looking to buy business leads online

[QueBert]

I have a small business doing IT work, I have a small clientele base but want to expand it. One guy I do work for suggested I find a place that can sell me business leads and mail out my fliers to them for me. This seems like a pretty good idea. I found some places on-line, but have never heard of any of them. I'm not exactly trying to give an unknown company $500 of my money and hope they know what they're doing, or actually do anything, and not just take my money. Maybe somebody could point me to a good small business forum they've used. I Googled a couple and they seem to have a lot of spammer types who are trying to make $$$ not really be helpful.

 

[Greenman]

All I can say is do your homework. I've looked into this a little bit for my business and didn't like the price structure at all. There was a "setup" fee, then leads cost $200 to $500 each (home improvement industry). That was for being the sole recipient of the lead. Other company's had lower prices, but they sold the same lead to several contractors.
Ask a lot of questions, be sure you know exactly how the leads are screened, who else is going to get the same lead you do, and find out how many of their leads actually become a paying contract. I joined a referral service many years back, all I ever got were shoppers and mooches. Total waste of time and money.

 

[QueBert]

good advice, I know expecting anything more than 1% actually becoming a customer is unrealistic. But 1% would still be good enough for my needs. Especially if those 1% tell other business owners and friends about me. I'm not looking to get ATOT rich, but I'd like to have a few more clients lol. I just saw Overnightprint.com sells leads for .17 a pop. I love the business cards and fliers I order from there. Now I need to do as you suggested and ask around. For some reason I always start with ATOT, I've gotten some awesome advice and help from here.

Overnightprint charges .17 per lead + cost of printing + cost of mailing, that doesn't seem too bad at all. Now to find out how they screen their leads.

thanks for the post man I will definitely do as you suggested.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

I've looked into this and as business owner I can't personally see why you would want to buy leads when you can do the research yourself. At the the end of the day you're going to know more about your business and value proposition than anyone else. If you don't have the time to do the research yourself i'd suggest spending that money to hire a part-time intern or Virtual Assistant that can do the lead generation for you based on strict guidelines/rules
-AE