In his bestselling book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman analyzes how globalization has leveled the competitive playing field between industrial and emerging market countries. A key contributor to this “flattening” is technology, primarily the Internet.

In a section of the book focusing on search engines, Friedman highlights how technological innovation has made information more accessible to a wider group of people than ever before. Further, not only is information more accessible, but the pace that information is being distributed is increasing!

“Never before in the history of the planet have so many people, on their own, had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people,” writes Friedman. Friedman points out that the growth of search engine searches is tremendous. Using Google as an example, Friedman states that the company (at the time of the book’s publishing in 2006) “now processes roughly one billion searches per day, up from 150 million just three years ago.”

So you are probably wondering, “Why are you bringing up Friedman’s book The World Is Flat and what does it have to do with Lead Generation?”

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There are four primary advertising campaigns used to generate Internet leads. These include:

1. Pay Per Click
2. Organic Search
3. Display Advertising
4. Email Marketing

Pay per click
In this model advertisers generate leads typically by purchasing keyword phrases on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. When consumers look for a service and enter in the purchased phrase in the search field, the ad from the direct marketer shows up within a paid search section on the page. The advertiser pays the search engine a fee each time the listing is clicked.

For Google, this is generally the top three placements on a page or additional listing on the right side of the page. Consumers who click on these pages are taken to a web page created by the advertiser where they are encouraged to enter their information to be contacted about the service they are interested in.

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Simply put, a lead is a prospective consumer who is interested in your service and has responded to a direct marketing advertisement. There are a couple of formats in which a lead may be purchased. A “data” lead provides an interested consumer’s contact information. After receiving this information, you need to initiate contact with the consumer. A “voice” lead provides a call from a “live” consumer directly to your phone.

Each lead type has a respective conversion rate. Conversion rates vary depending on the lead type, advertising/media used to generate the lead, and most importantly the processes you have in place to work the leads.

While no lead provides a gift wrapped person ready to sign on the dotted line, a lead does provide an interested consumer who has responded to a response-geared marketing piece of advertising precisely because they are “in the market” for your service.

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