Why Buying Leads is a Waste of Time and Money
Purchasing sales leads sounds like an easy way to populate your pipeline, but more often than not, it’s an expensive gamble that leads to dismal performance. Leads that are bought typically end up being stale, unqualified, or just not interested in what you’re selling. Rather than adding value to your pipeline, these lists quickly devour time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
Firstly, the leads are not usually going to be within your target buyer profile. List brokers source information from a wide range of places. People on these lists are often only connected by the fact that they have provided their contact information somewhere and are unlikely to have any real interest in or need for your product or service. The sales team is then forced to try and pursue people that would never have found them through their own organic research and discovery process. This makes their jobs far more difficult, driving up cost per acquisition and pushing down morale.
Contact information itself is often inaccurate or out of date. Emails bounce back, phone numbers are wrong or no longer in use and it’s very possible that many of your targets have moved on to different positions or companies since their contact information was first captured. You find yourself with a lot of dead ends, while your marketing efforts and reputation go down in value every time you’re marked as a spammer.
Privacy laws and ethical standards are yet another consideration. Regulations such as the GDPR and CAN-SPAM apply to your business when it comes to unwanted communication. Buying leads that haven’t opted in to hear from you can leave you open to fines as well as hamper relationships with future buyers.
The most important point of all, though, is that purchasing leads completely bypasses the most crucial factor of all: intent. It’s a cold name on a piece of paper. This person has not actively shown any interest or intent in your solution. This will require an inordinate amount of effort to close, if they can be closed at all.
Nurturing organic inbound leads, meanwhile, requires far less time and energy. These are people that have willingly engaged with you in some way. They’ve read your content, visited your website, or maybe they’ve attended one of your events or spoken with your sales team. There’s been some movement in the sales cycle before you’ve even met them. They are far more likely to convert than those “cold” leads that you buy.
Focus on content marketing, search engine optimization, social media engagement, referrals and partnerships instead. Build a pipeline of inbound leads that you can be confident will convert far more often than those purchased cold lists.
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