What Type of Leads Close Best?

551 days ago

A blog on how to look at the general conversion 4 traditional styles of Marketing / Sales methods.

Through experience and reference here is a rough chart for mapping (or better yet thinking about) how your marketing efforts (online or off) translate to conversions or closes.

I recently finished an Internet Marketing course that discussed the following type of leads and their rate of conversion: Direct or Referral leads, Networked or “Elbow-Greesed” leads, Advertised leads, & Cold-Call leads.

The proverbial “Word of Mouth Rule” does just that, it rules! Consider any product or service that you yourself have been interested in, chances are you consulted someone (a real human) that you trusted for advice on it. Whether your mind was made up in one direction or another, you probably sought out advice to affirm or deny that decision. Word of Mouth in the world of web marketing translates to “direct traffic” or referral traffic”. According to industry standards these close at a very high rate, in this case let’s say at 80%.

Next we have Networked leads aka “Elbow Greesed”… call it whatever you want, but anyone that’s been in business of any kind long enough, knows the value of rubbing elbows with the right people. Maybe it’s through Social Media – Blogging or being featured in a blog, through Facebook or Twitter, or even via non-virtual networks like industry conferences/seminars or podcasts. Regardless of the type of network vehicle, networking is essential for getting traffic over. Now this can also be argued to be referral traffic, and analytically (web tracking and measurement) speaking it is referral, but for the sake of this conversation we are calling it networked leads as opposed to the above discussed Word of Mouth Referrals. These are understood to close at a rate of 50%.

So now to the more expensive [arguably] less effective means of buying your business, Advertising! Whether your advertising online or offline, your paying for viewership and traffic. Anytime there is an up front cost it can be dangerous; hence the all so important ROI concept for consideration. Of course if advertising wasn’t successful we wouldn’t have the concept(s) of ROI, Effective Reach, or Share of Voice (to name a few), and we surely wouldn’t have spectacle’s such as $1mil/10 secs of ad time during the Superbowl, or whatever the real numbers are, you get the point. We know advertising works, but it’s often understood to be most effective with a longterm compounding effect, and something that will normally aid more in Branding or Reputation than Direct Sales. For some rough information and resource data on internet banner advertising check out Internet Banner Ad Info. Based on the findings of my experiences and the material in order, let’s say this method converts at about 20%.

The bottom dwellers of marketing: Cold Calls! Well here’s my take, it’s a dirty job, but someones gotta do it… That isn’t just a cliché, the point to be taken here is that as low converting as cold-calling maybe, it still works and its very cost-effective. Some may argue up to 20% conversion, others may not grant more than 5%, I guess it depends on the vertical and the salespeople involved, but in any case it works with limitation and i think it should always be considered.

Ultimately, be discriminate about what works best for your industry, there is no “fix all” rule in neither interactive nor online marketing, but these standards and research from resources like Marketing Profs shed a bit of light on how to best calculate business risks!

Until Next Time,

Mikey

Michael Bhrad Bay Area Web Design & SEO Consultant | Internet Marketing Consultant Profile :-)

Source: Ten Golden Rules

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