Finding high quality leads presents a tough challenge for marketers. In fact, 72 percent of marketers say that obtaining high quality leads is still the biggest hurdle they face, according to research from MarketingSherpa.  The irony here is that the lead generation industry is a billion dollar business, so what are we doing wrong?

It’s no news poor lead quality is a marketer’s worst nightmare.  In the last five years, we’ve witnessed a steady decline in lead quality – two major reasons for this.  One, a major influx of new players entering the marketing is resulting in complex interconnections and less transparency. Two, an increase in fraudulent leads is plaguing the industry, and it’s all due to the undersold model that allows sellers to offload leads many times over again without a direct customer.  Let’s face it, where there is money to be made, there are cheats, and where there are cheats, there is fraud.  What can we do overcome these challenges and attract the right customers?

Ensure Quality

There are many external user verification systems and fraud detection systems that verify leads by running data checks in real-time.  Technology optimizations matter and implementing an internal quality index for quantities helps filter out bad traffic by scoring leads in real time according to a set of indices.

Increase Transparency

Another way to improve industry practices is to increase transparency. We need more systems revealing lead sources in order to check whether or not leads have been recycled. For example, there are services such as ReviMedia that specialize in lead verification, providing both sellers and buyers with a mutually environment for lead exchange.  However, in order for this to work, all players must be on board.

Let’s focus on the end user now.  How can we get the quality, targeted traffic we all so desperately need?

Good Content = Interested User

The only way to attract consumers and keep them interested is to give them what they’re looking for. Therefore, creating engaging content is a major driver of lead generation.  It’s not rocket science – why do campaigns, businesses or websites get noticed? Answer: because the content offered appeals to the consumer.

Social media and blogging are, of course, among other channels for getting quality leads. Again, not rocket science. Since marketing is all about people and interactions, social media offers the perfect platform. Not only does it allow you to extend your network and generate leads, but also to share information, effectively communicate, and foster partnerships.  According to Marketing Charts, about 44% of B2B companies have generated leads from LinkedIn, while 21% of B2C organizations have generated leads from Facebook.

Mobile Lead Generation

Mobile has been gaining traction as a powerful lead gen channel.  In what direction is this trend moving? There’s only way, and it’s up.  According to Hubspot, smart phone sales reached up to $200 billion in 2012 – a 52% increase compared 2011, with users switching from traditional electronic devices towards mobile in all areas of life.  Mobile technology offers new options for lead generation in the way of apps and new mobile services such as GeoSoMo that allow organizations and businesses to effectively target campaigns.

Despite this surge in mobile lead gen, can we be sure it’s actually targeted or can we attribute it to “fat-finger syndrome”? The only way to test it is to look very closely.  We encourage a shifting business model, one that is shifting away from CPM/CPC towards CPL/CPA model.