Would You Ever Direct Mail Internet Leads?

Any Internet lead provider will tell you calling immediately is important. However, if you go beyond running your marketing one lead at a time and look at the bigger picture you can find other opportunities.

Internet leads have long been the pariah of marketing. Meanwhile, consumers continue to make the Web more and more a part of their decision-making and mortgage brokers in particular are learning to use that to their advantage with websites and blogs. This makes it increasingly important to learn how to handle these leads as a bigger part of your database marketing process.

Direct Mail Works

Direct mail, done well, is still the big boy on the block. That is why I tell my clients to create direct mail campaigns for their Internet leads too.

Take a look at what you are doing today with your leads. My guess is that your are direct mailing past clients and maybe even some purchased lists but any lead generated or purchased from the Internet you only call or email. If so, you are missing a lot of opportunity.

Internet Leads are People Too

The logic generally goes that people submitting their information online must want to be called or emailed. The truth is that they are the same people that are past clients, referrals, and on those purchased lists. They simply are using the Internet for convenience.

Even my mother uses Facebook now–it is time to stop thinking of these consumers as different.

Contact From the Web Does Change This

That means simply this… If you use direct mail as a marketing strategy then don’t leave out those prospects that contact you via your blog, website, or you buy from an Internet lead provider. I am seeing remarkable success from clients that approach these leads as they would any other prospect or past client.

Here is a simple flow that might work for you:

1. Internet lead purchased, coming from blog, or email campaign
2. Immediately contact via email and telephone
3. Build a process for 14 days worth multi-touch contacts (email and telephone)
4. Transition into database marketing (lead nurturing)
5. Include in the normal flow of direct mail (marketing, newsletters, cards, etc.)
6. Attempt to re-contact at 30, 60, 90, increasingly longer increments

Ultimately, let the database marketing work the way it does on all your other leads. Your database becomes your biggest lead generation source.

Give it a try. What do you think? What is your experience?

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