Using Leads

Buying leads, for the past few years, have been a commonly encouraged practice in many MLMs. A quick Google search will reveal a near endless list of companies with a wide array of price plans, not to mention the promise of possessing the "freshest leads" on the planet.

When I started my Passport business, I knew my "warm list" was not likely to be very effective and I would need to seek out cold contacting methods wherever they could be found. I tried my luck buying leads and a subscription autoresponder. From various sources, I purchased about 50,000 leads, drafted a 17 letter campaign, and then waited for all the new associates to rush into my waiting arms. I tried to maintain a realistic expectation for the results I sought. I reasoned that if I could get a positive response rate of just 1% that would mean 500 people may seek more information. I thought that 1% of that group would want to enroll and that would add 5 people to my organization. What that realistic? From everything I had read, I believed I was being extremely conservative in my estimates. So what happened?

From the initial 50,000, about 30% opted out within the first 3 letters. At first this alarmed me but I learned that this was considered normal. This still left me with about 35,000 active subscribers in my campaign. At this point, I had NO requests for additional information and had no evidence that ANY had even followed embedded links to my website. Letters 4 - 14 whittled my subscription base down to 23,000 readers. By the time the campaign had ended, I had 4 people respond for a free product promotion I had offered and 2 people request more information.

There are so many variables that could account for my lackluster performance using leads. Here are a few things to consider about leads that may help.

How are the leads being cultivated?
If survey responses, can you get a copy of the survey?
If surveyed, what websites are these surveys listed?
(Site offering anything FREE do not usually produce leads for business developers. Most of the respondents are looking for.....Anything Free!)
How many times are the leads being sold to other people?
Watch for email addresses that reside with services like Yahoo. (This is not an indictment of Yahoo but rather, email addresses are free with Yahoo and often used for casual contacting or concealment.)
Will you be refunded for fake email addresses?
How old are the leads?
Have they been filtered through the Do Not Call registry? (If you are buying phone leads or intend to use them as such.)

Yesterday I read a post on a new blog that talks about leads. You can read this post at
Confessions of a Network Marketing Junkie.