What Is A Fair Price For Leads?

[Spots2Stop]

I am working on building a new lead generation site and wanted to get some feed back as to what in general is a fair price for the following leads. These Leads would be direct phone calls from prospects and online quote request forms.

Carpet Cleaning Exclusive lead
Carpet Cleaning lead goes to a total of 3 companies

Tile Cleaning Exclusive lead
Tile Cleaning lead goes to a total of 3 companies

Upholstery Cleaning Exclusive lead
Upholstery Cleaning lead goes to a total of 3 companies

Water Damage Restoration Exclusive lead
Water Damage Restoration lead goes to a total of 3 companies

Wood Floor Cleaning Exclusive lead
Wood Floor Cleaning lead goes to a total of 3 companies

Air Duct Cleaning Exclusive lead
Air Duct Cleaning lead goes to a total of 3 companies

VCT Exclusive lead
VCT lead goes to a total of 3 companies

Partition Cleaning Exclusive lead
Partition Cleaning lead goes to a total of 3 companies

 

[Royal Man]

What would be the benefit of using your company for leads?

Can't they just make their own site or use service magic?

 

[Goomer]

Direct calls from prospects?
Prospects call you?

What makes a lead valuable to me is it's level of pre-qualification.
Hard to value it if you don't know the quality of the lead.
Service magic does a shitty job of weeding out the people that are not serious, not sure, not ready to be serviced, and have no fooking clue what they are doing, of course, to their financial benefit.

 

[Spots2Stop]

Dave most small business owners do not have the knowledge or the funds to build and optimize a quality website that can take several months to deliver decent results.

Not to mention I don't know a single carpet cleaner that only uses one source of marketing. I believe most are open to new ideas if the price is right and if they will get a decent roi.

After several years in this industry I have yet to see a satisfactory return on any of my outsourced marketing dollars.

I have tried service magic several times with poor results. Their system is designed to bring in maximum revenue per lead at the cost of desperate companies struggling to get the work.

Goomes I call all in my service area my prospects
As far as the quality of leads goes, I agree with you. There is no way of telling with out trying it as all marketing delivers different results in different areas.

All I can say is I have a solid system for pre-qualifying the leads that fill out the quote request and would charge according to their answers in the form. As for the phone calls there is no way to guarantee the quality. I was planning on after the site is up charging a discounted rate per lead for the first 90 days so my clients can sample the type of leads.

 

[Goomer]

The customer will be calling us instead of us calling them?

 

[Spots2Stop]

The leads will call the number on my site and it will forward to you. My system tracks the calls including how long you are on the phone with them. Qualified leads will be charged for after a set amount of time is spent on the call.

This system is still at least 30-60 days away from being launched. I still have a ton of work and research to do before it will be live.

 

[Goomer]

If 3 companies get the lead, which company gets the unfair advantage of getting the first call?
The customer is expected to stay on the phone to speak to all 3 companies?
What If I can't answer my phone at the moment?

I don't know if that format would work.
Can you explain how you are going to connect the customer with 3 companies "live".

 

[Brian R]

Funny, before I read this thread I was thinking about yet another change (or option) to the Network Home Services Site

Giving an option of only paying for leads and done jobs with a lower monthly subscription.

They would pay only a small % of any job completed. It would be like any referral reward that's offered by some cleaning companies anyway.

Slightly based on trust...but at least it's in favor of the cleaning company.



If they pay a higher monthly subscription, they pay less % of job or 0%...If they pay a lower monthly, they pay a higher % of job up to a max of a certain %.

Kind of like a deductible.

Hmmm.

 

[Spots2Stop]

I am looking to get a general idea of what everyone considers to be a fair price. I already know what other companies charge.

Goomes at this point I am still working on the site and can't say for sure what the end results will be until I finish researching. I am not looking to sell people on this yet as I am still working on it. I just need to crunch numbers and it helps to get as much input as possible.

To make it easier for you to give me an idea of what you think is a fair price lets say you land 1 out of three leads after trying it for a while. What would they be worth to you?

There are 3 types of leads
Phone calls -exclusive
Quote request online -exclusive
Get 3 quotes online- not exclusive

 

[Brian R]

I just don't like the idea of giving a customer a choice. That benefits the lead generator and not the cleaning company or the customers.
Just my opinion

 

[Spots2Stop]

I agree with you Brian; however I feel that if the price was fair some companies would be happy with these leads while others will opt for only exclusive leads. I will be sure to have many options for my clients and their prospects.

Why not have choices on the landing pages?

If the prospect is not sold to the specific companies’ page they land on, why not give them the option to get 3 quotes from different companies in the navigation bar.

I think it is all part of qualifying leads for different business models.

If the price is fair no one will complain!

 

[daniel@procarpet]

If you guys can deliver, I think it is a great idea.

Find a local expert service provider and charge more for an exlusive lead.

25-50 dollars per lead depending on the job is fair for customers that have high expectations and will pay a fair price.

 

[Goomer]

I am looking to get a general idea of what everyone considers to be a fair price. I already know what other companies charge.

Goomes at this point I am still working on the site and can't say for sure what the end results will be until I finish researching. I am not looking to sell people on this yet as I am still working on it. I just need to crunch numbers and it helps to get as much input as possible.

To make it easier for you to give me an idea of what you think is a fair price lets say you land 1 out of three leads after trying it for a while. What would they be worth to you?

There are 3 types of leads
Phone calls -exclusive
Quote request online -exclusive
Get 3 quotes online- not exclusive

Ok, that explains it better.

The way I evaluate a service is factoring in the average lost leads cost into the average landed job price.
As an example, with ServiceMagic, I was landing about 1 out of every five. Each lead was 13 bucks. Each landed job averaged around 200 bucks. So as a whole, I obtained one 200 dollar job for the cost of five leads. The way I look at it, that 1 good lead cost me 65 bucks.
The average job ticket can sometimes be a bigger factor, as 1 big money job can support more failed leads, and may create an illusion that the service is worth it.

Your question regarding a fair price is tough to answer. I don't think there is an answer. I would think it would have to be in th 20 dollar range as all the others. Whatever price you choose, remember it will not work for everyone. Demographics will decide who it works for more than anything else. If you want to justify a higher price, the key would be in delivering QUALITY leads.

 

[Spots2Stop]

Thanks that helps.

What about flood work do you guys do water damage restoration?

I was offered $200 - $300 for a qualified lead yesterday by a restoration company that I sent a lead to.

 

[Brian R]

I think more would stay on the program if they only paid when "they get paid".

You send a lead and follow up with customer. Of course that's more work on your (my) part...but the carpet cleaner will be better off that way.

I didn't like Service Magic because of all the "IFs" and cut throat mentality.

I'll see what I can do to work up an option on my Network.

Not in competition with you or anyone else...a cleaner would be smart to be on both programs as long as they didn't lose money.

The more people you have working for you, the more jobs that should come in so it's all relative.