So are a lot of agents. Yet these are exactly the kind of leads they’re lining up to buy every day.

When interviewed, the majority of lead buyers rate “qualified leads” as “most important” when working with internet lead companies. And they’ll tell you what qualifies a lead; it’s when someone is actively shopping for your services. Yet some lead companies have a pretty loose interpretation of “qualified”… and the result is a bunch of leads with bargain-basement prices and ZERO interest in talking to you.

Where do these bogus and uninterested leads come from? Some companies lure shoppers to submit their information using sneaky “incentivized” offers. You’ve seen it in action before. You’re surfing the web and suddenly there’s some company dangling random offers for stuff like coupons, screensavers or iPod giveaways. When you sign up for the download or freebie you’re bombarded with questions, like “Would you be interested in lowering your insurance costs?”

These boxes are usually pre-checked so the lead has absolutely no clue why you’re calling when you get them on the phone. These leads are hardly “qualified,” and they’re impossible to squeeze sales out of.

Don’t Get Stuck With Incentivized Leads.

But there are interested leads out there looking for insurance on the internet, right? You bet. The trick is knowing how companies find them. Interested leads start their search by typing insurance-related keywords into popular search engines like Google and Yahoo!. Companies use highly competitive pay-per-click campaigns (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) to consistently position their websites into the top 10 rankings. Good positioning attracts serious shoppers, and weeds out the free download crowd.

After clicking on a search engine ad or listing, your lead visits a “lead generation website”. You can see where your leads are coming from by visiting one of these sites yourself (like www.quotefinancial.com). Poke around and see what your leads see, and what actions they’re taking to become your lead. That way you’ll know firsthand the first impression made on your leads is professional, and nobody’s getting “tricked” into submitting their info.

Ask your lead company where their leads come from before they’re sent to you. If they won’t give you a straight answer, you can bet they’re trying to hide something.

Sure, there are lots of easy ways to generate leads. But good companies aren’t interested in cutting corners. You should expect a company to maintain the integrity of their lead generation strategies, so you can ALWAYS get the interested leads you need — promptly and reliably.

• - Jeremiah Desmarais, ProspectZone