The Problem with Incentivized Leads – And How to Avoid Them

Incentivized-Leads

01 Sep The Problem with Incentivized Leads – And How to Avoid Them

On the surface, incentivized lead generation may seem like a harmless, easy way to generate a large volume of leads that could become potential customers. Over the years, many insurance agencies have taken the approach of filling their funnel with such leads, hoping that their sheer volume will translate into a respectable number of new clients. Incentivized leads, which offer some type of reward in exchange for consumer information, may seem like a good tactic for showing appreciation for their interest, but in reality most of those prospects will be happy to accept the reward and continue on their way without truly investigating or considering your real offer. Studies show that only 25% of all leads are legitimate and should be advanced to the nurturing stage.

Rewards work wonders for gaining the attention of the masses and bringing name recognition to your company, but most agents agree that the practice of incentivized lead generation dilutes the overall quality of a campaign. Not only does it pull valuable time and resources away from finding solid leads, but it distracts from the goal of speaking with only the most qualified and interested prospects. Psychological studies on motivation conducted by Edward Deci and replicated by many others have shown that no artificial incentive can match the power of intrinsic motivation. In fact, when a reward is offered, the recipient usually assumes that because they are being ‘bribed’, it must be for something that they wouldn’t want to do. This week on the blog, we’ll discuss how to construct a lead generation strategy that helps your campaign maintain integrity, find interested prospects and deliver real results.

 

Prioritize quality over quantity. Filling your funnel with leads who have been attracted to your company by a prize means a lot more work for your sales agents. Once these leads have been procured, it’s your sales team’s responsibility to follow through with each and every one of them. Though rewards may attract a much higher volume of people to learn about your policies, a far lower percentage of those leads will actually become real clients. In the interest of conserving time and energy, the old adage of “quality over quantity” applies. A high-quality lead is one that has confirmed interest in your offer without the added incentive. Even if these types of leads are harder to find or more expensive, focusing your efforts on seeking them out will result in a much higher return on investment.

Conserve valuable resources. The cost of running an incentivized lead generation campaign adds up. Rather than spending a fortune on rewards for prospects with no real intent to follow through on their initial query, you should be making an investment on improving the quality of the lead generation strategy. Instead, devote time to developing your lead nurturing approach or your lead scoring system. Better yet, those funds could be allocated to an expert lead generation service, whose preliminary work delivers pre-qualified leads with an affirmed interest in purchasing directly to your phone lines.

Eliminate lead duplication. Screening and validating leads, as a specialized lead generation team will do, helps to control the quality of your leads and eliminate lead duplication. Nothing says that an agent isn’t truly paying attention to their prospects like sending spam, and clients who are approached more than once about the same offer are highly likely to turn away.

Focus on your end goal. 68% of businesses have not identified their funnel and elect instead to welcome any and all leads into their workflow. Incentivizing your lead generation efforts may be an excellent way to attract large audiences to participate in surveys, download content from your website or fill spots in a webinar, but working on these goals usually distracts from what should be your end goal: gaining new clients. Although this approach may work for some agents, those who are working to attract serious, long-term customers are far more likely to succeed if they zero in on prospects with confirmed qualifications and a sincere interest in what you have to say.

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