How to Choose the Right Lead Generation Client

The process of lead generation involves attracting people who are interested in a particular product or service to enquire.

How do lead gen companies work?

Lead generation is a service where you collect and pass the leads on to other companies for a percentage of their profit or a standard fee in return.

But how do you find the best clients to deal with your leads?

Choosing the right type of lead generation client is very important as you need a company that is going to provide a slick service in dealing with your enquiries generated. The lead-gen client should be ready to grow with your service and have great conversion strategies in place to convert a cold enquiry into a paying customer.

If you are thinking of setting up a professional lead generation company, it’s important to consider the types of clients you want to send the prospects to. Clients will want the right lead generation agency for them, so it is important you check your target market needs when looking to outsource lead generation.

It is clear to see the best lead generation companies and the not so great ones.

This can make or break your strategy as you could start generating leads for services with loads of search volume, but if your client can’t convert them it won’t get you anywhere.

Most lead generation agencies offer an inbound lead generation campaign. These new leads then go straight to the sales team. The sales department will then deal with these directly.

How to Source Your Next Client

When starting the lead generation process, you’ll want to find industries that get a reasonable amount of search volume on Google.

It’s also best if they are offering some kind of service rather than simply selling products online.

There are plenty of ways to find potential new niches and clients to who you could send more leads to. Here are a few of the common methods we use:

• Yell Premium Listings – If someone is paying for their company to be listed on Yell, chances are they know the importance of marketing strategies, so they’ll probably be open to receiving leads and paying you for the ones they convert.
• Google Ads – Again, if companies are paying for ads in Google search, they probably have a good marketing strategy and might be interested in a partnership with you.
• Check a Trade – This site has listings of thousands of different tradespeople and companies in the UK. Not only can this find you businesses to sell leads to, but it can also help you get new ideas for possible industries to go into.
• Paid Ads on Directories – Online directories will also have lists of companies in a wide variety of niches. Anyone paying for ads on these sites is probably worth approaching as well. These directories include tradesman websites like rated people, bark, trust a trader and my builder.

More on how to Source Your Next Client

• Sites Ranking Organically – Even if certain businesses aren’t paying for any ads, the ones ranking in the first few pages on Google may be good to contact as well. They have good organic rankings so it’s likely that they have a decent site and are a reputable company.
• Check their Coverage – It’s a good idea to have a look at which areas of the UK your future clients work in. It’s better to go for someone who works nationwide or in large regions such as the North West or Midlands. Very small local contractors will probably not be able to deal with a large number of leads.

Bear in mind that in some industries, there may be a lot of different contractors who you could approach, whereas in others there may not be as many businesses offering that service.

The key thing is just to find as many as you can, and if it seems like they already have a good grasp on marketing, this is a bonus.

Send a Dummy Enquiry

Once you have got your list of potential clients, the first thing to do is send them a dummy enquiry.

Just as if you wanted a quote for whichever service they offer.

This will give you an idea of how they operate, how quickly they respond to enquiries and how professional they come across.

For any companies who don’t reply at all, or don’t come across like they would be a good fit, just forget it and move on to the next.

It’s important to create a good relationship with someone you are sending leads to, so if a person seems like they will be difficult to deal with, don’t waste your time.

What to Score your Potential Contractors On

There are a few key things you should be looking for when choosing companies to send leads to. When you initially contact them, these are some of the top qualities to look out for:

• Their Price – Is the price they offer for their services fairly competitive? Companies that have higher prices may not convert as many leads, so this might not work for you.
• Quality of Service – Did they come across as professional and do they seem like they offer a good service? You can usually tell this by looking at their website, but also how they respond to your initial email.
• Testimonials – It’s a good idea to see if they have any testimonials or references from previous clients. These display on their site or you could request them via email.

If the business seems to be run professionally and they offer competitive prices, you can carry on to the next stage and work out how much they would be able to pay you for a lead.

Sometimes the best lead generation strategy is just to charge a set price per lead, whereas sometimes it works better to ask for a percentage of profits on any converted jobs which come from your leads.

Enquire About Possible Margins

When you have decided that a company would be a good fit for receiving your leads, the next thing to do is to ask them how much margin they would be able to add on for each job. Usually, if a company is selling its service through a sub-contractor, they will say they can add at least 20% to their quote.

However, if you present yourself as an SEO lead generation agency they will usually say they can only add an extra 5%. Working in this way can potentially quadruple how much money you could make from each successfully converted lead.

Companies may not realise the price of lead generation tools and online lead generation campaigns.

Agree on a Profit for Direct Leads

Once you have worked out an agreement on how much they would be willing to add onto their price, ask if they would prefer to deal with the clients directly if you simply pass leads through to them.

They are probably best suited to sell their own product so it would be in their interest to obtain the clients from you, and then convert them into sales themselves.

It is important to get good sales teams to take on the leads to ensure you will get the best conversion rate.

Send Leads to Multiple Companies to Start

What we would recommend doing when you’ve got a few companies who want to receive the leads is to send them to multiple businesses to start with. This way you can see which ones are the easiest to work with, which ones convert the best and which ones are paying you the most.

After a few months of trialling the different contractors, it should give you a good idea of which ones you prefer working with. From this, you can then narrow them down and stop working with any which are being difficult or not cost-effective for you.

Offer Exclusivity to the Best Paying Client

If you find that there is one client who is working best for you, converting the most leads and bringing you the most profits, you can then decide to offer exclusivity to them.

This frees up your time as you won’t be dealing with multiple contractors, and everything will just be done through one person who you know is reliable.

Lead Generation Providers

If you are thinking about outsourcing lead generation, we can help you decide on the best client. Clients will be looking for the right lead generation company to generate leads for them, so you need to prove why you’re the best whilst also making sure you are choosing the right client for you.

Summary

As you can see, choosing the right lead generation client is not a quick process.

It will take some time to find the businesses that will offer the best service and give you a good profit from the leads you create.

Do not be a busy fool and accept anyone. Your time is precious and you have got to look at whether the relationship is going to add value to both parties.

Take your time and make sure you speak to as many prospects as possible before settling on one. This will give you the highest chance of success and finding someone who you can truly work well with.

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