I’ve been talking about local lead generation for a while now and the topic always generates a lot of interest. One of the best decisions I ever made for my company was moving away from CPA network based offers and creating my own direct offers with businesses. I was doing pretty well on various networks, but local lead generation took it to the next level.
Local lead generation can be great, but the biggest problem is that local can mean small markets and limited profits. What really kicked my company into high gear was what I call direct lead generation. This is basically local lead gen on a national level. To do this, we seek out companies that have a large regional or national footprint to partner with on private affiliate offers. This allows the company to have a much larger advertising/marketing budget than a local mom and pop type business.
The ideal company to find would be a smaller national company with a limited online presence and no affiliate marketing program. There are actually still a lot of companies like this out there. Most of the time they are new to the whole performance based advertising concept. It could be product based CPS, CPA, or straight lead gen, depending on the company. You approach them just as you would a local business, but just on a larger scale. It’s best to have proven case studies and a solid track record before approaching a large company. They tend to go for hard data, not promises and hype.
Here’s a tip: If you aren’t good at sales or just don’t like it (me), consider hiring a sales person to contact companies that you have targeted. If you outsource design, coding, accounting etc, why not contract a sales guy? A good sales person can be a huge asset to your business. All you need is that one large account to take off.
There are obvious benefits to having an exclusive affiliate contract with a national company: large budgets, national advertising reach for targeting, big volume, total freedom of advertising, etc. The downside is that they are hard to find and take a lot of up front legwork to get established. Up front work that you are not getting paid for…
But the rewards can far outweigh the risks and time investment.
So if you ready to take local lead gen to the next level, think national and go after some big fish!
Thanks Chad for this great post.I am almost ready to launch my SEM business and was wondering where is the best place to learn Local lead generation techniques methods.I would like to give clients options and lead generation is one of them.thank you
[...] Local Lead Generation to the Next Level On the CDF Networks blog, Chad continues to discuss lead generation. He says, “I’ve been talking about local lead generation for a while now and the topic always generates a lot of interest. One of the best decisions I ever made for my company was moving away from CPA network based offers and creating my own direct offers with businesses. I was doing pretty well on various networks, but local lead generation took it to the next level.” Check out this interesting post. [...]
Thank you for this insight. This is something I’m trying as well.
One question I have for you however, which product do you promote? Do you promote your own? Or you promote CPA offers from networks?
Your insight on this is appreciated.
Thank you
followup tip would be when you have an offer for a company in X market, do it on your own site that is based around the market, not the company. That way when they sketch out on you or forget who was responsible for the $ you still have an asset you can take to promote others in the same space. Just watch your non-competes closely.
While, I fully understand this idea. What would you suggest if you can not afford a sales person…and where would I research for these companies?
Local lead generation is small markets and limited profits but helpful for local business owners or small business owners. Thanks for information about this concept.
Nice information about local lead generation. I will try that.
Thanks Chad for this great post.I am almost ready to launch my SEM business and was wondering where is the best place to learn Local lead generation techniques methods.I would like to give clients options and lead generation is one of them.thank you
While, I fully understand this idea. What would you suggest if you can not afford a sales person…and where would I research for these companies?
Nice post. Yes you are right local lead generation can be great, but local can mean small markets and I totally appreciate this idea.
Good information on local lead generation. It is useful tips for local business owner.
I think it’s good option for small business owners, they can find easy way to lead generation from targeted area.