NEW YORK, NY – The lead gen industry is a billion dollar business, with ad revenues increasing from $1,322 billion in 2010 to $1,522 billion dollars in 2011. Nevertheless, 72% of marketers say that getting high quality leads represents a major challenge (MarketSherpa). ReviMedia presents a new infographic summing up trends and developments in the lead generation industry (http://www.revimedia.com/anatomy-of-the-online-lead-gen-industry).
Indeed, lack of lead quality is causing marketers serious headaches these days. For the past five years, lead quality has been steadily decreasing for many reasons. For one, the industry has seen a vast influx of players which has made interconnections more complex and definitely less transparent. Secondly, wherever there’s money to be made, there are cheats. And wherever there are cheats, there is fraud. It’s also become easier for fraudulent leads to enter the system because of the undersold model which allows leads to be sold several times without a direct customer. This has led to lacking trust and suspiciousness among players in the industry. And then there is of course the customer. How do you pin down all these elusive end users?
There are several things that you should be doing right now. For one, ensuring quality. There are many external user verification systems and fraud detection systems that verify leads externally by running data checks in real-time. Moreover, technology matters. ReviMedia is implementing a new internal quality index for quantities (QIQ) into its proprietary platform which filters out bad traffic by scoring leads in real time according to a set of indices.
Another way to improve industry practices is to increase transparency. That’s why we need more systems revealing the sources of leads which make it possible to check whether or not leads have been recycled. The service LeadiD creates a unique ID number once the lead is generated which is passed on to all buyers, therefore making the source of the lead transparent. ReviMedia is among the first companies to utilize this technology and hopes that other players will follow suit as this system only really works when everyone is on board.
Let’s move on to the end user. How can we get that quality, targeted traffic that we all so desperately need?
Well, the most obvious equation should be: good content = interested user. The only way to attract interested consumers is to give them what they’re looking for and to keep them interested. Therefore, creating good and6 unique content should be the Alpha and the Omega of lead generation. In the end, it’s not rocket science – why do campaigns, businesses or websites get noticed? – Because people care about the content.
Social media and blogging are of course among the other channels for getting quality leads. Again, not rocket science. In the end, marketing is all about people and interaction and social media is a significant tool for just that. It doesn’t only allow you to extend your network and generate leads, but also to share information, communicate and foster partnerships. This is also how you get people to do what you want them to do. Share your services and products and offer solutions that people are looking for. According to Marketing Charts, about 65% of B2B companies have generated a lead from LinkedIn, while 77% of B2C organizations have generated leads from Facebook.
Lastly, mobile lead gen has been an increasingly significant lead gen channel. Where is the trend going? There’s only way, and it’s up. Hubspot reports that smartphone sales will amount up to $200 billion in 2012 – a 52% increase compared 2011, with users switching from traditional electronic devices towards mobile in all areas of life. It makes sense; mobile technology is more accessible and offers new options for lead gen. Mobile apps are becoming increasingly important and other new mobile services such as GeoSoMo allow organizations and business to further target campaigns. ReviMedia has been involved in mobile marketing from early stages as both founders of the company have backgrounds in mobile marketing and sees tremendous potential in mobile lead gen. Nevertheless, can we be sure mobile lead gen is actually targeted or is it all due to “fat finger” syndrome? The only way to test it, is to look very closely at hat’s why strongly encourage a shifting business model, away we see a great shift in business models, shifting away from CPM/CPC towards CPL/CPA.
About ReviMedia, Inc.
ReviMedia, Inc, is lead generation powerhouse specialized in developing and executing direct response and performance marketing campaigns. Its proprietary lead exchange platform, LXP, supports high quality lead generation in multiple verticals, exclusive in-house offers and more. ReviMedia has offices in New York City, Panama City and Amsterdam.
