According to the Direct Marketing Association, 65% of business-to-business marketing is focused on lead generation. In the quest to maintain a constant stream of leads, many companies choose to purchase leads from a lead supplier. This can be an excellent way to boost your sales, provided you are getting high quality leads.

Many “lead” suppliers, however, are really only providing you with a list of contacts at businesses which may or may not have an interest in buying from your company.

When purchasing leads, it’s important to keep in mind what actually defines a lead. According to Business Dictionary.com, a sales lead is an “inquiry, referral, or other information, obtained through advertisements or other means, that identifies a potential customer (prospect).” A true lead will be:

1. Actively Seeking Your Services

A true lead is not just a name on a list, but a person who has demonstrated interest in your services. And a warm lead will have indicated, through their actions, that they are highly motivated and ready to buy now.

2. Verified Contactable at the Time of Your Purchase

List providers typically update lists on a monthly or semi-annual basis, leaving it to the buyer to verify the leads. Quality lead suppliers will provide leads that have been submitted by the source, so the data provided (e.g. employee size) is more accurate than that from any other business data source.

3. Highly Targeted and Matched to Your Business

The quality of your leads is also largely determined by the extent to which you can profile your prospects based on the unique capabilities of your business. In the case of list providers and generic online lead suppliers, the lead provider does not interact with both the buyer and the service provider, which means they cannot target prospects on parameters unique to your business.

4. Rated by a Detailed Scoring System

Lead generation companies that sell fresh, dynamic leads analyze prospects based on web page activity, frequency of visits, and accuracy of information submitted. Such highly targeted leads are simply not possible with a purchased list of potential buyers.

Tags: lead buying, lead generation, lead vendors, purchasing leads, quality leads

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 10th, 2010 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Lead Purchasing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.