worth of reports from multiple lead gen companies that show me this.

On that same note, I have bought leads from both PPC based lead firms as well as mainly organic search based lead firms and I dont find much of a difference between those two. EXCEPT in the case that the company is using a ppc campaign that pulls traffic from something other than the search engine company's search network. In those kind of situations I have seen a decline in lead quality - a substantial one compared to the actual search based lead.

Again, I create leads that are generated by organic searc traffic (not surprising since my partner is definitely an SEO expert). So organic search based traffic is without a doubt our lead acquisition channel of choice, for all of our sites.

I believe that search based leads are the hardest type of leads to generate; it takes the longest amount of time (long term white hat SEO), it produces the lowest volume in many cases etc. Currently, producing these leads pays only slightly higher than leads from other sources. However, the cost to create the leads gets lower with each day that passes. Generally, you front load your SEO campaign spend and with time and a steady approach, you are rewarded with growing lead volume through a growing organic traffic pull. So your cost diminishes.

Just like the volume, the payouts on search driven leads take time to grow as well. Some time, I'll talk more about that...

The Most Common Lead - Incentive Driven

The most common lead you will find across the internet is the incentive driven lead. This type of lead is the main one that fuels the great affiliate marketing industry, for the most part. The incentive driven lead is the result of the meeting point between a publisher, an advertiser and a visitor. The advertiser has the offer and the publisher posts the offer and generates the web traffic which then converts into leads. Basically brain surgery... :)

The publisher, is the website that houses the advertisement which is attempting to catch the attention of the person (visitor - I'm assuming its a person I guess, could be a dog if they are using the internet nowadays, which I suppose is... Dumb, nevermind) that they hope converts into a lead. The advertiser's offer has to be something catchy; like a dancing pink monkey holding up a sign that says "Lower Your Interest Rate" (this is just a made up example of course, I've seen blue monkeys, but no pink ones). The site visitor thinks that the monkey is cute, or the offer is attractive, either one, and then they click and get directed to another site which houses a form or they fill out a form on that site.

I am partial to my company's type of lead generation, search based. However, the incentive driven lead has been a staple to this industry and ultimately is the reason for this industry being as large as it is today.

The incentive driven lead has too many downfalls (IMO-obviously), mainly, the close rates are much lower than they would be if a person was searching actively for a product or service. The incentive lead wasn't necessarily created by someone who had the intention of using the web to find a specific product, service or company on that specific day or moment. The incentive lead most often is generated by that visitor's instantaneous curiousity. Sometimes you catch someone at the right time, perhaps they were looking to specifically lower their interest rate or refinance their mortgage and they stumpled upon this ad. Hey, sometimes you may catch the person who had the notion to refinance but may have been putting it off for a little while. The majority, however, are not those people. The majority saw the dancing monkey and thought, "Huh, I've seen this dancing monkey before. Maybe I should see what the monkey leads to, and maybe I could just kinda check out what interest rates are currently..." This is why I view this type of lead as inferior.

I have much experience buying the incentive driven lead. I find that in the vertical I compete in as a buyer, this type of lead closes at about 1/5 the rate of a search based lead.

Again, the incentive driven lead rules the lead generation industry. It's arguably the easiest lead to create, at least volume tells us that it is.

Different Lead Generation Methods

I'd like to begin to discuss the different types of leads that are generated. I am both a lead generation company owner as well as a person who purchases on-line leads from multiple sources (in two different verticals).

Over the next few weeks I will be discussing some of the different lead types, how I rate their effectiveness and where they are in today's on-line lead purchasing market.

Just so we are all clear my company creates leads through (predominantly) organic search results.