How can a lead generator add value? A look into the future of lead generation.

As part of the B2C Lead Generation Podcast Series, Databowl Head of Marketing Daniel Hopewell and Databowl CEO Simon Delaney got together (via Zoom) to keep their finger on the pulse of the B2C lead gen world. In this segment they look at what a lead generator can do to add value to their offering and also what the future may hold for lead generators in terms of turning themselves into the brand.

From the perspective of the lead generator, if you’re sending leads onto brands, how do you add value from your side? In other words, how do you make yourself invaluable?

There’s two things within this. Adding value to the brand is all about transparency between the brand and lead generator. Ultimately, you'd make sure that you have all the validation in place to ensure that it's a real person that you're collecting the lead of. You deliver the lead immediately to the brand. You'd work with the brand to ensure that they're following the lead up with the right wording and terminology and accent that you have within the lead generation that you're using. So there's a seamless approach between one and the other.

That can involve building packs out for the brand, showing the lead generation process, showing who you're targeting, the messaging that they're seeing.

That way, when the brand gets hold of the lead, they can actually use that pack to start the conversation with the prospects that should ultimately lead to higher conversions.

Then if the brand can feed back the results in real time back to the lead generator, they can then use that information to start changing their buying of traffic.

Let's say they're using something like Facebook or PPC to start going after conversions and they can work on stuff like how many people are they speaking to that they're actually converting to? What the response is when they are speaking to people? What can they do about the leads that they don't speak to?

You can also start resubmitting leads in real time that come back through a funnel because one of the problems that always happens between lead generators and brands is the lead generators might not trust the actual sales approach of the brand.

For example, should something happen and the brand can’t get hold of someone, if that person comes back into the lead generation process again you actually want to resubmit that person or they're just going to get lost in the ether, but there are quite a few things that they can do together.

Fo example, if the lead is being driven into a call centre function again the brand won't be nurturing that prospect either via email or SMS. They’ll just go into a dialling cycle.

So this actually creates a massive opportunity for lead generators to create their own brand where a lead comes in. They see a form which might be a brand that the lead generator has built, and then they submit the lead. What I would do to start adding more value as a lead generator to the prospect and start building out my own brand is, I'd have multiple buyers behind each lead that came in.

I wouldn't just be working with one brand in that vertical, I'd worked with five or six. What you're trying to do is actually provide the best value to the consumer that's going to match their interest the most.

The more information you can capture in the form - which is why you use something like multi-stage forms - the more aligned you can get, the right brand with the right lead. So let's say a lead’s coming in for energy and you know different areas of the UK have different prices for energy - a bit like the comparison sites do - you can start applying that within your lead gen funnel, where you can actually just divert the lead on a ping tree to the right energy provider.

This way, they're much more likely to get the right deal. Then get the sales responses back and send a Trustpilot link to that individual. So when they've converted another great deal and it's actually your brand that came in on, you can start getting Trustpilot reviews back to your brand that generates the original lead.Then obviously you can use that in your assets and when anyone searches for your brand, it starts getting used.

Then any leads that don't convert, you can put them into a nurturing funnel for the brand, then you can start getting resubmissions. So this can be “Would you like call now?” if they haven’t converted over the first two days, and put it on SMS with a link and if they submit it, it'll drive the lead back into the sensor.

This is when you start them working on other verticals as well. So let's say you had an energy offer as the first vertical the lead was coming in on, and then a week later you send a broadband offer to the same prospect. And that can be for the people who have converted or haven’t not converted. Again, it’s your brand.

Do you think like the average lead generator is able to build a brand? How difficult is that?

It's not actually that difficult at all. I think what’s difficult is getting the clients and getting the traffic. I mean it's the same for all the lead generation, right?

A lot of lead generators look at it in the same way a brand looks at it. All they're going for is the lead, then submit the lead, get paid, and then the brand is trying to make the sale. And so it's all a one hit wonder going down the line.

Whereas if both of them start looking at it as just the start of the relationship, I think that's where you start building the brand out. So, you know, if you've got the email and SMS number of a lead that’s come in to your brand as a lead generator, you've now got an amazing opportunity to start a relationship with them!

They’ve trusted your brand. That's the thing that's actually brought them in to this sales function. This is where the opportunity really lies. And as long as you respect them and give them value, there's no reason why you can't be the company that the strongest relationship is built with.

To listen to the entire podcast and learn more about how lead generators can begin to build their own brand, subscribe here: