Jamal English is the CEO and founder of EDM Network, a ​dominant lead generation and marketing company revolutionizing strategic marketing, technology and distribution innovation. English is an entrepreneur and investor with deep expertise in the needs of the insurance, financial-services and home-services industries. He developed unique marketing campaigns that attract quality leads and produce fast results for clients. The core of EDM Network’s service is lead generation, and the goal is to help businesses achieve continuous profitable and scalable growth. For more information, visit edmleadnetwork.com.

There is a good reason why 67% of companies consider lead generation the most significant measure for content success. A partner who knows the ins-and-outs of targeting and converting high-value customers with an interest in your product is invaluable.

If you settle on one thing this year, make it finding a lead-generation specialist who can guide prospects to your funnel and take them all the way through the sales journey.

Lead generation is the best means you have to maximize your revenue and growth. A knowledgeable lead-generation partner understands how to turn high-quality prospects into high-value customers. That ability translates directly into the revenue that will spur your company’s growth. The catch is a lot of strategy goes into attracting and converting high-value customers.

Here are four reasons why partnering with someone who knows how to generate quality leads will enable you to scale your business by increasing the lifetime value of every customer you serve:

1. They boost your revenue with quality leads

Lead-generation strategy is a bridge to your target prospects. You need content, messaging and offers specifically crafted to reach the groups already interested in your services and products.

Getting your message in front of high-quality leads — as opposed to random prospects — means they will be far more likely to convert. When you know the right pain points to focus on, both your conversion rate and your revenue increase.

When you generate leads in the insurance sector, the key is quality over quantity. The number of leads you have is far less important than the number of leads you convert into new customers.

I met Reda, my business partner, at a networking event in Dallas. Both of us were building insurance agencies focused on final expense. Reda was a first-rate salesman with a gift for connecting with clients. He was getting more sales than I was, but I was making more money. How can this be explained?

My success boiled down to an understanding of cost per acquisition. While Reda connected with more customers than I did, he was spending too much on leads, so we decided to combine our talents. With his knack for sales and my understanding of which leads would generate the most profit, we expanded our agency to a monthly gain of $500,000 in under three months.

2. They know how to improve lead quality

Many businesses approach marketing by creating loads of content and scattering it across the internet. It’s a little like throwing a whole plate of spaghetti at the wall and seeing which noodles stick. That approach may bring a steady stream of traffic to your website, but if those prospects are not converting into customers, you have wasted your time and money.

The goal of lead generation is to target your content creation toward prospects that are highly likely to convert. To ensure this happens, the brand messaging you create for social media and the web needs to be targeted. In other words, cater your ads to specific groups.

If you want to increase your conversion rate, you will need to know your target audience inside and out. The insurance space involves a wide range of verticals, each of which has a different audience. A knowledgeable lead-generation partner will enable you to refine your marketing by developing a thorough understanding of your audience.

There are many ways a lead-generation partner can deliver targeted leads ready to convert, but I’ll focus on one example. In the insurance industry, I often see companies lean on pay-per-click advertising instead of pay-per-call. In e-commerce, pay-per-click models are profitable. However, in many verticals of the insurance industry, you will find that pay-per-call is the best way to obtain quality leads.

Think about it: Which customers are more likely to convert, those who find your sales funnel through a website or those vetted through a phone conversation? Which leads would you prefer to purchase when selling high-ticket products, leads who clicked on a link or leads who interacted with a human being before talking with your sales team?

Pay-per-call creates leverage for your sales. Partnering with lead generation that offers a full day of telesales reduces your cost for each customer acquisition and supplies your sales team with prospects primed to convert.

3. They build visibility and boost awareness

Whether you are a startup in need of buzz or an established business wanting to scale, attracting the eyes of your target audience is crucial. Visibility happens when you learn to create the content your audience cares about and share it in the places they will find it.

A lead-generation specialist can help you develop low-barrier offers that appeal to the masses. These offers are designed to open the door for a steady stream of high-value customers.

As you create low-barrier offers, focus on building your client base and learning everything you can about what your customers need. You provide value through a low-barrier offer and monetize your expanding customer base by offering more products they need. The low-barrier offer reels your prospects in, and they return again and again for other products and services.

This marketing increases the number of customers you serve, as well as their lifetime value. That strategy enables businesses to scale.

4. They create business opportunities

Lead generation is not entirely centered around lowering your customer acquisition cost. The right lead-generation partner can also increase the lifetime value of your customers by presenting you with business opportunities.

So many insurance verticals and other industries contain customers who would benefit from your services. By the same token, your customers can be a huge asset to other businesses. Knowing the most advantageous non-competing companies to team up with and share leads is a win-win.

The crucial takeaway is that your customer base is valuable. A lead-generation partner can help you organize your business to handle transactional volume, then build a strong referral network.

Companies are willing to pay a lot of money for referrals. For example, people dealing in life insurance often find that their clients need guidance from financial advisors in the areas of retirement planning, tax deferral strategy and wealth management. Most of them already run in the same circles as accountants who provide these services without ever realizing how much they could benefit each other. Setting up a referral arrangement or teaming up to host a joint webinar enables each of you to benefit from a wider customer base and grow both of your companies at once.

A lead-generation specialist knows how to build a referral network for the products and services that appeal to your clients. They can help you lead with a highly transactional, low-barrier offer to bring customers to your door and monetize the back end with a referral service to increase the lifetime value of each customer. You benefit your customers by offering services they genuinely need, and you generate revenue that scales your business.

Lead generation is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. To get the most out of each and every lead, you will need an ongoing campaign. Your tactics will need to evolve with changing trends, and you must keep in constant touch with your customer base. The right lead-generation partner will develop a strategy enabling you to see clear results in terms of revenue and growth.  I&FMM