Second, if a company is using a third-party provider to generate leads for them, they should use a site that already has the audience that the company is trying to reach. For example, if an engineering company needs to generate engineering leads, it should start with a site like Global Spec, which offers lead generation programs and reaches a robust audience of engineers with its highly targeted search engine. If a wedding dress salon wants to find brides-to-be, they should look first at a wedding site like The Knot (www.theknot.com), which has a large and active audience of engaged women.
There are many industry-specific sites like these that offer lead generation packages. Using them to generate the type of leads that you need may cost significantly more per lead -- depending on the filters (job title, budget, country of origin, etc.) the cost per lead (CPL) could range anywhere from $50-$100 per lead in the B2B markets. But getting a highly qualified, high-quality name of a person who is interested in your product or service with the budget to buy will be gold, as those leads convert to sales at a very high rate. Your ROI metrics will show that in many markets, quality beats quantity in lead generation.
Disclosure: I previously worked at Ziff Davis Enterprise for its Web Buyer's Guide lead generation division, and I am currently doing consulting for their Demand Generation division.
Melissa Chang is the founder of Pure Incubation, an Internet incubator based in the Boston area. Her blog is at www.16thletter.com.
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Comments
I strongly disagree that using paid search for lead generation is a misguided tactic. As someone with significant lead generation experience across all online channels, paid search done properly drives the highest quality leads as it's the most targetted channel. One does need to exclude content-based paid search as that is a lower quality opportunity (users are not searching there for your offer but see it associated alongside of ideally relevant content). But to be clear -- paid search will drive the highest quality lead gen traffic vs. other channels and should be part of any significant online lead gen effort.
Melissa is right about the strength of the online lead generation industry. It's the fastest growing segment in the online marketing arena because it works for advertisers. And advertisers are getting much more sophisticated in their ability to track conversions by sources, so the market will weed out the bad apples. Still, if companies continue to ignore best practices, they'll not only lose clients, but will also further erode consumer trust in online marketing in general, which could harm not only lead generation providers, but the entire online marketing industry. Jere Doyle, www.prospectiv.com
In some cultures. Tribal ones we find the men traditionally raise the family. Will the women peform the labour.
Now those men have it made.
Are they considered girlie because they stay at home? On Japan people wear white to funerals it is symbolic of death. In the west we wear white.
People ony work when they are a slave to money.
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