Do lead gen sites really generate leads for local businesses?

Search "Phoenix Auto Insurance" and click any of the paid ads (and majority of organic ones) and you'll see that the first thing they ask for is contact info and "apply online" type information.

It's not easy to get done to be honest which is why so many try and fail. Not every niche works the same, some are better than others, and no I'm not going to tell you my golden ones, sorry.

Here are some examples this is a niche that I charge $26 for the phone to ring.



There were 740 calls generated during that time period. I'm sure you can do the math. Although the number ramped up quite a bit in the last two weeks due to SEO efforts.

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Here's another niche that is a pretty good producer. I charge $50 for the phone to ring in this niche, this is a typical day around 26 calls. Plus we get a handful of email leads generated that sadly I don't have pretty graphs on.



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Here's a different one. The bar on the left side is Organic SEO and the other bars are different PPC campaigns for the same client, they currently pay $16 per phone call. It costs me roughly $4 to get the phone to ring with PPC. Total of 305 calls generated in the month of February, about almost perfectly split SEO/PPC.



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So, yeah it works. The pain is finding reliable people who can handle the calls, and will answer them, and will do what they say they will do. You get the right person though and they will do whatever they must to pay you more money because the ROI is there.

These are big cities that I play in, think 1.5 Million people or above. I think you have to have a certain call velocity to do lead gen. If you're not causing the phone to ring at least twice a day, you're probably better off just renting the site in my opinion. When the phone rings more you get a client who understands your value. They NOTICE that you're causing their business to increase. Harder to do when the calls are very sporadic. I've tried, very difficult.

The nice thing is that many of these are fairly passive. I mean once you have a client signed up they never want to leave as long as the ROI is there. My lead gen sites look like their sites, not these crappy sites that are quite obviously not the owners sites. I'm sure you've seen them. If you saw my websites you'd hardly know it was a lead gen site you'd think it was a real companies website(and it is).

HTH,

Marcos

P.S.- Sorry I know it's a little confusing to figure out what graphic goes with what description. I tried to separate it out by the astericks, but I just can't figure out how to make it look logical. Sorry.

It's all about the "right" clients..

I have clients beating my door down to buy leads from me because I choose the right niches.

It took a bit for my dentist to understand "performance marketing" but other industries that have higher profit margins understand it perfectly, and actually prefer it very much to paying someone for "SEO services".

I basically pitch it to them as performance marketing. You pay when you get contact information. When you break it down like that, it makes better sense to them.. especially if you're talking to a business owner that knows how much it costs him to generate a new client.

See, that's another point I'm wondering about. In the IM world, that makes a lot of sense. However, in the local business world, if you look at GK tool "New York Plumbers" - 6,600 local searches, but "New York Busted Pipe" - nothing. I'm not saying that some people won't type that in, but wouldn't most just try to find a plumber in their city when they have a busted pipe or clogged toilet? I'm just trying to get in the head of potential client for that service by thinking what would I do.

This is a very important point. The reason being is that there are many WSOs sold on how EASY it is to put up a quick 1 page lead gen site and that the local owners are going to fight for it. I have no problem ranking a site on #1 on Google for any of my local area (city of 600K) but I just don't want to put in the work if it's going to be impossible to rent it out or sell the leads.

I like your idea about using it as an front end to sell additional services - I was thinking about the same lines - offer them a custom program and throw this site in or if they can't afford the bigger package, just sell the leads.

Lexington Law went from 4% website orders to 45% paid client when they added their phone
number, in bold, at top right hand corner.

They also added a pop up window at the one minute mark to have a person on the phone answer their questions.

They knew they had great conversions with their phone people so they made it their priority to have people phone in on a 1800 number.

The website does have lots of information on it.

That lead generation method feeds a pay roll of 700 people.

Best,
Ewen

I agree, and that is my experience. I currently have 2 happy clients who have both written great testimonials about my service and how it has helped increase their business. They are both also willing to accept phone calls and talk to any of my potential new clients in reference to my service.
But, I still can't get new potentials interested. They just don't get it?

I'm not targeting pizza shops here, I'm targeting high end markets, like cosmetic surgeons, lawyers, etc.

Welcome to the WF Huskerdarren,

However, it is POLITE, here in THIS FORUM, to mention the person's name who made the helpful post, which was: MRomeo09, rather than saying "To the guy with the graphs in his posts"!

It's a small thing, but an honourable mention at the same time. Just saying.

Anyway, thanks for posting. You've provided some positive and valuable information.

Cheers,

JMB

P.S. When you have more posts under belt, you can also hit the THANKS button as well. I have no doubt that you will be providing more informative and useful posts here in the near future. Therefore, I know that I will be looking out for more of these posts from you!

Then you're doing it wrong.

With my methods, I'm able to close about 80% of businesses I contact.

Ok, that makes sense. I misunderstood earlier. Good advice.

Yeah...that's got Jack Mize written all over it. It works though.

Thank you for the examples. I know many people are afraid to share their sites, but it does help a lot to see what's working.

When I posted this thread, I was inquiring about the general concept of lead generating sites that are generic and not describing any particular business. So seems like that idea is not really a good one (despite quite a few info products promoting it).

It seems that the answer is to make the lead gen site look like a website of an actual business for it to be effective, which makes sense.

As far as monetizing then, what is better - selling the leads or leasing the site? My gut feeling tells me that the answer may vary based on the industry - it seems that for some selling the leads would be better and for others, leasing the website. I'm not really sure how to determine that though.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Katerina

Hi mlcmartin,

They're is few different way to look at this.

What's the value of a lead for you?
You're the owner of your business and you'll kept all the profit so If you don't think the value of your offer worth 15$ per lead and that you're convince that you won't make more than 150$ with 10 leads, why someone should agree to work for you at that price?

Now don't get me wrong here,

I'm a salesman and during the last 25 years, I've work for different kind of business selling products or services and I've also sell leads. One thing that some business owner don't realise it's, there's always a cost to get a new customer. I agree that leads are not good for everyone because if you received some, you'll have to call the customer and "make the sales" and that's not the easy parts. Most business owner are not salesman, they just have some knowledge on how to fix customer problems so in thoses cases, it's easier for them to answered the phone and do what I will call a passive sale. So for that reason, I will concentrate on niche where my customer have to SELL his is product or services to his customer and with my leads, I will help him pass trough the "cold call" part of the job.

Now, to price your leads so it will be a win/win for you and your customer, you'll need to know some of their financial figures.

1- Average amount per sale
2- How many appointments they need to get 1 sale
3- How many calls they "do" to get 1 appoinments
4- How many calls they "received" to get 1 appointment
4- Average profit per sale
5- how much time they spend on "cold calling" per week

2 hour = 20 calls
20 calls = 5 appointments
5 app = 1 sale
1 sale = 500$
500$ = 350$ profit


A good lead can be compare to a "referal" because the client already looking for the kind of product or service your customer supplied. So It'll take them less leads to get 1 appointment. They will save a lot of time and "frustration" and, at the end, they make more sales and that will increase their value/lead figure.

2 hour = 20 calls (leads)
20 calls = 15 appointments
15 app = 3 sale
3 sales = 1500$
1500$ = 1050$ profit

Lead value = 52.50$


I am sorry for the form of my sentences in English, I hope to have been able to help someone