The Key to Better Online Leads: Quality

Prospectiv's president and CEO offers tips to deliver a high volume of quality leads without hurting your brand.

In online lead generation, most of us are familiar with the age-old battle between quality and volume. Most marketers will tell you they want quality leads first, specifically quality leads that convert into buyers. However, once they find leads that work, their appetite for these leads increases. Many times it's tempting then to start pushing for volume over quality. But how much quality are you willing to sacrifice to drive volume? And how do you achieve volume without sacrificing quality?

Whether judged by return on investment, customer engagement or sales effectiveness, sacrificing lead quality for volume is usually a poor investment for marketers, and ultimately a bad practice for online lead generation companies. What all marketers know instinctively -- that one good lead is worth a handful of mediocre leads -- has been confirmed by recent industry analyst reports and news stories that suggest focusing on lead volume generally does not result in lead quality. In many cases, this approach can lead to an erosion of online lead generation best practices and a corresponding erosion in consumer trust that can ultimately hurt not only your conversion numbers, but also harm your brand equity and image.

Maintaining a constant focus on lead generation best practices promotes high-quality leads without sacrificing volume, ensures campaign success and discourages abuses of consumer privacy. There are a number of important steps marketers can take to make sure that their online lead generation efforts are effective at delivering a high volume of quality leads, promoting and preserving the brand, and encouraging consumer interaction.

The quality lead

What constitutes a high-quality online lead? It's important to define quality up front, before launching an online lead generation campaign. Traditional lead generation and online lead generation differ significantly in one key aspect: the marketer's ability to measure quality at several points in the process before converting a lead into a sale.

A good lead can be judged by evaluating several criteria: Where was the lead generated? Targeting the right audience, always a challenge, is made somewhat easier on the internet as consumers increasingly turn online to research before making a purchase decision. Search engines, microsites populated with relevant information, targeted opt-in email lists, and online communities that align with your category and brand can ensure marketers choose the right sources for their lead-generation efforts. We recommend testing different lead sources to identify the most effective and efficient resource.

Many times lead quality can be determined by tracking:
• Response rates on emails or calls
• Conversion rates
• Lifetime value of the leads by source
• Consumer complaint rates

Maintaining volume and quality
What is motivating the customer to provide their contact information to the marketer?
Here, relevance is key to achieving the volume and quality of leads you want. Make sure your offers are relevant to the consumer's need, your category and your brand. Remember:
•Personalized, relevant offers are compelling offers.
•Busy consumers want to receive valuable information that reflects their interests and needs.
•Offers containing relevant information, samples and coupons not only increase the chance that consumers will respond to your offer, but these are also vital for building a long-term relationship with the consumer. This approach can also build volume without sacrificing quality.

Are you generating leads for a specific brand or category, or are your goals more general?
Offers that are targeted to an exclusive brand will attract consumers who are interested in your specific good or service. The marketer must be willing to pay a premium for this lead, but it will be worth it on the back end. If you can't narrow down your objectives to a specific brand, you may generate more leads… but expect quality to suffer a bit

Are you following up on your leads quickly, and do you have a targeted strategy in place?

The timing and content of your initial follow-up to your new leads is critical in online lead generation. The longer it takes to push the lead through your systems, the greater the odds that the conversion will be poor. We advise marketers to scale their campaign processes to make sure every lead can be followed up immediately and to make these immediate follow-up campaigns targeted so that consumers are receiving what is best suited for them.


Can you verify that the consumer self-profile information is genuine?
Jane Doe or Bob Smith may be some of your most frequent respondents, and conversion will no doubt suffer if you don't put systems in place from the start to pre-screen leads to verify the accuracy of consumer-supplied contact information.

Tempting as it may be, avoid building volume while sacrificing quality. Volume with quality is attainable. Make your quality metrics are established from the beginning and follow these proven best practices: testing lead sources and offers, measuring results frequently, tailoring your acquisition campaign to the consumer's interest, making sure there is quick and targeted follow-up, and verifying the quality of leads during follow-up will help you trump quantity with quality for the best outcome.