The Freakonomics authors present an interesting theory in their new book, Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain. Why is it that, in spite of all the publicity and ridicule visited on “Nigerian scam” emails in which someone you don’t know will visit you with huge sums in return for sharing your bank account routing information, those emails are still sent from alleged Nigerians? Wouldn’t they get a better response with a new scam sent from, maybe, Crimea?
The answer, according to Levitt and Dubner, is that the scammers WANT a lower response. Sending out mass emails is free, but manipulating the mark who responds is not. Therefore the scammers want to limit their responders to only the truly most gullible who believe that, regardless of past disappointments, there may still be a pony under that pile of poop.
This has application for your own marketing if you have a sales organization that must process the leads you generate through email, direct mail or search advertising. Offer a free tcotchke or entry into a drawing for an iPad and you’ll boost the response, but many of those alleged prospects are responding just for the freebie. Not only are they worthless as leads, they cost you money because they get in the way of opportunities to follow up other, better qualified responses.
There are several ways to get fewer but better qualified responses:
- Offer a premium that is only of interest to someone who meets your definition of a qualified buyer. Everyone wants an iPad; only a few want a poster with functional diagrams of vector network analysis yet that offer was highly effective for one of my clients.
- Make them do something to get the freebie. Ask them to provide complete and accurate contact information and answer a few questions about buying authority and plans. (If you’re giving away something, they will be motivated to fill in correct information to be sure you can reach them.) Make them fill out a survey. In effect, they’re working for the reward so it’s no longer “free”.
- Or, don’t offer anything, other than a “complimentary consultation” which is a thinly disguised sales pitch. This is what your sales reps want you to do, because it will only produce very well qualified leads. You normally won’t do it because there will be a disappointing number of leads and your cost per lead will be extremely high. But sometimes this is the right way to go.
With an improving economy, lead quality becomes increasingly important. Try a few of these tactics in your next campaign.