Why Consumer Generated Inbound Calls Are the Future of Lead Generation

Why "Inbound Calls" Are Preferable

All businesses need new customers to grow. And for service offerings in particular (insurance, financial services, legal services, home improvement, education etc…), companies have to work really hard to market themselves to find customers, while sales representatives work even harder to find qualified leads. In today’s marketplace, traditional direct response media vehicles such as TV, radio and direct mail don’t get the consumer attention that they used to. Then layer on the fact that regulatory authorities have really cracked down on outbound solicitation without securing an explicit consumer opt-in to be contacted (TCPA, CAN-SPAM). Think about all those cold-calls, text messages, and unwanted emails you used to receive!

So let’s take it one step further. Let’s assume a company actually does receive a consumer opt-in to be contacted through some kind of digital engagement and is able to add that person’s name and phone number to their “lead list” to be contacted in the future. That might happen best case within the next few days… or weeks… or months. Then ask yourself, how many times have you opted-in to something online or filled out an online form to get information when you don’t have any interest in a sales person actually contacting you. Then one more question, when your cell phone rings with a number you do not recognize, do you answer it? I hope I have made my case.

So what exactly is a Consumer Generated Inbound Call and why is this changing the lead generation industry?

A consumer generated inbound call (CGIB) is a phone call made by a consumer directly to an end-buyer agent or call center without being touched or transferred by a third party call center. A CGIB avoids the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) legal concerns and risk, because the consumer has already given their “consent” by initiating the call. This makes Compliance and Legal departments very happy.

Traditional direct response media also generates a “consumer inbound call”, but the action and scale to reach new consumers today is on social media and online platforms such as Facebook, that has over 250M users in the US.

What are the Benefits of a CGIB?

There are many, but here are the top ones.

1) The CGIB is more Valuable to the End Buyer because the consumer has initiated the call based on their real time interest! This translates to higher and faster sales conversions.

2) CGIB often use a pay-per-call model that helps End Buyers control costs and quality. The End Buyer pays $0 upfront for the ad campaign and media placement and only pays the publisher partner for calls received that meet a pre-negotiated duration minimum– typically 90 or 120 seconds. This model delivers more dependable pricing and quality, and volume flow can easily be increased or decreased according to needs and profitability.

3) A CGIB social media campaign expands business reach and can steadily deliver qualified leads to feed growth. The End Buyer can leverage the huge reach of the social media platform, while still targeting specific demographic groups and geographic areas, and has the luxury of receiving calls from the customers who already have interest. A strong campaign in a high-interest category (such as Medicare Advantage plans) can easily deliver tens of thousand of calls a day to the marketer.

To learn more about consumer generated inbound calls, check out our article about how they work