In last week's Media Maze, I began setting out the steps that a marketer or an agency tasked with committing an online lead-generation campaign should take in order to ensure that the conditions for success, if not success itself, are present.
This week I conclude with the remaining three of seven steps that all marketers and agencies should follow when planning and placing an online campaign that has as its primary goal leads rather than branding.
Step Five: protecting against fraud
Most of the vendors you are likely to work with operate with integrity. But sometimes there are affiliates out there that sneak in under the radar and generate leads in less than honest ways. One consideration when fighting with any CPA partner is the possibility of fraudulent leads by affiliate sites of the CPA Network.
Some networks that run CPA divisions have found ways to minimize the risk of users entering false data, such as matching users registering on any co-registration website that must enter information against a database (e.g. street address which matches city or zip).
The lead's postal address is checked against the database of deliverable addresses. If the lead's postal address is not found, the lead is rejected.
Other methods vendors might use are to remove most common profanity from name and email address fields, remove common 'type-ins' (such as asdf@asdf.com, et cetera) or other incongruities an email address might have.
And of course you should know that your chosen vendors are CAN-SPAM compliant.
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (S.877) is a Federal anti-spam law that went into effect January 1, 2004; it imposes limitations and penalties on the transmission of unsolicited commercial electronic mail via the internet. To be compliant, marketers and their lead-gen vendors must be sure that they provide things like a working opt-out option, they process opt-out requests within 10 business days, that fraudulent or deceptive subject lines, headers, return addresses, et cetera, are not in the message, and that the message be clearly identified as an advertisement or solicitation. And finally, the advertisers themselves must maintain an in-house Do-Not-Email file.
Step Six: measuring success
The measurement of success will be the application of metrics for success against the data garnered from the running of your campaign.
If the client has tasked you with generating as many email registrations as you can get for a dollar per registration, then your metric for success is going to be meeting or beating that goal. But you have to be sure that either the marketer or the lead-gen vendor has the capability of tracking this information. Through the use of simple tracking technology that involves the implementation of small bits of unique code onto the marketer's site where leads can be registered, often called "action tags," a fairly accurate count of leads generated and points of origin for those leads can be determined.
Though for some marketers, a lead-generation campaign is a simple, "here is my budget; get me as many leads as you can," setting a ceiling on the amount you are willing to pay for a single lead (often referred to as the "maximum allowable") will ensure that you don't actually lose money on the effort. After all, you don't want to pay $25 for a lead if the product you have sells for $20.
The same principle applies regardless of what your specific goal is. If it is qualified customers for a particular kind of prescription drug, the calculation is essentially the same: what is the maximum allowable cost-per-lead? How many leads must be generated? Do the dollars spent divided by the number of leads result in a cost-per-lead equal to or less than that maximum allowable?
This is a simple way of calculating success. The metrics against which that calculation takes place is entirely dependant upon the objective you developed when you began the whole process.
Ultimate success, of course, is in the long-term net results. Getting leads alone for the price you want is not the end measure of success. The real measure comes later when determining whether or not the grand objective has been met. Did you convert to sale? Did a lead turn into a repeat customer? What is the life-time value of leads from one list versus another? From co-registration versus email lists?
Step Seven: follow up strategy
For most lead generation campaigns, getting a lead is just the beginning. For example, the goal of a lead generation campaign may be to build an email database, but that email database isn't simply for its own sake. It is to be mined for customers and repeat business. It is to be used for customer relationship management.
No matter what your ultimate objective might be, every advertiser committed to online lead generation -- be it a co-registration or permission-based effort -- needs to stay in contact with the prospect once the prospect has shown an interest.
Follow up first with a well-crafted auto responder message, letting the user know that you have received their information. By acknowledging their interest, you can maintain it.
Keep a prospect's interest in your products or services by sending them regular updates on sales or special offers. A travel company might subscribe a lead to an opt-in newsletter sent regularly, with flight deals or vacation packages special that month.
Depending on the level of information received from the lead, a marketer may decide to send more information either by email or standard mail. An actual information packet, something that a person can hold in his hands and review, often has an amazing impact.
If what the marketer is offering requires a higher consideration for purchase, sometimes one-to-one contact is necessary. Provided a lead has granted their permission, following up with a phone call can be appropriate and a terrific way to personalize interaction between customer and advertiser.
Following all seven steps reviewed in this space both this week and last will not guarantee success, of course. Neither are they entirely comprehensive. There are ample other media tactics that can be deployed to yield a marketer leads if it is leads a marketer wants. But these steps will serve as a solid outline against which an online lead generation campaign can be executed and against which progress can be checked.
Jim Meskauskas is media strategies editor for iMedia Connection.
