Art
Siegel

Getting The Most From Bingo Leads

Bingo leads: those lists and sticky labels you receive from magazines that carry your advertising. Many salespeople consider these "leads" worthless, giving them little attention. Too bad, because the perceived poor quality of bingo leads usually results from poor sales follow-up. Consider these ideas for Getting The Most From Bingo Leads. 

Ask most sales people what they think of bingo leads, and their response is likely to be a face that looks as if it just swallowed caster oil. Ask those same people when they follow up on their bingo leads, and you'll hear answers like: "When I get around to them" or "Never, if I can help it" or "Only if I don't have anything else to do." Others answer: "I sift through them to see if there is anything good, respond to those and throw the rest away."

If your response would be similar to these, you are in good company. The July, 1995 issues of Inc. magazine reported that the average response time for bingo cards is 58 days. Add in the delay from the time the prospect circles your number and mails the card to the magazine, then the delay until the magazine distributes the leads to the prospects, and you're looking at an average approaching 90 days from interest until response.

But don't be fooled by that average response time of 58 days. It includes many companies so unresponsive that they don't respond for several months, balanced by others who respond to bingo leads within a few days of receiving them. They may just know something that you don't.

Why Bother With Bingo Leads?

There are several reasons why some companies take these leads very seriously:

• Every lead has potential, and every sales person alive has stories about the obscure lead from an unlikely source that turns out to be the big fish. If you don't follow up on all of them, you'll never know about the opportunities you allowed to get away.
  
  
• Bingo leads are not that hard to follow up on. You have a name, an address, and often a pre-prepared label. It's easy to respond to them.
  
  
• Some bingo cards come from companies you already know about, but from people you don't know. Is there a bigger opportunity with the prospect than you thought? Is there someone else who may buy from you before the person you have been working? A lead from a new person gives you a reason to call your regular contact: "I received a request for information from a fellow named Boris Cosnov. Before I contact him, I thought I would ask you who he is."

The Risks In Not Responding

To you, not responding to a bingo lead or responding late may feel like just a decision to manage your time. To the prospect, though, it says your company doesn't care about them. If you haven't responded when they asked you to, what is the likelihood that they will contact you again when they are ready to buy, or that they will include you on their bid list?

Since it is impossible for you to tell with certainty which bingo prospects are good ones and which are not, you have no choice but to treat every one of them as if they matter.

But I know who my good prospects are

Do you really? Do you know all the smaller companies that are on a fast growth path? Do you know the names and company affiliations of every consultant, engineer, lawyer, CPA or other who may be advising one or more clients on a purchase? Do you know which people at unqualified companies are about to take new jobs at companies that are excellent prospects for you?

What Can You Do To Get More From Bingo Leads?

If you would like to get more value from the bingo leads you receive, try these ideas:

Go Through Them Immediately

As soon as the leads come in, give them a quick look through. Pull out any from your most important prospects for immediate attention.

Be The First To Respond

People who circle numbers on bingo cards usually ask for literature from several similar companies. If the average response time is 58 days from receipt of the leads, your very prompt response can put you way ahead of the pack. Not only will the prospect appreciate your promptness, you have a good chance of closing the business before the other guys even get around to sticking the labels on their literature.

Organize For Simplicity

With most leads, your normal process might be to enter the names and addresses into a sales database. This makes sense with high quality leads but is probably too much work for low quality leads. To keep your responses as simple as possible, use the mailing labels that come from most magazines. Besides eliminating the need for you or someone in the office to retype the names, the preprinted label alerts the recipient that this was requested information. It also makes sense to pre-assemble the various levels of kit you will send out, so you can just stick on the label and run the mailing through the postage meter without delay.

Prioritize Your Response Levels

Your normal procedure may be to send a full literature kit or catalog to every cold lead, but it doesn't make sense to send a literature package costing several dollars plus postage to everyone who inquires. Besides wasting money, sending too much gives your prospect less reason to speak with you. Send your least expensive follow-up mailing to your bingo leads, and include a note offering to provide more information. The real prospects will ask for more; the rest won't.

Similarly, unless you have a lot of time and money on your hands, it doesn't make sense to place a phone call to every bingo lead. Pick a handful that are most promising - companies that you believe are best qualified for your products, the big fish that were on your hit list anyway, or ones where you already have an inside track.

All of selling is a game of numbers: numbers of leads, percentages of conversions and dollars closed. Of all your lead sources, bingo cards may not represent those with the highest closing percentage. But they often do represent a source of a large number of leads, and a large number of closable dollars.

SeaBird Associates Inc
3011 NE 7th Drive
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-750-9233
E-mail: Art Siegel

About Art Siegel