FR: Tell us about your new Click-to-Call technology and how it will help brokers?
If you buy leads of any sort, you’ll know that contact rate, actually speaking to a consumer that has made the enquiry is your first challenge. I work with hundreds of lead buyers every day and know for certain that the quicker you’re able to call a lead after they’ve made an enquiry, directly correlates to your chance of selling a product to that consumer.
Click to call is about turning that lead gen relationship on its head. Rather than getting consumers to fill in forms and get a call back, it gives power to the consumer to call a broker as and when they are ready.
Consumers are using and adopting mobile search on devices like smart phones and tablets quicker than advertisers and financial services brands are putting mobile adverts up. We noticed through our own website analytics that our own consumer facing landing pages were increasingly being viewed on mobile devices.
In addition to landing pages that are fully optimised for mobile, all our lead gen websites now give consumers the option to search for a product and call a number that connects them instantly with one of broker clients.
The early results in Insurance and Mortgage have been spectacular, because we’re immediately cutting out 25% of consumers who make an enquiry and don’t answer their phone.
FR: What problems could advisers meet when buying leads?
Fraud, VAT and compliance are probably the biggest issues that a broker needs to be aware of, when purchasing leads but a few easy checks will greatly lessen your chances of getting burnt.
Don’t work with lead suppliers who insist on a large upfront deposit or want to keep amounts of your money on account, there simply isn’t any need. Agree levels of supply per day with the criteria of lead you want and then control your cash flow by topping up, as and when you need leads, not when a supplier wants to send them to you.
Hundreds of Mortgage brokers are buying leads from offshore lead generators without knowing they are potentially building up a VAT liability. This is a big one for the industry and was largely ignored until LeadPoint filed for insolvency last year, but it will come back to haunt brokers who don’t properly consult an accountant to work out their liability.
Finally, if you buy leads, you are part of the advertising journey and you absolutely need to understand where your leads are coming from. Asking to see the consumer journey from click to landing page is a fair request and will save you time later on if and when consumers complain to you and or the FCA that they feel like they’ve been misled.
FR: What kinds of products do you foresee coming to the lead generation market?
The financial services lead generation world is only just waking up to a market that is wider than Mortgage and Life Insurance which is giving rise to a great deal of innovation.
In the coming weeks I expect to see a rise in the number of firms offering Estate Planning, Bridging Loans and Pensions leads as well as leads in more niche areas like international health insurance.
I prefer working in niche lead generation rather than mass market products as it gives me a better chance to understand the product and the sales cycle of my clients. Income Protection is a classic example of a product we’ve worked with some of our clients on to a successful end.
FR: How can brokers ensure they are getting high quality leads?
The holy grail of lead generation – leads that work! There is no shortcut, or magic elixir, it’s really quite basic.
Meet your lead generator face to face, ask them to show you the consumer journey, insist on a lead generator being FCA authorised, don’t commit to a large deposit up front and agree what week 1 and month sales targets should be.
Successful lead generation is 50% quality of leads and 50% dependent on a brokers response time and salesmanship. Where this lines up, lead generations returns spectacular results.
FR: If you weren’t in the financial services industry, what would you be doing?
Difficult to say, I’d be involved with business and technology but I couldn’t say the exact industry. I’m not a great believer in the service price comparison sites provide the consumer or the commoditisation of financial products in general so building a business which puts financial advisers and consumers together has been an enjoyable experience, the industry though isn’t as important to me as the building of a successful value add business.
Looking forward as opposed to ‘instead of’ I think there is a lot more that can be done to support SMEs online. Building a proposition which gives SMEs affordable reach online always excites me. I would also be interested in developing a platform to better facilitate online advice. I believe many people lack access to affordable financial and legal advice and it would seem to me the web is the best way to facilitate such a service.
