Ep #178: Lead Purchasing and Integrated CRM Systems - With Richard Bufkin

Buying leads has become more of a science than an art and the process is infused with new technology that helps you treat each lead like a $1000 bill. We asked Richard Bufkin, President of Target Leads to update us on lead purchasing, a traditional process that has been brought very much up to date. Richard is the second generation of a business that is 32 years old and that has been in his family for 25 years, so he has seen that evolution up close and personal.During our conversation, Richard also dispels some commonly held beliefs. For some products, fancy mailing pieces generally do not perform better than plain old black and white mailings. We learn how reply options have changed greatly – including “PURLS” (personalized URLs).We learn about the critical importance of an integrated CRM and how your response time may dictate your success. Richard also talks about clustering, and resting zip codes.What You'll Learn from This Episode:How Target Leads - a family business - has changed over time.What's new in lead purchasing.Why CRM systems are critically important.What "clustering" is and how it affects lead generation.Why Richard will lock out leads for 90 days.Which is more effective – fancy color mailings or plain old black and white.What PURLs are, and why they're so crucial to getting exposure.