LeadsCon East Recap

LeadsCon, without question, is the must attend event for all players in the Lead Generation Industry. Whether you are a buyer, seller, or service provider, LeadsCon offers excellent content and networking opportunities for all. If you missed the LeadsCon East event, you must make it a point to attend the larger LeadsCon event in Las Vegas.

This year’s NYC event had an excellent selection of content, and they specifically blocked off 2 hours of private sessions for lead buyers. These sessions covered “10 Biggest Legal Pitfalls” that buyers need to avoid, lead buying tips and why speed to contact is so important. I spoke with a few buyers from a number of different verticals, and they all said it is worth attending and that they will be taking information learned during these sessions back to their own companies.

How to Contact: Man vs. Machine

On the topic of speed to contact, there was an excellent session entitled “How to Contact: Man vs. Machine” that delved into the technologies and practices associated with improving speed to contact. The panelists for this session included Beau Bratton of Consumer Transfer, Kenneth Krogue of InsideSales.com, and Irv Shapiro of Ifbyphone. The session was moderated by Sammy James of Speak2Leads.

The session began with Kenneth discussing the study they conducted in partnership with MIT and how the findings dramatically helped improve their clients’ lead conversions. If you have never read the study and its results, please take the time to visit the link above and familiarize yourself with it. Prior to performing the study Kenneth claimed that only 27% of leads were being contacted, and after improving their speed to contact, this number increased to 90%. It is not difficult to understand that the more leads a company can contact the more leads will convert into sales.

Kenneth also proved the importance of speed to contact by sharing before and after numbers from Aflac. Simply by improving the speed to contact, Aflac was able to bring their 3.2% conversion rate up to 7%. Not only is the margin of improvement impressive, but they also realized the change in only 3 weeks.

If you are interested in learning how you can improve this extremely important step in closing leads, I recommend that you reach out to GearyPMG and we can personally introduce you to any one of these companies.

Headwinds or Tailwinds? An Update on Education Lead Gen

At GearyPMG we help companies in a number of different verticals including financial services, telecommunications and the for-profit education space. Our experience is deeply rooted in the EDU space with over 10 years of marketing experience helping schools of all types generate quality leads. With that said, it was interesting to listen to sessions covering all verticals. It seems like topics surrounding Title IV, gainful employment and appropriate marketing practices are at the top of everyone’s list.

Another topic during this session included whether or not there is any room for new lead generation sources. Steven Isaac, CEO at Education Dynamics claimed, in jest, that there was absolutely no room, but then he conceded that there are fairly low barriers to entry so companies will always be able to enter into the space. He does believe that there is a limited supply of quality leads, and new companies responding to an increase in demand will ultimately result in decreased lead quality.

Conclusion

Overall it was a great show. It is always nice to have face-to-face meetings with our current clients, future clients and marketing partners. Along with the networking opportunities, the session topics are always aligned with what GearyPMG is interested in, so it really makes it an all-around great event.