Aged debt leads can be the secret to amazing debt business growth on a small marketing budget. However, you have to be smart about your debt data buying. There are a lot of scams, frauds, and hucksters in the aftermarket, aged, or vintage debt lead business.
Here are 5 important steps to evaluate reputable aged debt list providers:
1. Valid contact information: It sounds elementary, but verifying all of the contact information for your consumer data provider is a critical first step. Make sure they are a legitimate operation.
Your aged data provider should be willing to provide a physical place of business, telephone numbers, and customer service representatives.
A simple online map search on the address will let you get a birds eye view of the business and verify it isn’t a FedEx/Kinkos drop box. A second Google search of the telephone number will often reveal any issues or complaints related to the business numbers.
2. Verifiable business credentials: Verifying the credibility of the business goes in line with validating contact information. Start with Google and then Dun and Bradstreet. You are looking for a reasonable time in business, any complaints, and an incorporated business.
Red flags include: little or no Google presence, lack of articles of incorporation, no DUNS number, or website with little or no physical contact information.
We live in a virtual business world, but you need to buy customer data from a business–not some hacker stealing consumer data in his parent’s basement.
3. No large deposits or long-term contracts: Speaking of red flags–beware of sharks asking for large upfront deposits. Aged debt leads are valuable data and a reputable provider adds significant value to that data, but do not fall victim to large up front payments.
Buy a small quantity of data at a reasonable rate to test the quality of the data. As you build trust and partnership you can certainly invest in greater increments.
4. Reasonable return policy: Even the best data and quality control process will allow some level of bad leads to enter your data flow. Any good aged debt lead provider will understand and account for this in their return policy.
Whether it is in the per lead price, return credits, or monthly discount you should assume approximately a 10% bad data rate, which should be accounted for in the data providers return policy.
5. Know where leads come from: This will be the hardest part of your due diligence because most marketers and lead providers hold marketing sources closer to the vest than the crown jewels. Simply assure them that you do not want their business trade secrets just some idea of how and where they acquire data from.
This will also help your sales performance with their aged debt leads. How was the data generated? Search, pay-per-click, email–understand the marketing method helps you talk to the customer. It also gives you some understanding of the marketing quality and legitimacy of the aged lead.
In the best case scenario a good lead partner should give you a reference to a lead supplier and/or a current lead buyer.
At the end of the day poking around a lead providers business a bit will shake out the good partners from the bad.
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Next Wave Marketing Strategies brings over 5 years of integrity, innovation, and client satisfaction to the aged debt leads market. We offer industry leading quality control, data cleansing, and a generous return policy to empower you to build your business in the fastest, most cost effective manner. Learn more about aged debt leads.
