The Pros and Cons of Third Party Sales Leads

Are Third Party Sales Leads Killing Your Brand?
In an effort to grow their businesses faster, and simplify the marketing process, Sales and Marketing Managers have succumbed to the simplicity of acquiring third party sales leads. But what are you giving up when you no longer generate your own sales leads? The consequences may be more severe than you know...

Being in the Spotlight - Generating an Online Brand
Whenever web-based sales leads are generated, somebody, somewhere, had to visit a website and fill out a lead generation web form. The question is, whose website is it? Which website is being branded? When a company relies too heavily on third party sales leads, they forego their own branding in favor of the third party website. Today, there are countless companies that have no web identity, because their website is not used to generate a sales lead.

So what is the big deal about generating your own sales leads?

• What is really happening with your sales leads? When a sales lead is generated you get your copy, but does someone else also get your copy? Are your sales leads resold after they have aged? Will some email house in China start sending spam to your sales leads? Odds are, your sales leads are not as unique as you think.
• When was the last time third party sales leads made your phone ring?
• Imagine, for example, that 10% of your sales leads convert to a genuine sale. What happens to the other 90%? Many of these people simply are not quite ready to buy, or they are shopping around. When they are ready to buy, do you want them to come back to you, or back to a third party website?
• When friends or family members recommend websites and pass on links, is it your link, or a 3rd party website link? Who gets the bookmark? Through branding effects and peer recommendations, a moderate volume of sales leads can be generated for free with a higher closing-ratio than non-refered sales leads.
• What value does your website have? Does it do anything more than show your office hours and a contact phone number? If you tried to sell your company, would your website be an asset?
• Do your sales leads accommodate you, or do you accommodate the sales leads? If you generate your own sales leads, from your own website, you can collect any information that you need, in any fashion that you need it. Give your sales team the information that they can really use to size up sales leads, rather than giving them the information someone else thinks that they need.

All things in moderation...
The answer is that you probably do need third party sales leads, but you also need to generate your own sales leads. Depending on the size of your company, it may be a daunting task to acquire all of your sales leads by yourself. However third party sales leads should supplement your self-generate leads, and not vice versa. Easier said than done? Not really... turn to search.

Search-based sales leads are superior to 3rd party sales leads.

• (1) The nature of web search yields high-interest sales leads. This is not a casual click, the potential customer is actively seeking your services.
• (2) When friends recommend websites and pass on links, it is your link and not the 3rd party web link. Through branding effects and peer recommendations, a moderate volume of sales leads will be generated at no cost.
• (3) The website that customers look at should have the same message and company name that is used by the sales rep., reducing customer confusion and increasing sales lead closing rates.
• (4) The campaign is completely flexible and can be turned on or off, or scaled up or down almost instantly. You can turn it off over the weekend when your sales floor is unavailable, or over the holidays. There are no minimum requirements, campaign durations, or pre-pay. The flow of your sales leads will accommodate your sales floor, ensuring that all sales leads are generated when your sales floor is ready.

So your website is not a sales lead generation machine?
If your website is efficient, and can readily generate sales leads from search traffic, then your set. However this is not always the case, in-fact, very few websites are designed as a sales lead conversion hot-spot. That's okay, here is how SharpNET can help.

Generating Sales Leads - How it works:
SharpNET can design a custom website for your company, at no cost. This can be a near-duplicate of your primary corporate website, but suited to convert search engine traffic, and is usually just a few pages in size. This website will not be shared with competitors, and 100% of the sales leads generated are delivered to you. You will be the only one who receives these sales leads... forever. Sales leads can be posted in any manner needed to benefit your the most. Your company name, content, logos, etc., will be on the website to ensure strong branding and customer acceptance of your sales call. SharpNET will generate PPC campaigns on the major search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo; each with thousands of relevant and proven keyword phrases. The campaign is continually managed, as PPC dynamics are volatile and are not forgiving if left unattended. SharpNET targets your monthly budget and cost-per-sale lead budget. SharpNET charges a PPC campaign management fee of 15% of the monthly PPC budget.

SharpNET strongly recommends that you accept the sales leads both through the web and telephone. The website can be constructed so that a phone number is emphasized, generating a high-converting warm phone lead. We also recommend a 24/7 answering service to take messages when your office is closed. Phone-based warm leads, generated through your website, may account for as much as 30%-40% of all the sales leads generated through PPC.

As long as you're going to be spending money generating sales leads, why not also brand your company and let your money go further. Put yourself in the spotlight, and wedge out your own place on the web.