Day 17: Did You Say Batched Leads?!

Day 17 of 30. Hypothetically let’s say that the market is down and things are moving a little bit slow for you. There are services out there where you can buy leads. Should you do this?

It seems enticing, it seems exciting. I can just put some money in and I’ll get a phone call. That’s amazing! All right, here’s what I want to say about that- it is not a marketing strategy. What it does highlight to me is that you have a need for marketing, and you recognize you have that need. That’s a good thing to feel. You’re thirsty, so you want some water. That makes sense.

But let me encourage you – this is common with home services, tech services, blue-collar oil industry, and some of those environmental services sectors. A business owner will often say, “Well, I’m just going to spend $50 a lead and we’re going to buy some leads.” What happens next is the services that are selling those leads go and sell that one customer contact form (which isn’t really a lead – it’s a form). Then let’s say that it’s a good lead- they’ll sell that 40 times over. It makes more sense for them to sell it as often as they possibly can. And their defense against this is that you should have been faster to follow the lead, you should have been more aggressive, whatever the case may be.

So, maybe it’s actually a good fit. Maybe you are in the magic industry or the magic business where that type of service really hits for you, and that’s awesome. Still, I want to encourage you to track it. At the very least track each one of those leads and look at the conversion rate. Is it actually working for you or not? 

If it is, more power to you. Keep doing it! Put more dollars in. But if it’s not, and you start to recognize that you got 50 leads but really only 0.5 of them converted, or you got 100 and only 1 of them converted, that’s not a marketing strategy. Also, you don’t really own your customer. That lead generation service actually owns the audience and they’re just kind of loaning it to you. So, that’s fine if it works, but I don’t want you to believe that it is your whole marketing strategy. You can do better than that!