Free or Paid - Inbound or Outbound: Lead Generation and Why It Matters for Movers

In the close to 20 years, we have been a moving leads provider, we’ve seen our customers take different approaches for obtaining their moving leads. There are ways to get both free moving leads and paid moving leads, but what is best? We explore this question and provide our two cents. 

THERE ARE TWO CATEGORIES OF LEAD GENERATION:

OUTBOUND & INBOUND 

OUTBOUND MARKETING:

With outbound, you are pushing your message out to your target audience. This is the more “traditional” marketing approach geared towards services recall/brand awareness. 

INBOUND MARKETING:

Inbound is sometimes coined as “reverse marketing”, you are pulling your target audience in towards your brand after they are already seeking out a product similar to yours. 

Here are a few marketing tactics that fall under each category to give you a better picture of how each of these strategies can be implemented tactically.

LEAD GENERATION APPROACHES & EXAMPLES  

• Free Outbound Lead Generation 

• 1. Cold Calls
  2. Email Marketing
  3. Cherry Pick the MLS

• Paid Outbound Lead Generation 

  1. Direct Mail
  2. Display & Video Ads
  3. USPS EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail)

• Free Inbound Lead Generation

  1. SEO 
  2. Unpaid Social Media
  3. Blogs

• Paid Inbound Lead Generation 

  1. PPC 
  2. Social Media Ads

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?

Although each of these approaches has its pros and cons, our customers have found their best success when they diversify their lead generation methods using both inbound and outbound tactics (with a free and paid mix). 

You do not need to use ALL of these methods and there is no one specific formula for reaching the best moving leads. There are, however, best practices moving companies should use when seeking the best moving leads to ultimately exceed their monthly sales goals and improve their bottom line. 

The list of best practices can go on and on, so we will go over THE #1 BEST PRACTICE for generating qualified leads that have a higher likelihood of converting into some of your best customers. 

#1 BEST PRACTICE: DATA-INFORMED DECISIONS

Rather than just diving into a lead generation plan, doing your research and practicing smart data collection and analysis will be the best guide on how to form an effective strategy. 

WHY DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS IS A KEY TO EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION

Analyzing your sales, marketing, and historical data will reveal useful patterns including, but not limited to...

• Keywords your ideal customers are using to find you through search engines
• What days and times you are likely to get their undivided attention
• What offers are most enticing to get your prospects to fill out your lead generation form like a free estimate request on your website or landing page. 

Don't have enough data yet?

You still have options (the ideal data collection timeframe is about 1 - 3 months):

• Do your research, look up case studies for moving company success stories
• Attend moving industry conferences
• Sign up for informative webinars, etc.
• Knowledge is power! 

What Next?

After relevant data is collected, you can use this valuable information to make data-informed decisions for future success. For instance, if you book the largest and highest revenue jobs in a specific set of zip codes, focus most of your efforts on that area and other areas that are similar.

Test, Test, Test

The beauty of the digital age is you can launch lead generation marketing tactics like a PPC ad, test its performance, then change and tweak things until that specific ad starts working for your company. 

COLLECT DATA FROM YOUR ONLINE PLATFORMS AND SALES

Here are just a few examples of where you should begin with your collection and analysis. Next to each example, we have listed tools that are helpful if you don’t know where to start. Please note, these are just a few tool examples, however, there are many other great options out there that you can consider and may fit your needs better. A little research and exploration never hurt!

1. Website - Google Analytics
2. Landing Pages - Instapage
3. A/B Tests - Google Optimize
4. Email - Mailchimp 
5. Social Media - Facebook for Business
6. Sales CRM - Salesforce
7. Form Submissions - Google Analytics
8. Digital Ads (PPC or Display) - Google Ads

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• EXPERIMENT & STAY FLEXIBLE:

  In the end, there is a myriad of lead generation tactics to experiment with, and you should have the mentality that nothing is set in stone. 

Keep looking at your data and use that to guide your decisions to shift your strategy and implementation. The moving industry ebbs and flows as you know, so be prepared to get creative as the seasons change, as your calendar fills up or empties, etc. 

• FREE VS PAID:

  When you are deciding between free or paid, we recommend both! 

FREE TACTICS:

Some of the free lead generation tactics can be helpful, but if you are only using free tactics, much of your time will be spent spinning your wheels with very little return on your lack of investment. 

We recommend you have a marketing budget that... 

1. Won’t break the bank
2. Isn’t spent on one tactic or platform
3. Starts conservative until you have a good grasp of what works well for your business and what does not 

PAID TACTICS:

We recommend you consider lead generation services that may take a chunk from your budget, but the ROI well outweighs the marketing investment. As the saying goes, “You have to spend money to make money”. 

WHY MOVINGLEADS.COM SHOULD BE YOUR PAID OUTBOUND LEADS & DIRECT MAIL PROVIDER:

When faced with the decision of what marketing tactic to use, seek options that have the highest response rates. Our direct mail services have the highest household response rate at 1-2% (compared to .2% mobile, .1% email, .1% social media, and .02% internet display).

If you do the math, 100 postcards sent will result in 1 - 3 responses on average. If you book 1 large household move from that batch of postcards the results could be $3,000 - $5,000 in revenue. That’s hard to beat.

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