So I have this lead-gen website I made a while ago that gathers leads for people looking for a massage. Lately I've gotten to #1 and #3 for my KWPs. The problem is, I'm getting leads but I haven't been able to deliver on them or monetize! Now obviously some will say, "call up some massage places and offer to sell them leads". I tried calling a few..5 places and private individuals from CL. Most blew me off and didn't even want to hear, and the 2 that did, asked how much would a lead be. I said $20, thinking that if they get $100 or $150 per hour, $20 would be nothing for them. Both said no, that's WAYY to expensive and hung up. BTW, the 2 Chinese places that give massages didn't even know what I was talking about. Conversation went something like this: -"Hi I wanted to offer you guys some leads for people who want massages." -"uhh, ok, you wan massage?" - "no, I want to give you someone who wants a massage" - "ok ok, put them on phone" - "no, I can sell you a name, e-mail, and phone number so that you get a customer" - "what? name and phone number? I no buy, I give massage." ....it just went on like that until they got tired or I got tired. It was like beating a dead horse to death So I'm wondering what I can do with this site...I'd hate to just let it go. Maybe I'm not salesman-y enough Offer it on Flippa? How much do you think someone would pay to buy a localized lead-gen site like that? Any advice would be welcome...
you think that'll work? They order a massage and they get an e-mail for a self-massage? Don't think they'll be too happy for that....
you got it right.. you are not a sales guy.. and dollar 20 a lead is way too high as these people don't know how well your leads can convert. If I was a massage parlour owner, then I would not buy emails and phone numbers for 20 dollars. Instead I will give you 20 dollars if you complete a sale.
You need to do it the other-way around... First talk to these owners what their commission would be if you are sending in a customer. For instance. Assume that a body massage is 100 dollars. You talk to them and ask them to offer you 30 dollars as a commission. Now you sell these services for a discount of 20% that is at 80 dollars. You send them to those parlors and you pay those people 70 dollars. So for every sale that you make you get 10 dollars commission, you visitor gets 20 dollar discount and the vendor gets a sale for 70 dollars. You start this with one parlor which is nearby and then can scale it up..
#1 I found this out the hard way but you have to be careful of "fee splitting". Its some bullshit legal loophole that doesnt allow you to collect referrals in some instances. Its kinda weird but it does force you to charge a monthly payment. #2 Look into LeadPile. I thought about doing something similar and it allows you to sell collected leads to prospective buyers. Theres no pitching, you always get paid, catch is they're selective about what kind of leads they take. I would look at aligning your seo skills with their niches, collect, and get paid deleting all the bs.
ajithrocksca and goingreen, thank you for the great advice. I may go both ways and keep you posted. Thanks again
Try giving them one free lead to show them that you are legit. Then they will know exactly what they are buying.
Try to appeal to their self interest. Push their pain by telling them that their competitors are buying leads this way.
Get a virtual number and find a local massage persons site low on the first page, or on the second page. forward the number to them and let them get clients thru your site for a month. After a month, take the phone logs, send them to the owner of the site you forwarded to, and tell them something along this line. You were building the site and picked your company to forward the number while the site was rising through the ranks because they have a good reputation. Now that the site is ranking, you intend to lease the site out or sell it, and since you have forwarded the number to this massage parlor, you are giving them first shot. Then show the log of callers phone numbers to the business owner so they can cross reference in their records and see how many customers they got from your site. Whatever volume of calls and customers they had come directly from you ( the numbers that called them thru your virtual number are your tracking and proof) and without this site they would not have gotten those customers. If they are not interested, make the offer to a competitor.
