Marketing Leads- An Indispensable Marketing Tool

The Internet has revolutionized and changed the way live and function. Selling product and services is one area which has seen a paradigm shift. Marketing Leads are now an indispensable tool to find the audience we need to sell our products and services.

A Lead is quite simply a hot piece or unit of information, that contains the relevant details of an individual or organization, which is willing or considering the purchase of a commodity or service. Leads are collected by Agency A through Agency C, sold to Agency B and then sold to an organization which needs them to find prospective customers. There is a sheer profusion and mix of agencies carrying out the activities of generating, selling, reselling and utilizing leads.

In the distant past, not too long ago, selling was an old fashion exercise which involved your friendly neighborhood salesman making door-to-door cold calls. Results were usually mixed with slammed doors and good sales all part of a day's job. Companies still have door-to-door salesmen. The difference is that they are a lot smarter. They have advance information about whom to meet and when. This way they are able to make appointments, plan out their daily activities and schedules and be more productive than ever before.

Armchair selling has evolved which has given way to a totally different way of selling. Marketing Leads are filtered and prospected by tele-callers at call centers. They are validated and guaranteed to be responsive leads. In other words the person or organization mentioned in the lead will respond to a sales initiative.

Agencies which sell leads are also known as lead brokers. Lead brokers provide leads as per individual requirements. A company may want to move its operations to another geographical area. It may in turn want leads relating to a specific age group or income bracket. It may even want leads relating to housewives which belong to a household within a certain income group. The possibilities are endless.

At one end, lead brokers serve the seller. At the other end they serve the buyer also. It is all about bringing the two together.

If we are talking about Marketing Leads then we have to mention the pay per click payment model. Pay Per Lead (PPL) is a popular method of generating Leads which is used by search engines, advertisers and web sites which host the advertisement. If a surfer clicks on a hosted ad, goes to a site and signs up for a freebie, then he becomes a qualified lead. The advertiser pays the search engine per lead generated through this mechanism.

To sum up, there has been a sea change in marketing on account of the Internet. Marketing Leads is just one aspect of this change.