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Lead Generation is something that many businesses have heard about but few really understand. If you ask 10 people what they think lead generation is they will probably all come up with different answers.

At the most basic level, a lead is a piece of information about a consumer who has stated they are interested in a product or service which they are actively searching for. A lead is created only when a consumer has given their express consent to be contacted about that specific product or service.

The key point to remember for any would-be lead buyer is that a lead is not a gift wrapped guaranteed customer ready to sign on the dotted line. Buying good quality leads is easy – converting those leads into business and generating revenue is the hard part! It is up to the lead buyer to follow up the lead efficiently, build a relationship with the consumer and sell them their company and the ability to provide the service they want.

Where most lead buyers really fall down is that they have no processes in place to manage the leads properly. The companies that do the best from lead generation are those that have every step of the sales process mapped out in advance and have the systems in place to deal with every eventuality. The fundamental strategy that any lead buyer must have in place is a process to maximise contact rates. If you maximise contact rates, you will convert more leads into business. As a minimum lead buyers should have thought about or have an answer to the following questions:

• Do you have the processes to make an immediate follow up phone call when you receive a lead?
• If there is more than one person receiving leads, who’s going to make first contact?
• If you are out on meetings, who is going to call the leads?
• If you don’t make immediate contact, do you have the capacity to follow up every lead for a minimum of 4 calls a day – in the morning , at lunchtime, in the afternoon and in the evening – for 5 days?
• What will you do with the leads that don’t convert? Do you have the processes to email and call them periodically?
• How will you handle leads that come in out of office hours?
• Do you have email templates etc. to follow up every lead that you contact and the ones that you don’t contact?

As an American lead generation specialist once said “Leads work if you work them right!”

About the Author

Justin Rees is UK Head of Marketing for LeadPoint, the world’s first online lead marketplace. LeadPoint provides over 3,000 real-time leads a day to over 2,500 customers across a range of verticals. LeadPoint is a thought leader for the nascent online lead generation industry in the UK and Justin is a regular contributor to the financial trade press as well as being part of the IAB’s Online Lead Generation Taskforce (http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/onlineleadgenerationtaskforce.html).