With as many as ninety-one percent of all U.S. households regularly using email, marketing within the growing medium is quickly gaining popularity due to the high number of people that can be reached. In fact, email marketing popularity is growing because it is a tool that has worked and continues to work for countless businesses across the country. In 2009, on average, U.S. companies generated almost $44 for every dollar they spent on email marketing campaigns, highlighting the effectiveness of such campaigns despite the bad rap given to spam.

One of the most successful ways of using email marketing to generate leads is by developing an internal email list of past customers who may be interested in purchasing additional products or services from a company they trust. An email list comprised of previous customers is much more cost effective than seeking new customers. Companies will spend as much as ten times more resources gaining a new customer than they will if marketing to current clients.

Another method of using lead generation to develop cliental is to purchase email lists for use as a tool to acquire leads. Companies can use email marketing to provide potential customers with information about the business and build the brand in order to create a sense of familiarity. Additionally, email lead generation is a great way to bring increased traffic to company websites, which also increases the chance that a buyer will call or contact the company.

Though email marketing is an obvious money saver and has been shown to be an effective way to generate leads for a variety of companies offering diverse goods and services, it is also a positive marketing tool due to the ease of tracking. Results from an email marketing campaign is easily measured, showing whether they are successful or whether a company must make changes and tweaks in the operations. Email advertising efforts are measured by how many people open the emails sent by the company. The success rate of an email campaigns success can also be tracked by how many receivers click through to a website.

Newsletters, coupons, special offers and information regarding business changes and new offerings can all be sent immediately to hundreds and even thousands of potential customers with the click of a mouse. Because email marketing campaigns can be completed with such quickness, companies will often see immediate responses unlike results from traditional advertising mediums like television.

Offering quick, easy and effective campaigns, email marketing is continuing to gain popularity and use for a reason: it works. With measurability and ease of tracking, companies and business owners can be sure that their efforts are effective and quickly notice when changes need to be made. In the midst of technologically centered consumers, email is a vital way to expand advertising and marketing aspirations and gain successful sales leads to grow any business.

Getting qualified leads is perhaps one of the most difficult parts of making a sale. Any salesperson knows that a qualified sales lead is worth its weight in gold. It naturally follows that if you can somehow get more and better qualified leads without spending the time getting them yourself, you can spend more time actually closing sales and as a result, make more money.

That’s why lead marketing has become such a big business. A good lead marketing firm can generate quality leads for you to pursue, and eventually make into closed sales.

On the surface, lead marketing services sounds like one of those new-fangled business buzzwords that’s worth more as a concept for a term paper and it appears in real life, but the truth is, one company specializing in lead marketing was recently named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States. It didn’t earn that recognition by accident.

Instead, lead marketing companies provide qualified leads that are arrived at only after careful marketing and analysis of data-driven information, and as a result, the sales process is streamlined with better qualified leads for your sales force. This saves both time and money.

Most of these leads are generated from websites that are established to promote your business. Once a potential client arrives at the site, he enters data via an online request form which is, in turn, sent to the marketing firm. At the firm, the potential client’s general business information as well as data concerning his interest is verified, then sent to the most appropriate potential product or service providers.

Lead marketing companies work across the gamut of industries, including such diverse fields as consumer retail, services such as insurance, public and private educational institutions, and many others.

Lead generation marketing firms have proven the effectiveness of their services for both the buyer and the seller. Buyers are channeled through to firms that are the most appropriate for the goods and services they need, and vendors receive leads for qualified buyers without having to spend the time and money to make contact with potential clients with no interest.

Much like many business activities, lead marketing firms won’t replace the nuts and bolts operation of an effective sales force, but whether a business is enjoying high times or not, the additional business that could be provided by a good lead marketing firm is worth the investment.

Aged mortgage leads can easily become your most productive and profitable marketing segment. Remember each of these mortgage leads had some intention when they submitted their contact information.

Your mission is to find that intent and re-ignite it!

There are 5 proven strategies to nurture aged leads back into real-time opportunities:

1. Data cleansing and appending – Most aged mortgage leads end up in the trash because of bad data. Whether it is accidental or intentional, customers enter bad emails and phone numbers all the time. The good news is that the fix is often cheap and easy to fix–quickly bringing dead leads to life.

2. Email drip campaigns – Not everyone is cut-out to pound the phones trying to get unresponsive leads to take action. This is where a diligent email drip campaign can squeeze more out of your lead buy or monetize aged lead data you buy on the cheap. Simply build a progressive mortgage or refinance email campaign that builds up demand for the current low mortgage rates or special federal mortgage programs.

3. Telemarketing and phone screening – Much like the email marketing strategy a simple campaign by phone can reawaken a Web lead/prospect to their original intent. What’s even better about this strategy is that it can be very affordable and done in large volume–personally or outsourced.

4. Direct mail campaign – Believe it or not direct mail can be a very powerful strategy for Web leads, especially aged leads. Often times Web consumers are easily confused by all the information and clutter on the Web. They submit a request for information or help and then they forget or aren’t sure where they were. Then the call comes and confuses them even more–making them non-responsive. This is where mail helps. A traditional, well done piece of mail can build the traditional comfort and trust to bring that prospect back to life.

5. Integrated lead management strategy – Any of these will give you (guaranteed) good results and a positive ROI on any aged mortgage lead buy. However, if you really want to pump up your business work on an integrated plan–probably using a lead management system–to blend the marketing approaches.

Take a look into your “dead pool.” Are there aged or discarded leads that might still have mortgage needs? Maybe their financial situation has changed and they have new refinance or mortgage needs? They might even be a great source for referrals and cross-sells.

You don’t have aged leads of your own or real-time mortgage leads don’t fit your budget? Contact Next Wave Marketing Strategies and try these strategies on a batch of our Aged Mortgage Leads.

Databases full of dead leads?

If you’re in the lead generation business and really want to put yourself in a bad mood, just add up the number of dead leads you have sitting idle in your database. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Just like we often tell our lead buying clients…”There is always potential left in those Internet inquiries.” There was some original intent in that first inquiry. Something changed that made the person unresponsive, but often with the right data management and lead nurturing these leads can be monetized.

This is the idea behind data monetization strategies.

Let’s discuss some of the fundamental principles of data monetization and aged lead management:

1. List Review and Enrichment – The number one reason for lead failure is bad data. Whether it is intentional, accidental, or age a significant number of Internet inquires have data errors that make them difficult, if not impossible contact.

Internet consumers are not static data–they’re people. That means that they are imperfect and are given to change on a whim. That volatility is reflected in your dead leads. For example:

●      Many consumers have a preference for how they want to be contacted, yet we often make all of the contact fields mandatory. The result? They simply give us good contact information for their preferred methods and bogus information for the rest.

●      Humans err. Humans on keyboards, with fat fingers err even more. A combination of impatience and Web form usability can contribute to a whole host of data errors from misspelled email addressed to transposed telephone digits.

●      Consumers are more mobile than ever. The recession combined with proliferation of digital communications have made people more mobile than ever. We change home addresses to move for a new job. We change email addresses with new Internet providers. Or, we get a new mobile phone carrier and change telephone numbers. A few weeks can completely change the validity of the contact info on a lead.

This is why the first step in any data monetization program is a simple data scrub. Identifying, replacing, and appending bad data with updated data can give an immediate boost to your lead data.

2. Telephone Screening – Much of the data scrubbing process can be done in a systematic way. Looking for common errors or cross-referencing and appending from lead quality databases can be a quick and cheap way to recover the monetization opportunity on much of your data. However, if your goal is to not only recapture the lead data’s saleability, but also return it to a real-time rate card and viability you need to step-up to telephone screening.

Telephone screening or as the marketing spin calls it: “Hot Transfers” are a great way to get your dead leads back into the market. This data monetization strategy not only allows you to correct inaccurate data on the lead, but also often reactivates the person’s intentions towards their original inquiry.

3. Email Nurturing and Monetization – Much like the telephone screening approach, email lead nurturing can re-engage the prospect and reactivate their original intentions.

A simple email campaign can strengthen the viability and long-term monetization of those one-time Web inquiries. These email lists can become very high ROI lead opportunities with a variety of additional monetization strategies that can be layered into your overall lead generation strategies.

Data monetization is the answer to getting more from your lead generation investment. Are you interested in finding out more about all of the creative ways you can get more money from your “dead” leads? Contact Troy at Next Wave Marketing Strategies and ask about his data monetization programs and how they can help squeeze more dollars out of your Internet and aged leads.

Internet lead generation is certainly the secret to most mortgage, debt, and insurance businesses dramatic growth over the last several years. However, there may be part of this secret that is eluding you–the Secret of Aged Leads.

In this exclusive report, you’ll learn the secrets to closing these cheap Internet leads at rates that may convince you cheaper is better.

Here is a sample of the tips inside:

• The best time to call Internet leads
• How to use email to increase contact rates
• Tips to improve call sales scripts
• Techniques for building trust on the phone
• Increasing conversion with lead management

Not only will you learn how to close these less expensive Internet leads, but you will improve your overall sales processes. This report compiles the 10 secrets that I have seen consistently boost my aged lead clients’ sales. Now these secrets are yours for FREE.

Get instant access to this free report now. Simply fill out the form to the right (or below).
Learn to close more sales with cheaper Internet leads.

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A lack of sales can usually be tracked to one of a few problem areas. Getting rid of these common sales problems is really easier (and cheaper) than you might think. A business strategy built around aged Internet lead and good lead management processes could be the solution to a banner year for your mortgage, debt, or insurance business.

1. Not Enough Sales Leads

This always seems to be a problem, right? We hit a good run and have a full sales pipeline and then it seems to winnow away–sending us into a marketing panic. Stop scrambling from month-to-month looking for where you are going to get new people to talk to and find an affordable marketing method that will keep your sales queue full.

Aged Internet leads can be this cheap source of qualified leads.

2. Expensive Marketing

Most marketing is expensive. Add to this the uncertainty of getting the right kind of responses. Think about the traditional approached you have used in the past: Yellow pages, newspapers, magazines, local businesses or displays. I call this “hope marketing.” You are broadcasting your service and message–hoping the right people see it and call.

Aged Internet leads are a way that you can buy only those prospects that are truly qualified and opted-in for your call.

3. Unqualified Sales Leads

Mostly because of the marketing methods, but still a big problem is the amount of your marketing budget wasted on unqualified sales leads.

This is one of the big advantages of Internet marketing and aged leads in particular. These leads are qualified through a series of questions on the Web form that self-identifies the scenarios and conditions of their financial service needs. Allowing you to carefully filter out and buy only the customers that you can help.

4. Failure to Follow-up

So, we’ve solved all the marketing problems. If you’re still not making your sales numbers then chances are you have a lead management problem. And the number one lead management problem is a failure to follow-up.

Since most of us start our businesses small we are quite efficient at using our email inbox as a CRM. But, as you grow you will start to miss critical follow-ups. This is why designing a good lead management process is critical to buying large volumes of cheap aged Internet leads.

5. Sales Pipelines that Don’t Produce

Similar to failure to follow-up a sales pipeline that doesn’t produce is probably linked to how you manage your leads. Sales requires constant activity, follow-up, and pressure on your leads. If you abandon these people in your pipeline then they will drift away.

Make sure that you have a lead management process that keeps marketing to every lead in your pipeline–puttin you in a good position to be top of mind when that person is ready to buy.

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Internet debt leads can be generated through various mediums. However, the biggest challenge lies in following up with all of them through the sales cycle until they are persuaded to buy. It is important to follow up with the prospects quickly or within hours of receiving the leads to avoid losing them to competitors.

Converting Internet debt leads and improving the closing rates can be simple with prompt, customized emails to these leads. Unless you start instantly following up with your debt leads, you will not be able to convert them into profitable clients.

The following 5 email tips can help you get started with an email campaign to contact and easily convert your Internet debt leads.

Compelling subject line – The time and effort spent in crafting a well written email to a debt lead will be wasted if the subject line is not compelling and does not interest the potential debt customer to open the email. This is one of the most important factors that determine whether your debt lead will open the email, ignore it, mark it as spam, report it or delete it. Also, a poorly written subject line may not even reach your lead’s inbox. Your email subject should convey a timely or valuable proposition including a call to action which will make your debt lead feel they are missing out on real value if they do not open the email. A subject line should not be over promising or misleading about the content of the email.

Customize your email to each lead – This can be a time consuming process but the conversion potential it holds cannot be overlooked. Customizing the email requires careful thinking and planning. The content of the email should grab the interest of the debt customer. The information should be concise, realistic, and accurate. Internet debt leads are not typically customers willing to invest time in reading long emails. Personalizing the content to some extent will also make your debt lead understand that they are not among the hundreds to whom an automated email has been sent using an auto responder.

Avoid the use of auto responders – An auto responder may be a great help in reaching out to hundreds of debt leads within minutes, saving you time to focus on additional leads. However, this is not the best option when you are contacting your lead for the first time. This technique may not be very successful in converting more of your real debt leads who are looking for a personal touch with factual information in the email.

Use educational content – The best way to get a client’s interest is to provide the educational content they’re seeking. Your email should list your product or service benefits in an attempt to add value to their search for debt relief or consolidation. Educating the debt lead through a series of emails is bound to lead to higher closing percentage which means more profit and growth prospects for your business.

Respond to debt leads promptly – It is critical to check your emails regularly to respond to your debt lead’s inquiries in a timely manner. If your debt lead needs detailed information on your offerings and you do not have the information ready, it is important to inform the lead that their email has been received and they can expect to receive the information they’ve requested shortly. A simple act of courtesy can go a long way in building your debt lead’s trust and in increasing the chances of conversion.

These basic email secrets will help in getting the attention and interest of your debt leads and boosting the response to your emails. Email campaigns are one of the best ways to start and develop a positive relationship with your leads and increase the chances of conversions. Regular email communication increases your credibility with your leads and instils the trust in them to make a positive buying decision.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Buying Internet insurance leads is only half the battle. Effectively managing leads to the point of closing new insurance policies is the real goal. Achieving that goal takes a little thought and planning. Most importantly you need to think about how you are going to manage your insurance leads.

Initial Contact - Get everything started on the right foot. Don’t let even a moment slip by without reaching out to your new Internet insurance leads. Whether you are buying real-time or aged insurance leads you need to be highly responsive to these Internet consumers. I always encourage a quick (maybe even automatic) email reply to the customer. This note should simply let them know that you got their inquiry and to expect your call shortly.

Setting Expectations - Notice I used the word “expect” in the initial contact advice. This is critical. Whenever you contact a sales prospect you should be foreshadowing the process–laying down the path and expectations. Your emails and telephone calls should always wrap-up with next steps and what you need to complete the transaction.

Managing Follow-up - When you are working several deals at once it is very easy to miss something or someone. Make sure that your follow-up system is rock solid. Either use a lead management system or a very good tickler system to remind you of what the next step is and when to follow-up on every account.

Lead Nurturing - Not every deal closes. That means you need to develop a lead nurturing campaign. This is a simple, but consistent follow-up plan to stay top of mind and add value even to consumers that you haven’t sold to yet. If you continue to touch and reinforce your value to these consumers, many will close in the future.

Lead management can be the most important part of your lead conversion equation. This is especially critical if you are investing in aged insurance leads. They are cheaper, and this is a big opportunity if you manage them with superior follow-up and service. Aged insurance leads can be a gold mine to the insurance agent with a solid lead management process.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

There are numerous colliding events that are making the online insurance market explode. Government healthcare reform, heightened unemployment, increased underemployment, and an economy still challenged for growth are just a few things that are driving consumers to go online and research their insurance options and re-examine current policies.

The question you should be asking yourself is, “Am I in a position to capture any of these eager insurance prospects?”
Chances are the answer is, “no.” Unless you are some reformed Web programmer and marketing guru. Luckily, that’s not really necessary.

What You Need to Know About Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is not quite as easy as the “build it and they will come” Field of Dreams. Throwing up a website and a Web contact form is not going to fill your sales pipeline. Internet marketing is a creative mash-up of a lot of important marketing skills–delivered online.

If you want to learn Internet marketing to generate a reasonable amount of insurance leads be prepared to have your insurance sales suffer. Marketing online is an investment and more complex than most marketing and advertising. You need to learn to generate traffic (relevant and interested buyers), funnel that traffic into compelling content, and then get the right ones to do the right thing–submit their contact information.

This is not an afternoon quick study. If you go this route you will spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars trying to get any reasonable results.

How to Find Good Internet Insurance Leads

Fortunately, finding good Internet insurance leads is easier than becoming an Internet marketing guru. You simply need to do a few Internet searches, ask your colleagues in the business, and do a little due diligence.
(Keep in mind if you want to get started at a lower cost aged insurance leads are a very valuable and productive option.)

Here are a few important steps in finding good Internet insurance leads:

• Use a search engine like Google to look for insurance leads
• Ask friends in your market and social networks
• Check the Better Business Bureau
• Ask good questions about how they generate leads
• Talk to references

The most important advice in this list is, “Ask good questions.” Make sure you spend time building a relationship with your lead provider. This will pay big dividends in the future.

Getting Started with Internet Insurance Leads

Once you decide to start using Internet insurance leads and have selected a good lead provider your job has just begun. You need to make sure you have a few important things in place, like:

• A consistent sales process
• A solid lead follow-up process
• A good lead management system
• A plan to nurture leads over time

There are lots of economic and market reasons that consumers are going to the Internet to check-out new insurance options. Your business success in the next several months is going to be heavily dependent on where or not you have positioned yourself to help these Internet customers.

Aged insurance leads can be a cheap way to get in front of a lot of these eager Internet consumers. Give it a try today. These market conditions won’t last forever.

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The Web has become the primary research tool for consumers. Thousands of potential financial services customers are searching, browsing, and comparing prices and rates online.

If you are a mortgage broker, debt counselor, or insurance agent you need to be marketing on the Internet. This is a fact few of you would dispute, but Internet marketing can be intimidating. What’s worse, the Internet advertising world is full of bad deals. You may have even tried a few, i.e., Yellow Pages listings, directory listings, network marketing scams, and million dollar money-making schemes.

The good news is there is a shortcut. An Internet marketing approach that can legitimately provide you a steady source of financial leads with integrity. Using a reputable Internet lead provider can enable you to partner with a professional marketing company and only pay for financial consumers that are asking you to call.

Unfortunately, not all lead providers are without risks either. Here are a few quick questions to ask lead providers you are considering:

• Where do your leads come from?
• How long have you been in business?
• Check the Better Business Bureau?
• What is your lead return policy?

A good financial lead provider can be worth their weight in gold. Finding that good marketing partner requires some due diligence. These questions are a good place to start. However, the most important part is not necessarily the questions you ask, but the trusted relationship you can build on good, open discussions about your respective businesses.

Have you picked a lead provider partner? What questions did you ask? What are you looking for in a lead provider?