Is your business doing so well that your competitors can’t keep up? If so, there’s no need to read any further. Boom, we saved you some time.
Let’s assume you are still reading because you think you or your business could be making more sales, and you’d love to fill every roster to the brim. As you know, leads are individuals who are interested in your product. By now, you might know that subscribing to the right lead-generation software helps assuage the prospecting challenge by providing you with previously vetted leads, but you’re not sure which lead provider would work best for your needs. If you currently subscribe to a lead provider, perhaps you are researching to see if there are better alternatives.
Whatever the case may be, the more qualified leads you’re delivered, the higher your chances for success. That’s why more companies are opting to acquire leads from AI enhanced lead-generation companies like Socialeads over list brokers. When you source leads from an AI company that sifts through the social fabric, you have the opportunity to receive thousands of perfect matches to your specifications, along with their contact information, all gathered from real people’s publicly available social media posts. From list broker companies, like ZoomInfo and platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator (even with CoPilot), what you get are static lists of names, job titles and maybe current email and phone numbers.
It’s no secret that many are realizing that not all lead providers are created equally, and that with the right AI and the right company, your business will benefit from time and cost savings, high conversion rates, and integration with your CRM.
Which lead provider company and AI is right for you? The following guide will help you to examine some of the most well-known AI-enhanced lead providers along with important factors to consider when deciding which is right for you. This includes competitive pricing, lead database size, and data re-verification schedules.
The Comparative Rundown: Socialeads Costs Less, Offers More
What Is The Real Cost Per User?
Lead providers offer a great variety of pricing and pricing structures. Some sell tokens and credits, which are later applied toward accessing lead contact information. Providers that sell credits, like UpLead, also sell limited access to a set number of leads per month. They state that in selling credits, clients have the flexibility to unlock only the data they are interested in receiving. Aaron E, a validated user on G2.com, states that while credits are meant to save you money, often this is not the case. “You generate a lead list of 100 and only 30-40 are verified,” he says. “So if you have 100 credits, you have to go through the process 10 times to use up your credits.”
Other lead providers prefer to use a tiered payment system. To determine the package or services for you, they may ask for an individual consultation session. These providers, like ZoomInfo and CoPilot AI, offer each service and additional batch of leads at a cost. Depending on what you are looking for, that cost can add up and become quite costly. AP news reports that the ZoomInfo users spent an average of more than $18,000 dollars on the service in 2020.
Despite the hefty payment, many users are content with the service’s accuracy. Verified ZoomInfo user and Marketing Specialist, Shannon V, says that ZoomInfo is a “pretty good product, but pricey.” She goes on to say that she appreciates that it is easy to use, but she doesn’t enjoy how she is constantly being upsold. “ZoomInfo is an expensive service to begin with, and then I come across things that I can’t do without spending yet more money.”
Another type of lead provider offers a single price for nearly unlimited access to leads per month. A provider, like Socialeads, does not sell a limited number of leads per month, it sells access to its AI platform which in turn finds life event qualified people in a user’s social network. We grow a database FOR our users on behalf of our users.
Demand Generation Manager Kelly Ward says, “It’s much easier to find new clients through Socialeads because the Socialeads AI platform sifts through thousands of people for you and finds qualified leads who are experiencing important life events and match your ideal client profiles.”
That means:
The way to figure out what your real cost per user will be, first figure out what you and your company are looking for. If possible, try out the trial period offered by the company to determine if your understanding of the cost for the services provided is accurate before committing.
Do They Offer Quality Leads?
Most lead providers have large databases of information that you have to laboriously comb through, just to find contacts that seem relevant to your business. Some are able to gather email and other contact information which may or may not be accurate nor timely.
There are several methods to locate the leads you purchase. Often, lead providers gather information about leads by web crawling (for bio data) and email plugins that collect signature information such as name, title, company, direct dial, and email. Others search through public record documents to find relevant information in addition to adding data from trusted third-party websites. In general, however vast these databases may be, they often provide low quality leads, imprecise contact information, and lack actionable personal information.
Another way to qualify leads is to scan information publicly shared on social websites. For example, CoPilot AI specifically uses LinkedIn for professional data and connections. A unique service like Socialeads adds LinkedIn’s professional information to a lead’s personal profile, offering a 360° view for a full picture of the lead. Socaleads scans Twitter, where people are far more likely to share their personal life events than on professional sites. This produces the most up-to-the-minute information for relevant life events and if the leads match your ideal client profile criteria, the AI engine bubbles them up to the top of your feed. This is made possible by leveraging advanced identity resolution tools to incorporate professional and personal data including: email, phone, and information from other social accounts like Facebook and Instagram.
“Curating as much content on the individual as possible provides the Socialeads user with more confidence to engage the prospect and establish meaningful conversations and relationships,” says Client Success Manager Beverly Thompson. When you see the prospect in your Socialeads feed, you currently learn whether they have recently:
- Purchased A New Home
- Started A New Business
- Got A New Job
- Got Married
- Purchased A New Car
- Become Debt Free
- Managed Familial Caregiver Changes
- Welcomed A New Baby Into The Family
- Dealt With The Death Of A Loved One
- Retired
… And just how long ago the life event happened.
That means:
You can determine if a service is more likely to give you quality leads by asking each provider where their data comes from and what information comes included with their services.
How Fresh Are My Leads?
As the Socialeads Comparison Chart demonstrates, lead providers offer differing re-verification schedules to test if a lead’s information in the database is up to date. Your leads can only be timely if the lead provider actively updates the database regularly, so your best bet is to go with a one that’s updated in real-time. Imagine engaging with a lead through a service that re-verifies the information in its database every three years to congratulate your prospect on their marriage only to learn they recently divorced. In a situation like this, the chances of you making this prospect into a client are lessened.
In addition to staying up to date, a service like Socialeads finds people talking about their life events in the voice of the person that posted it. This is very different from a database list of names that may or may not be fresh, and doesn’t have life event information in their original voice.
The reality is that most list brokers (e.g. ZoomInfo) and platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator (even with CoPilot AI) are just lists of names with job titles and, at times, current email addresses and phone numbers. Former software developer and Quora user John Koala says that these services are “… high priced and getting outdated a bit more every day….”
Those services don’t come close to being comparable to what Socialeads is and does. It starts with a real person’s social media post they’ve posted about their lives and then enriches it with professional insights and contact information.
All services may seem to be the same at first glance. What’s missing from all lead-list providers is the compelling “life event” reason to call or reach out. It may seem obvious, but people are often fooled because they don’t realize there are superior alternatives out there.
That means:
Ask for information on how often the leads in the provider database are re-verified, then personally check if the data seems to match as you engage with the leads.
Key Tips To Picking Out Your Lead Provider
- Produce a high ROI for your business by sourcing leads from lead providers who are a good fit for your organization.
- To find the right fit for you and your company, first determine your company’s specific needs around leads per month, type of information you hope to acquire, and is within your target price range.
- See if you can get a free trial of the lead service to verify that their information is up-to-date and offers valid and vetted leads promised.
- Do your research and contact the providers’ customer service representatives with relative questions. A good provider will be able to answer your questions accurately and efficiently. Your investments will pay off.
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