[Just Curious]

Good Morning All,

I’m a long time visitor to this site but a first time poster. I’m pretty new to the industry but not new to sales & I wanted to get the advice of some of the industry veterans on lead generation.

I strongly considered Meridians Pay Per Call Direct Mail but when I came across a ppt online stating “For every 100 inbound calls, you should expect to fund 3-10 deals. Average Amount Funded = $22,000” I was stopped dead in my tracks. Are 3-10 deals per 100 leads the norm in this business?

And like everyone else, I’d like the best ROI. So if you had $3500 for lead generation, how would you spend it?

[DirectMedia_Scott]

I'm biased, but radio pay per call is my favorite.

[MCNetwork]

Are 3-10 deals per 100 leads the norm in this business?

I'd say 3-5 deals funded per 100 leads is the norm. If I funded 10 per 100 I'd be ecstatic! If I had a budget of $3500 for lead generation, I'd probably buy a bunch of internet-based leads. You'd probably get around 70 leads and you better hope to fund at least 5!

[Ryan Shiroky]

I'd say 3-5 deals funded per 100 leads is the norm. If I funded 10 per 100 I'd be ecstatic! If I had a budget of $3500 for lead generation, I'd probably buy a bunch of internet-based leads. You'd probably get around 70 leads and you better hope to fund at least 5!

Are you referring to sources like Lendio?

[Just Curious]

Are you referring to sources like Lendio?

This is according to Meridian in reference to their Pay Per Call Direct Mail.

[Ryan Shiroky]

This is according to Meridian in reference to their Pay Per Call Direct Mail.

I understand that, I was asking MCNetwork about "internet-based" leads...

[MCNetwork]

Yes by internet-based leads I mean companies like Lendio and Blindbid. The reason why the closing ratio is low is because from my experience 20% of the leads are unreachable, 30% of the leads you have a great conversation and never hear from them again and 20% have sticker shock when you first speak to them about rates and they lose interest. The remaining 30% you actually get full packages in and you're lucky to fund 3 to 5 deals. The saving grace of these internet leads is that you can usually get a refund if the merchant does not qualify for an advance or they are not interested in financing at all.

Sad statistics but true...

[JayBallentine]

Yes by internet-based leads I mean companies like Lendio and Blindbid. The reason why the closing ratio is low is because from my experience 20% of the leads are unreachable, 30% of the leads you have a great conversation and never hear from them again and 20% have sticker shock when you first speak to them about rates and they lose interest. The remaining 30% you actually get full packages in and you're lucky to fund 3 to 5 deals. The saving grace of these internet leads is that you can usually get a refund if the merchant does not qualify for an advance or they are not interested in financing at all.

Sad statistics but true...

Good points - but I think let me add two ingredients to a great lead. This all based on leads I've delivered to clients and the myriad of tests I've run in my "lead lab."

1. Age of Lead? If more than 5 minutes old, you'd be better off closing your eyes, grabbing the Yellowpages, pointing and dialing. Here's data on this: http://www.leadresponsemanagement.org/lrm_study

2. Have the buyers' expectations been set? Do they really think they are on the road to getting $250k when they can barely qualify for $5k?

3. Are they inbound or interruption leads? If you cold call someone, pitch them, then sell that as a lead, you are doing your clients a dis-service.


OP - With $3,500, I'd go out and buy 100 envelopes, and 100 stamps. I'd hand write letters, or get my ole lady to (whose handwriting is better) and make my case as to why the merchant should call me. Make sure you target by vertical (business type) at first, then sub-segment as you go along. Take initial responses and use the characteristics of those initial responders to deploy more to them. Over time, you want to begin dabbling into post cards so you don't have to write. The idea is to use good ole fashioned ink and pen to optimize your message.

By the time you optimize your message, your market, vertical, you should have a larger bankroll for marketing and can start with post cards.

You partner with a credit card processing company, or an SEO company where you sell one side of a larger post card, and you take the other, you cut your costs in half and can get post cards out the door for about a quarter each.

If it appears to be fools gold, ex:

1. 100,000 targeted visits in 5 minutes!
2. 5,000 leads in 5 days guaranteed!
3. Leads from our "secret source!"

It probably is....

Read "The Lean Start-Up" - use Lean Methodologies to your marketing and you will never go broke.

[MCNetwork]

Jay, $3,500 spent on 100 postcards sent to cold prospects will probably yield you 0.15 fundings (if you're lucky)! When I did a direct mail campaign, my vendor sent out about 6,000 mailers and I got about 30 inbound leads. You do the math!

[Ryan Shiroky]

ping pow poom

[Just Curious]

Jay, $3,500 spent on 100 postcards sent to cold prospects will probably yield you 0.15 fundings (if you're lucky)! When I did a direct mail campaign, my vendor sent out about 6,000 mailers and I got about 30 inbound leads. You do the math!

WOW! 6,000 mailers and 30 inbound leads? Does anyone mail on a consistent basis with better results than this?

[MCNetwork]

Apparently Jay Ballentine

[JayBallentine]

Jay, $3,500 spent on 100 postcards sent to cold prospects will probably yield you 0.15 fundings (if you're lucky)! When I did a direct mail campaign, my vendor sent out about 6,000 mailers and I got about 30 inbound leads. You do the math!

MCN,

I've done the math. Most importantly I've done the testing. I failed at my first direct mail experiment, the second, and third... Possibly the 4th too. Same with dialers. 0.0025%, then 1%, then boom, one day I cracked it for 7.7% opt-in.

The key to being a good marketer is realizing that you will have to fail before you succeed. Also - marketing should be data driven. All it is is math + psychology. You have to be willing to fail. Fortunately for me, guys don't have the patience to fail, optimize, and re-deploy.

Direct mail doesn't work for you because you haven't quite figured out how to do it. Or, perhaps lack the temerity to fail at it some more until you succeed.


These are some very important questions; Who are you mailing to? Why are you mailing that particular group of people vs. others? When are you mailing to them? Are you segmenting your campaigns well? Are you A/B testing your mailers?

A lot of people come up with these ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS direct mail pieces that convert like turds. Beauty does not equal conversions.

What are the elements of a high converting piece? Can you do things to manipulate how the eye travels on the piece to make your primary CTA most prominent? Do your conversions (response rates) diminish if you include more than 1 CTA? Example - which campaign performs better; the one where you say: "Call Us Now!" Or "Visit us Online!" or "Call us Now, Or Visit Us Online?"

You can win at direct mail when you take a hyper targeted and data driven approach. If you are buying lists and "spraying and praying" of course your results will be dismal.

Are you designing a funnel? Did you know that it takes an average of 4 contacts to nurture a lead into a lead via direct mail? Yup, it takes 4 pieces of mail on average to nurture a lead. How do you diminish those costs? What's the best strategy?

MCN - these types of questions and the search for the answers have lead me to believe in my heart that I am the best merchant cash advance marketer in the world.

In the quest to create the widest funnel at the top - we've innovated around direct mail. If you saw what we had cooking - it would absolutely blow you away.

Yes - Buynance has literally re-invented B2B direct mail.

[Ryan Shiroky]

and there it is... in the last sentence... the Branding...

[aak723]

MCN,

I've done the math. Most importantly I've done the testing. I failed at my first direct mail experiment, the second, and third... Possibly the 4th too. Same with dialers. 0.0025%, then 1%, then boom, one day I cracked it for 7.7% opt-in.

The key to being a good marketer is realizing that you will have to fail before you succeed. Also - marketing should be data driven. All it is is math + psychology. You have to be willing to fail. Fortunately for me, guys don't have the patience to fail, optimize, and re-deploy.

Direct mail doesn't work for you because you haven't quite figured out how to do it. Or, perhaps lack the temerity to fail at it some more until you succeed.


These are some very important questions; Who are you mailing to? Why are you mailing that particular group of people vs. others? When are you mailing to them? Are you segmenting your campaigns well? Are you A/B testing your mailers?

A lot of people come up with these ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS direct mail pieces that convert like turds. Beauty does not equal conversions.

What are the elements of a high converting piece? Can you do things to manipulate how the eye travels on the piece to make your primary CTA most prominent? Do your conversions (response rates) diminish if you include more than 1 CTA? Example - which campaign performs better; the one where you say: "Call Us Now!" Or "Visit us Online!" or "Call us Now, Or Visit Us Online?"

You can win at direct mail when you take a hyper targeted and data driven approach. If you are buying lists and "spraying and praying" of course your results will be dismal.

Are you designing a funnel? Did you know that it takes an average of 4 contacts to nurture a lead into a lead via direct mail? Yup, it takes 4 pieces of mail on average to nurture a lead. How do you diminish those costs? What's the best strategy?

MCN - these types of questions and the search for the answers have lead me to believe in my heart that I am the best merchant cash advance marketer in the world.

In the quest to create the widest funnel at the top - we've innovated around direct mail. If you saw what we had cooking - it would absolutely blow you away.

Yes - Buynance has literally re-invented B2B direct mail.

I'm beginning to think that the only people here making any serious money are the ones sellling us the leads. Jay -- if you're converting at 7.7% and have B2B direct mail marketing "dialed in", why aren't you funding your own deals? And if you are funding your own deals, why are you selling leads?

I don't mean to be a jerk, but this is the biggest catch 22 in the market. If you truly are the best B2B marketing, you should be making so much bank that you don't have time to post on these boards. Marketers, especially good ones, command the market in EVERY space.

Help me understand why I should trust you given this dilemma

[Scott Williams]

I'm beginning to think that the only people here making any serious money are the ones sellling us the leads. Jay -- if you're converting at 7.7% and have B2B direct mail marketing "dialed in", why aren't you funding your own deals? And if you are funding your own deals, why are you selling leads?

I don't mean to be a jerk, but this is the biggest catch 22 in the market. If you truly are the best B2B marketing, you should be making so much bank that you don't have time to post on these boards. Marketers, especially good ones, command the market in EVERY space.

Help me understand why I should trust you given this dilemma

You just hit the nail on the head. First lesson, if a marketing companies leads were that good...........they would open their own broker shop and make a lot more money.

[MCNetwork]

So true. If Jay was the greatest MCA marketer in the universe, he would start his own ISO and be filthy rich!

[JayBallentine]

I almost thought you all were joking... but apparently you're serious.

Allow me to re-introduce myself.

My name is Jay Ballentine. I am the CEO of Buynance. We were recently cited in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Our mission is to use technology to deliver merchants - faster, cheaper, merchant cash advances (short term mission). The current merchant cash advance experience for merchants is awful. We will be innovating around this. Longer term we want to be the operating system for both alternative business and consumer financing.

So technically, I guess you can call us a broker? We refer deals to funder, funder funds deals and they pay us 3% of the funded.

The reason why I started Buynance was because I saw an incredible opportunity to make contributions to what I see as the future of Merchant Cash Advance. The future as I see it does not involve the retail broker. We want to do to merchant cash advance, what the internet did to travel agents.

For the record, I have NEVER sold a lead. I have offered to "teach folks to fish."

I've turned down six figure offers to run folks marketing departments simply because I felt that I'd be underpaid. The only way to really make a mint is to change things - to improve things 10x than what they are now.

This video here does well to explain my mindset as of now.

I am so sorry you all completely missed the fact that in that post I was being generous to a broker I'll eventually displace. I was in a good mood.

Finally - less than 1% of minority lead technology companies raise VC. We were able to successfully raise and close within 6 weeks of starting the fundraising journey because my investors saw the UN-RELEASED version of the book on MCA I marketing I wrote. You can buy it here. However, you will not see the breadth, depth, and precision they were exposed to in the version currently online.

When you pair what I did not expose in the book + technology + an amazing merchant product experience, we just might succeed at helping you find work in other verticals.

The negative tone of your comments are highly motivational. Keep them coming!!!

[aak723]

So true. If Jay was the greatest MCA marketer in the universe, he would start his own ISO and be filthy rich!

Agreed. At the same time, I don't want to throw Jay under the bus. I'm not on a rant to slaughter people. I, just like everyone else on here, want to make a profit. All of these marketing guys on this forum consistently sell either direct mail, or radio, or some other new marketing riff, but yet none do their own deals, and frankly it drives me bananas. It makes me get suspicious since the barrier to entry into the world of ISOs is nothing more than the ability to breathe.


Now to answer the OP --

Good Morning All,

I’m a long time visitor to this site but a first time poster. I’m pretty new to the industry but not new to sales & I wanted to get the advice of some of the industry veterans on lead generation.

I strongly considered Meridians Pay Per Call Direct Mail but when I came across a ppt online stating “For every 100 inbound calls, you should expect to fund 3-10 deals. Average Amount Funded = $22,000” I was stopped dead in my tracks. Are 3-10 deals per 100 leads the norm in this business?

And like everyone else, I’d like the best ROI. So if you had $3500 for lead generation, how would you spend it?

I'm in the same boat as you are amigo.

I started another thread about sales lead generation and had the same concerns. I was amazed to find out that my modest ratio of closing 6.62% in 3 weeks was considered a good thing. So far out of 30 some odd leads I tested with an online leads provider, in 30 days we've basically broken even. This is despite the fact that my lead to app ratio was 30%! In other words I broke even.

Here's the best suggestion I can give you. Take a 6 month approach. Get your pitch, drip marketing, robo dialer stuff down in that time frame. Don't spend all $3500 on one source. Spread it around. #1 goal should be to get your money back right away. I'd hit the leads you do get and I'd hit them hard. Experiment. Rinse. Repeat.

Jay was right about 1 thing -- if the lead isn't on the phone in 5 minutes, your chances of getting a deal drop by 50%.

[Just Curious]

Thanks for the advice.

[aak723]

I almost thought you all were joking... but apparently you're serious.

Allow me to re-introduce myself.

The negative tone of your comments are highly motivational. Keep them coming!!!

What negative tone bro? I can't ask you a question about your motives? You can't tell me that every marketing "guru" that precedes you has made it easy to take marketers seriously, right?

I'm happy that you're doing your own deals. It gives you credibility. The fact that you raised VC capital as your own funding source is great. Its EXACTLY what I'd expect if I was touting myself as the world's greatest marketer. But if I didn't ask the question, someone like me would have never found out.

[Sean Cash]

Breaking even on commissions is amazing. There was a time when it was normal to lose money on every deal upfront. The real secret to success and wealth in this business is on residuals and renewals. Living month to month is not scaleable.If you spend $3,500 and make $3,500 in upfront commissions, count that as a major win.

When I was an account rep I was happy to make no upfront commision on my deals, pitch the lowest cost product and build up a passive residual stream. You'll be very poor in the beginning but well off after a year or two and not have to stress.

[JayBallentine]

What negative tone bro? I can't ask you a question about your motives? You can't tell me that every marketing "guru" that precedes you has made it easy to take marketers seriously, right?

I'm happy that you're doing your own deals. It gives you credibility. The fact that you raised VC capital as your own funding source is great. Its EXACTLY what I'd expect if I was touting myself as the world's greatest marketer. But if I didn't ask the question, someone like me would have never found out.

The comment regarding tone was NOT directed at you.

[FutureISO]

This thread is great. If all the threads on this forum are like this one, I'd be ready to go very soon.

[joelR]

1-800-397-1768