Lead Generation System Review Criteria Update

Posted on February 26th, 2011 in Lead Generation System Evaluation Criteria, Lead Generation System Updates | No Comments »

As each product is comparied to others in the market place there is a temptation of the reviewer and others to begin to compare produces against products.  When the product is used as a judgement standard it becomes a moving target.  The preferred way to conduct reviews is against an established standard.

In the first investigaiton of lead generation systems I used a set of criteria created as part of the syntopical reading process.  It developed as the authors of the various sustems explained why their systems were so much better than their competetor.  The list of 10 critieria became the standard all systems were evaluated against.

Description unavailable

Image by theonewhoistall via Flickr

As we revisit the lead generation systems again it made sense to ask critical questions of the criteria.  Two areas of change in the various systems seemed the best place to begin the examination.

The main new feature added to the most popular system and some 0f the newer systems is the idea of content management.  Many systems even introduced what they are calling a “Content Management Solution” (CMS).  If they are really adding in the full functionality of  a CMS then could be a real distinguishing criteria. 

As I looked a the existing criteria and this idea of content management it became clear I should not add additional criteria for content management.  One of the primary criteria of lead generation system following attraction marketing principles is branding. The ability of the system user to customize their own content to foster personal branding. 

Content Management will not become a new criteria for evalution.  Instead the criteria for branding will now include a content management consideration.  Previously branding examined if personalized content could be entered in  or pointed to from the system.  Now the branding criteia will also ask if the system has a content management feature where marketing collateral (including images, videos and documents) can be stored and managed IN the system.

Branding will also look at the system to see if it has mechanisms in place to display and present content unrelated directly to lead generation.  Several systems, in an effort to provide a single stop solution, have bolted on to their systems blogging or mini website management capabilities.  This will also be considered a branding issue as an expansion of the content management capabilities of the system.

Niether content management or blogging/site management tools make or break a system since they can easily be handled outside of the system.  Accordingly, these modern features will be considered as part of the branding criteria and not become its own criteria.

A segment of a social network

Image via Wikipedia

The other feature we see creeping into attraction marketing lead generation systems are tools for integrating with social networks.  This type of integration includes the ability to sent a single message from in the system to all you social network friends.  Other features include improved communication with various groups of people.  These features initially looked like they needed their own criteria.

After careful examination it became clear these social network tools and integrations really were nothing more than additional avenues for building and strengthening your relationships.  Just as we did with the criteria above it made sense to NOT add an additional criteria but insead address social network integration tools under the relationship building criteria.

There are some who will place greater importance on personal branding through content management and may want to use CMS as a standard for their lead generation system.  Others may feel social network integration is such an important feature they may choose their system based on the precense of such a feature.  They will want to establish that criteria as a critical criteria for themselves.

For the purposes of the upcoming investigation criteria you will want to look in the Branding area to see if the system offers enhanced content management criteria and the relationship building section for social network integration features.

Happy investigating,

Popularity: 3%

Home Business Lead Generation System INvestigation Reopens

Posted on February 9th, 2011 in Lead Generation System Evaluation Criteria, Lead Generation System Updates, Lead Generation Systems, Learning Business Lead Generation | No Comments »

Hi, Teach Jim here… I teach and I learn …

A little over a year ago…

I published the final results of an InterNET INvestigation of home business lead generation systems. Since then a lot has changed with the systems investigated. A lot has changed in what I know about lead generation systems as well. It is time to open the investigation again. This time, however there is NO WAY I can be unbiased.  That said, I am reopening the InterNet INvestigation of home business lead generation systems

Let me explain.

Sure, I’ve been a member of these systems for the last year. And YES I have had some success with some of the systems. And YES I’ve had regular life to live. And YES I did not make any effort to push any one system. I did a few tactics along the way. I never did want to drag somebody into a system they did not need. So I went pretty light on my promotional activities.

I got lucky and a few strategies ended up producing results. So now I am left making money from systems I am supposed to “INvestigate” as a nutural third party.   SORRY, this INvestigation will be my effort to tell you how it is, BUT I am “connected” to some of these systems more than others.

So now you know.

You can discredit everything I say or you can trust my desire is to reveal to you all that really matters when it comes to home business, MLM, Network Marketing, small business,  lead generation systems.  There are a lot of false expectations and unrealistic high hopes that a system will make your business into something YOU dream of without any effort on your part.  NOT TRUE! I will tell you as I see it.  You’ll just have to take my word on that. (Then verify and validate!)

NEW Criteria!

In the first report I had to rely on what I learned with the syntopical reading strategy to help me identify the criteria for evaluating the sites.  This time around I am using the sites themselves AND have input from good people like you.

As I see it.

YOU want to know what systems are pushing the envelop and which systems are staying current with the changing face of  Internet Marketing.  That is fair. I know content management features have crept into several of these systems. Integration with social networks is another point of interest.  Promoting YOU and not the system owners is another theme I continually hear out there.

What matters to YOU?

What matters to you as you work with or consider using a home business lead generation system? Income? Ease of use? Connections to social networks? Content Management? Contact / Relationship management?  I look forward to your comments. Thanks in advance.

Popularity: 2%

Review: Ultimate Prospector

Posted on May 22nd, 2010 in Key Elements of Successful Systems, Lead Generation Systems, Reviews | 1 Comment »

Ultimate ProspectorUltimate Prospector is a marketing support system built by Responsive Data LLC. It provides highly refined, professional capture pages build for a number of specific markets with a strong contact management system.

From their website www.ultimateprospector.com:

“Ultimate Prospector is an advanced personalized marketing and contact management system.  It has been designed to enable you to stay focused on making the sale and growing your business while leaving the time consuming sorting and shifting of prospects to the automatic features of the system.”

This system is everything they say it is.  Which is exactly why it did not perform very well in this evaluation.  The criteria used here was meant to evaluate systems that provide Internet marketing support. The Ultimate Prospector does not.  This system tracks interactions with prospects and manages the information about those connections in just a few quick clicks away. In this area focus the Ultimate Prospector system should fair OK.  Let’s see.

I hope you enjoy this review of  Ultimate Prospector.

Branding – How well does the system brand YOU as an expert?

Personal branding in the Ultimate Prospector is available in the back end of prospect interactions.  On the front end, you get five capture pages. Each page  targets a different market niche.  After a prospect submits the capture page form they land on a marketing/sales page.  You can choose the default marketing page provided by the system or prospects can be directed to a page of your creation. This is where personal branding and customization are possible.

Personal branding options are also available with email messages you can send out.  (The actual auto-responder series connected to your capture page does not appear to be customizable.)

Personal branding on the marketing/sales page and in the optional out a series emails leaves you lacking in branding yourself.

Income Streams – How does the system generate cash flow?

There appear to be no income streams with this system. You can get the system free when you help five people use the Ultimate Prospector.  You do this by having people use your affiliate URL.  (Here is mine: http://inetin.EasyHomeBusinessIdea.com/join )

Within the system there are places to purchase leads. There does not appear to be any affiliate or shared commissions for purchasing these leads.

Capture / Landing Pages – What brings qualified people in?

The capture pages were beautiful professionally designed and very attractive.  The page was informative and persuasive but not too pushy. I did not test the conversion rate of the landing pages.  The capture page form required 14 fields of information.  This  many fields will causes the prospect to express their interest by taking time to complete the entire form.  This will likely be a higher quality lead but is also likely to have fewer people complete the process. No question leads coming to the system will really have a desire to get to know you. I wonder a little if the message on the page is compelling enough for people complete the form.

While waiting for the landing / marketing page an attractive flash animation played while a page and information was being processed. The default landing / marketing page informed me I’d be contacted by somebody soon.  No additional sales information nor additional directions were given.  I felt like this left me unsure what to do next but wait. This is a customizable portion of the site so I’m looking to make the landing / marketing page introducing me and the solutions I provide.

As soon as the capture page was submitted a lead came in the back office reflecting the new person.  The recent site activity listed the new prospect.  When clicking on the prospect It showed the pages and times of visits.  The other information collected on the capture page was included in the customer profile. This provided a complete picture of the prospect.  The customer profile page also showed local information (weather and a map) useful for when you go to contact the individual.  Is also a strong section for keeping notes.

Relationship Building – How do you establish a relationship with your list?

The Ultimate Prospector has a strong relationship building, customer interaction tracking system.  There are key data elements the system maintains on each prospect.  Aside from basic contact information, the system encourages the use of custom fields allowing additional information in the system.  Details from the capture page include such things as the best time to contact, the reason for their filling out the capture page, their desired income, their level of interest, the available time and the amount they are willing to  investment.

The work flow and accessibility of information are strong in the system.  There are classifications for pipeline stages with such things as interested, qualified, member customer, voicemail, follow-up, and archive.  They also offer connections to the social media of your prospect.  Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are available in the contact management solution.  By using tabs the spaces is kept clear with only the information you need at your fingertips.

Some systems tout that the autoresponder messages build a relationship.  The system does not.  In fact autoresponder series is only seven are eight messages long.  The strength of the system is in its support for phone and personal interaction tracking.  This is done through events to do this and notes.  They also encourage direct e-mail with a feature called one touch e-mails.  Duplicatable interactions are encouraged through customizable phone scripts.

Usability – How does the system support your work in the system?

The system is very easy to use.   Organization of task groups and information type organized by tabs is helpful.

The light coloration and gradient element style ads to professional feel.  The screen to responsive except in the case of loading the entire list of leads.  As the number of leads increase the page load time also increases.  But that’s to be expected.

On the capture page users experience rigid and strict on its validation rules.  For example I put my Google voice vanity number as my phone number.  When trying  the form I was informed that this phone number was not from the state and I said I was in.  This is strong and horrible if I’m really interested in that really is a phone number I use from a correspondence and I’m not going to be able to enter the system. not good.

My 800 number was also rejected with the same validation instruction.  Finally, after entering my actual phone number which is grounded in the state I live, I was able to submit the form.  This really made it difficult for a potential prospect to even get their information into the system.  Making the validation less stringent might help more people make it past the capture page.

On the other hand while importing leads the data integrity controls were exceptional.  This import function is very strong.  It had predictive field mapping which seemed accurate enough.  There was also the ability to add a custom field in the mapping. This was very strong.  It also forced you to assure every field had been considered before allowing you to do the upload.  Uploads speed was not lightning fast but what you want on a web upload import solution.  At the end, of the upload the system provided immediate feedback on the number of accurate uploads and the number of errors.  The fields not imported or place in to a report for download.  Nice.

The error log generated by the system was downloadable and showed not only the errors records but it included the reason for the error. It was protecting against duplicates as well as invalid information from invalid e-mail addresses.

The more I worked with the system the stronger the interface and work flow appeared to me.

System Training – How do I come up to speed with the system?

While the system is simple to use and straightforward, there is not any system training.  There could be some direction on ways to use the list tools or ways to perform some tasks. There was none.

System Support – When I get stuck what help can I expect?

The system support does not appear to be directly assessable from inside the back office.  On the front end landing page for the ultimate prospector you find contact information through toll free number,  Frequently Asked Questions and a How It Works  focus mostly on answering questions of perspective system purchasers.

I do not find a system specific help section except for the contact phone number and the sales materials.  I did not try their customer service.

Internet Marketing Training – How do I generate Internet leads?

The Ultimate Prospector is not a system built around teaching or coaching Internet Marketing.  Is a system focused on building a relationship with your customer through the use of their tools.  Accordingly, there is no coaching or training on how to promote your site or how to generate traffic to your site.  The capture pages do not accommodate personalized or company specific search engine optimization.  This is not entirely true.  Responsive Data is more than happy to work with companies and individuals to prepare and optimize capture pages. This customization in not part of the system out of the box.  The lead capture pages exist and it is up to you the system user to bring people to those pages.

Personal Development Training – Will the system support my growth too?

Ultimate Prospector has no personal development training built in to the system.  You can learn a lot by analyzing the prepared marketing materials like the emails and the phone scripts.  There really is nothing geared specifically to guide you through your personal development while working with the system. This is a robust tool prepared for use with corporations with no need for personal development training.

Overall Impression – So Jim, What do you think?

The first impressions of the system are very strong because of clean, crisp up front functional is impressive.  This system was built to help manage a large number of leads and prospects.  Customer relationship and prospect interaction management shines in this  system.  It has one of the stronger customer relationship support and building systems of all the systems I’ve reviewed.  The interface of this system make it very easy to use.  Many other systems could learn from Ultimate Prospector.

All the features you need are within easy reach.  The ease of use and crisp design provide an overall good impressed. Area examined by this evaluation but not part of the system include, personal branding, creating your own capture pages, getting help in your Internet Marketing strategies and training on how to generate more traffic and get more leads.  When you try to move into these other areas, common in many lead generation systems, you see Ultimate Prospector falls short.  These criteria may not matter to you or your company.  It is clear that half of our evaluation criteria does not match the software solution were evaluating.

As a contact management solution the system is for strong.  It probably has the easiest to use interface for creating notes and tasks and events for Prospects all from a single interface.  It also provides single click access to email, phone scripts, notes and other features to assist you as you tracking interacts with your customers and potential customers.

Ultimate Prospector

After getting over the high quality of the front end capture pages and the graphically rich back office I found a strong system focused on Leads and managing leads.  This system is not strong in the area of Internet Marketing. Like most system, it depends on how you prefer to  grow your business.  Your needs will determine your preference in a system. Given the strengths and weaknesses of this system it just may meet your needs. Please check it out.

Best of success,

Teach Jim Signature
INterNET INvestigation: Lead Generation Systems

http://inetin.com

Popularity: 70%

Capture Pages in Lead Generation Systems

Posted on February 12th, 2010 in Lead Generation System Updates | 1 Comment »

Over the last few days capture pages have entered my life in interesting ways.  1st The 7 Figure Networker System implements “Phase 2″ with new and improved “capture pages”  so I blog about the update… I figured you’d want to see them so  I made the pages available for public view (http://inetin.biz refresh to your hearts content.)

Next MLM Lead System Pro launches their “Conquer the Internet”* marketing campaign/funnel.  A new capture page / sales letter are out so I write about them.  Oh and while I’ m at it, I should add them to the ultimate “split test” at http://inetin.biz so you can compare the latest capture pages from the latest system updates.  Nice. Done.

LEARNING BY ANALYSIS: Like all the extreme experts will tell you, “learned from the works of the masters”.  (Mike Dillard talks of spending hours each day going over sales letters to master the art of copy writing.)  We can learn from the latest capture pages from the latest updates  in much the same way.

To keep it simple, let’s Examine the MLM Lead System Pro “Conquer The Internet” Marketing Funnel/Campaign Launched 2/10/2010.  It is the newest (for now).  These guys (Norbert Orlewicz, Brian Fanale, & Todd Schlomer) know what they are doing… ask ‘em.

This capture page works more because of what is  NOT SAID!  Yea the video shows… Travel… Freedom… Luxury….  while the guys are talking about reaching huge numbers from nothing.  This page screams to the emotions in the struggling business owners / Internet marking guru wanna be.  The story then delivers on specific pain points from Norbert Orlewicz and Brian Fanale’s past and masterfully hits those exact points with solutions they say the MLM Lead System Pro provides.

Let me spare you the details… Watch the video… you will get the feel

Or you can visit the “Conquer The Internet” page directly.

At the end of the video you got a glimpse  of Jonathan Budd and a few of his new 7 Figure Networker System capture pages. He has included Katie Freiling and Jenn Lawlor to add a more polished, refined presentation style.

You will want to enjoy and compare all these capture pages live at The Ultimate “Split Test” Challenge at http://www.inetin.biz.  (Don’t like a page, hit refresh!)

LEARNING BY ANALYSIS: As you view these capture pages listen to your heart.  How do you feel?  Is the message believable?  Likely for you?  Generalize your impressions into the principles you will use as you create effective capture pages to build your business. (Remember, both these systems are big on letting you brand yourself through campaign capture page customization.)

Popularity: 14%

Investigation Derived Direction

Posted on August 28th, 2009 in Lead Generation Systems | No Comments »

MLM Lead Generation System Investigation revealed several principles, practices and performances critical to success generating leads online.  Here is some what I learned.

Principles, Practices, Performances = 3P Matrix

Principles

* Regular Results Require Consistent Effort
* A Lot of Hard Work
* Brand Yourself
* Use effective Capture / Landing Pages
* Build Your Own List
* Build Relationships by Adding Value
* Market to your list / Monetize your list
* Guru’s are learning too. (Like Twitter)
* Ongoing Personal Development

Practices

* Project Management
* Risk Management – Budget/Reward ROI
* Marketing Plan – Campaign Progression
* Communication Plan – Consistent Message across multiple Media
* Content Development Plan
* Content Development Process
* Content Delivery Plan
* Weekly Performance Planbr /Consistent Performance to Plan
* KPI – DMO – WMO – Make and Keep Commitments
* Monitor and adjust based on data / Good Science
* Learn and Master Tools Work what works

Performances

* Deliver on commitments
* Reach Goals
* Consistent Performance
* Put people first
* Focus on the task at hand
* Use syntopical reading principles and practices to develop expertise in new areas of learning.

Popularity: 1%

SEO Powered By SEOPressor