Free Leads

Legitimate free leads   

There are some sound businesses that give away a limited number of free leads as a form of promotion.  This is a common business practice for companies that specialize in marketing leads.  Generally these are companies that compile large databases of information about individuals and businesses.  They collect and maintain contact and descriptive information through various public sources and sell it through subscription or a la carte pricing models.

These leads tend to be low value because the prospects have not indicated any interest in a certain product or service.  Typically they are sold by providing a number of data points an advertiser can select to reach a target audience.  Race, Gender, age, area of residence, household income and many data points are recorded.

These leads work well for businesses that can easily target their customers using demographic information.  These leads do not work well for businesses that serve a diverse group of end users. 

In these promotions the number of leads that is given away is not of tremendous value.  They normally represent a $20-40 value.

Free leads from legitimate lead vendors can be a good way for a marketer to better figure out if they want to try lead generation, but they can not be relied upon in a long term business plan.  There is no business that will knowingly provide lots of leads with out some type of compensation.

Illegitimate free leads

There is no business that will continuously provide lots of high quality sales leads without compensation.  There are some websites that promise users free leads in exchange for joining a service, submitting your contact information or downloading some software.

With any of these offers there is always a catch.  If a website promises free leads for joining a service, the leads will probably be of very low quality and the service will spam you.  If a website promises free leads for submitting your contact information they will probably spam you and not provide any leads.  If a website promises free leads for downloading software they will probably install malicious software on your computer and not give you any leads.

Conclusion

Common sense dictates that no company can stay in business by giving their product or service away for free.  Some legitimate businesses will give away free leads as a form of promotion but no business will give away good leads indefinitely.

If an offer sounds too good to be true it probably is.

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