Are They Leads or Bleeds?

Mike:

I rather purchase mailing list, of the target area I wish to work in. Many of my fellow REALTORS have tried buying leads and the success ratio has been zero.

Lead lists make me think of Glengarry Glen Ross.  I never saw the play, but the movie is great.

Nothing will ever replace good old fashioned client relations.  You might be able to meet someone through a lead list, but if you don't build trust with that client, the list was a waste of time and money.

Mike - I am quite envious of your company.  To have a company whose base is referrals is quite an accomplishment and, hopefully, insulates you to a degree against many of the negativity surrounding our industry.  I wish that I had spent more time on that in the past. 

My company is heavily involved in Direct Mail and Telemarketing, both of which have, thankfully, been successful for us.  In our search for a third leg for our marketing table, we did purchase quite a bit of Internet leads over the years.  It will come as no great shock to you that much of our experience has been negative - recycled leads, 50th person to call, etc. 

But, I must tell you this:  there was a time when we were purchasing leads from lowermybills.com.  At that time, we had one, dedicated woman working on the leads and we say a tremendous ROI - far better than the lead cost of Direct Mail or Telemarketing.  I believe that it was a combination of some decent leads from lowermybills and, more importantly, a person whose sole job it was to work on them.  These leads are inherently "weaker" than a call into your office from a piece of Direct Mail and certainly not as strong as a referral.  I found that once we exposed her and anyone else we had to "stronger" leads, the Internet leads went by the wayside.

So, I would say that if you have an LO with a proven track record of success with Internet leads who has a system in place to continuously follow up with people who are often difficult to get a hold of, then it is probably worth doing on a trial basis.  Best of luck. 

Referral based business will give you less gray hair! :)

Great post!

You are right, there is no such animal as an exclusive lead.  So  consequently there should be NO reason to pay and outrageous price for any leads. 

There was a time that I spent $500 for 500 leads said to be 30 days old and did pretty well with, but it was a ton of work getting through them and a lot of negatitity in doing so.  It took about 3 weeks getting through them in a through manner.  I got 3 loans out of the bunch and made more than my money, but it was hard work and energy consumming.

Mike, what "systems" do you have to deal with the mass influx of leads? Some lead purchase programs are better then others. Back in my Realtor days, I paid for House Values and in 4 months it more then paid for itself. What I liked about House Values was the systems they had for tracking your leads and the automatic drip campaigns that you could set them up on. (They have lender leads there too by the way, never checked it out though). 

Just buying "leads" with no systems in place could prove extremely exhaustive. The average internet home shopper is 6 months to a year out so the loan leads may be just as far out. (Just a guess, haven't seen hard data on that. Could be less though I would think.) 

I agree with much of what has been said about mortgage leads - they are terrible...why would anyone buy leads from LendingTree when they write their on mortgages?  I even heard that lead generating companies sell leads between them selves to generate more profit.  That is why the consumer is telling you that they have been contacted 30 times already - Exclusive Internet Leads - don't think so...There are lead companies that are willing to buy a LO's TD's just so they can sell them to anyone who will buy them....beware of what you are buying.

Referrals are the only way to go.