Should You Buy Leads for Your Business? Pros and Cons

Are you on the fence about buying leads for your business? Here are some pros and cons that you might want to take into consideration.

Do you have enough leads?

If you said no, then you already know it's going to be tough to complete the requirements of your marketing campaign on time.

It's in those times that the option to buy leads from credible lead providers can be a real relief. Doing so allows you to quickly get contact information of companies and decision makers to increase your business' revenue.

But is it always in your best interest to buy leads?

There Are Pros and Cons to Buying Leads

Buying leads, just like purchasing any other product or service in the market, is not for everyone. So to break it down, let's first look at the benefits.

Why You Should Buy Leads

When you make the decision to buy leads, there are certain advantages. Among them are the following:

High-Quality Leads

Lead providers generate and maintain a large database of many different kinds of business prospects. They are able to filter the data based on many factors including location, designation, number of employees in a particular company, or even the software being used in a certain organization.

These are the ingredients for creating a high-quality lead.

With this information, you can identify your target group and buy only those leads which match your criteria and could soon become prospects.

Also, lead providers with a lot of experience can be helpful in suggesting to you what kind of leads you should be seeking.

Affordability

Depending on your industry and the kind of information you'd like to obtain, the overall cost of leads will be different. But it's the return on investment you want to consider.

How can buying something that you can generate naturally be considered affordable? Think about it this way. You're spending a lot of time thinking about cold calls. Then you're spending time actually making them.

And finally, after all the time spent on those cold calls, you're just not getting much in return. That's frustrating. And it's also a lot of resources spent on generating leads in-house.

Now, compare that with simply buying the leads that match your criteria and you'll see that you're coming out on top. Why spend your resources on consumers who are not interested in your product or service?

It's just bad business practice.

High Conversion Ratio

With a set of high quality leads in place, making a sale may not be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. But it's much easier than shooting in the dark.

When you buy leads, you're making warm calls rather than cold calls. And here's where you'll get that return on investment. You bought the leads, so you know for sure that these people are your potential customers.

To Save Time

Would you rather have your sales team spending hours making cold calls to people they don't know? And then only to never close on the deal?

Or, would you prefer that your sales team make fewer calls to land the sale so they can focus more on providing great customer service? It's a no-brainer.

So at this point, you're probably ready to shoot out and go buy some leads.

It sounds like a great way to boost your marketing efforts is to buy leads. But there some cons to this method too.

The Drawbacks to Buying Leads

With the good comes the not-as-good.

No Perfect Lead

Sure, you're getting high-quality leads. But that doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to close the sale with all of them.

In fact, if you were to buy 10 leads, chances are that only one or two are going to become your clients. Factors beyond your control like budget, buying authority and lack of need — to name a few — can affect your chances of closing a sale.

Being Uninformed

When you buy leads you should know not only where the contact information came from, but what processes were used to qualify those leads.

You want to be sure to always target the market that is most suitable for what you offer.

Out-of-Date Information

A lead that was entered into the database three years ago is probably not going to be of much use to you. You need to know the leads are current.

The older the information, the better chance that the prospect has already found the product or service they wanted.

No Personal Connection

It's all about who you know.

So keep in mind that even if you have a high-quality lead, it's still someone who does not know you. And executives tend to prefer partnering with businesses they already know and trust.

Shared Leads

Some providers have lower prices on leads because they've already sold those leads to other companies. Competing companies.

If your leads aren't exclusive to you, the chances of converting them into paying customers are going to be much lower.

Which brings us to this important realization:

When You Buy Leads, Some Are Better Than Others

So how do you know which one is going to be most beneficial for you? Here's the main thing to remember - you want an exclusive leads provider.

When shopping around for companies, ask if the leads are shared. If they are, move on until you find one that is exclusive. Why?

Because these providers operate a specific service. They build their own websites and their system is a ‘pay-per-call’ set up. That means when a potential customer comes on one of their sites, it looks like any other operator in the field.

Plus, these providers have highly developed SEO skills. Their websites rank strongly in different towns and they get the customers calling them.

From there, they seek out businesses — like yours — who want those leads and are prepared to buy them. If you accept the leads, only your business benefits because with this type of service, your leads ARE NOT SHARED.

And that's a big deal. Especially if a typical lead costs $60, but you stand to net thousands in profit from this high-quality lead.

It's a true win-win.

So What's Ideal When It Comes to Buying Leads?

First, seek out the exclusive leads provider.

Second, be sure that the skills of the service provider are giving you an advantage.

And third, if you decide to not pay, the provider should simply offer the leads to someone else.

It's that simple. And now that you know the pros and cons, you can make an informed decision on whether to buy leads. If you're ready to go, contact us today!