The Truth About the Value of Online Leads

Before we have an intelligent, in context, examination about the makeup, nature and value of online leads, the first reality that needs to be acknowledged is that consumers buying commodities and services, with universal appeal, are not one and the same as luxury marketing purchasers. There is a marked difference in the purchasing behavior of a person buying a $150k item and one buying something for $5k or less. Lead generation in the luxury marketing space is about making contact and getting the opportunity to engage, make a friend, and shepherd a prospect through the sales journey. 

What this means is that the sales professional following up on luxury marketing leads will encounter prospects with different levels of interest and in different places on their trip through the sales process: some just beginning the discovery, some ready to purchase and everything in between. It means that, just like if you were to meet them in person on the showroom floor, they will have different personalities, needs and preferred modes of communication. Some will have a thick barrier against sales professionals; some will willingly engage. I mention these realities because EVERY LEAD HAS ITS OWN PROCLIVITIES. Some prospects are highly responsive and hungry for information and assistance; some will wait for a time before they trust you enough to engage and some never will. It is the same mix as when floor traffic was predominant before everyone was online. Serious folks, those that need to be nurtured, tire-kickers, and those who go dark are all in the mix. Sales professionals will need to perform the daily function of qualifying and disqualifying, which is what hard prospecting sales professionals do in the course of a day’s work anyway.        

Here is the question that inspired this article: “If someone takes the time to engage and fill out the form, why would they resist a polite offer from a sales specialist to help them?" "Consent Marketing" leads in the luxury marketing space are NOT e-commerce leads. They are an entirely different animal than someone shopping online with the immediate intent to purchase a commodity that day. It is a whole new stream of revenue with its own characteristics. Take a look at this graph based upon real past sales data:

25% are in the market and will buy from someone within the next 90 days. 

Possibly you, could be Facebook marketplace, a friend, Craig's List, a competitor, or off of an online ad from someone out of the market. They will buy soon though, so these are the folks you may be able to sell in the short term, the low hanging fruit. Out of every ten leads, we want to get our clients to the place where they sell 1 or 2 of them. A 10% sell through is an initial conversion goal. 

25% of them will never buy a piano.

Of the leads that fill out the form to see an inventory list, 25% of them will never buy a piano. They were interested or curious the moment they filled out the form but will never buy because: 

They were curious that day, the day before it was RV's and the day after it was a home theatre system.

or

Some other thing that they are considering may be what they purchase. Recreational and luxury marketing competition isn't just the other piano dealers, it's everything else they could possibly decide to purchase which is why we sell the benefits of music so passionately, right? 

or

Sometimes consumers are rude. 

or

Sometimes it's because salespeople have a bad reputation.

or 

They want to stay insulated from them until THEY decide to talk.

What happens to the other 50% of the leads? 

They languish. They need to be nurtured because:

“The teacher says little Susie needs to be 7 before we get her started.”

or

“We need to finish the remodel before we make the purchase.”

or   

“We will buy but the timing isn't right” (for one reason or another, sometimes legitimately).

or 

“$100k is a big decision, we don’t want to rush into anything.”

or

a health or personal crisis delayed the process.

or they “need to sleep on it”, then do for several months LOL.

And so on and so forth… 

But they do buy after being in the pipeline for a while and this is where most of the larger, high ticket, fine piano purchasers live... in the pipeline. And guess what; they will buy from the person that nurtures them best and wins their trust. Profit almost always follows trust. 

The cool thing is that after you've been on the program a while, you can build a pipeline of leads to nurture and when it gets mature enough something is always coming out the other end. It is a whole new stream of revenue with a much higher average ticket price, but there is typically a learning curve to talking people out of cyberspace and onto the showroom floor. We believe it to be the most critical skill a sales professional who wants to sell a higher percentage of fine pianos needs to master. All pianos are important and useful for one thing or another but grand pianos enrich the lives of buyers and sellers more than any other piano does. They pretty much make the most successful retailer’s world go ‘round.

So the takeaway is that you'll be qualifying and disqualifying and nurturing and the numbers have been the same for over a decade now; 50% will buy but NOT soon, 25% will buy soon and 25% will never buy. These figures are percentages, so we rounded them up or down but they are dangerously close to these exact numbers and they are important for setting expectations correctly. They have remained steady for the past 14 years. Sales individuals need to understand the nature of the beast and to set themselves up for success they need to know the real world; that this is hard but extremely rewarding work. We don’t want sales associates, who have never chased cyber-leads, to believe that they will engage easily and sell 50% of them. We also don’t want them to get discouraged and miss out on a critical stream of revenue. It takes establishing a follow-up protocol that includes social media evidence to dominate this audience, but that is a conversation for another day. We have articles on follow-up on the Direct Success website. The purpose of this article is to allow anyone new, and remind anyone who has been working with these leads, how they are constituted.

One reason for my passionate belief that this is one of the most important things the piano industry must learn how to do is because only so many higher ticket purchasers will ever buy without meeting their new piano and taking it for a test drive before taking it home. The luxury marketing sales space is safe. It takes some skill and creativity to excel at it because you are selling value more than price. There are some things that e-commerce does really well, but introducing people in person to something that is a lifestyle change isn’t one of them.

In summary, one HUGE truth about cyber-leads is that they are a magnificent way to make friends online. That is where so many relationships begin these days. Why is making more friends online important? Well if you look at our home page you will note that “front and center” the slogan reads, ”The Company With the Most Friends Wins!” Now go make a friend, or two, or ten…  Happy Selling!