What the Heck are Aged Leads and How Can I Use Them?

One of the top questions I get asked in response to my sales training is, “What the heck are aged leads?” It’s probably because I mention them all of the time and after 15 years in the business they just make so much sense to me as part of my sales process.

So, in this article I’m going to dig into this question and teach you the value of understanding and using aged leads in your sales and marketing system.

Let’s start with what aged leads are and how they come to be.

What are Aged Leads?

Aged Leads are the result of real-time Internet leads that are generated by marketing companies (Lending Tree, NetQuote, AllWebLeads, etc.) that don’t have enough immediate lead buyers to satisfy the promise they made to the consumer – 3-5 instant insurance, mortgage, or solar installation quotes.

If they can’t sell that lead to 3-5 insurance agents, mortgage brokers, or solar installers within 24-48 hours they can’t sell them as “real-time” leads. These leads then become “aged leads” and a couple of problems occur for the marketing companies but opportunities for you.

First, the problems for the marketing company:

• They didn’t sell the lead the maximum number of times they can, which lowers revenue and makes the ROI on their advertising lower or a loss.
• They didn’t actually deliver the experience they promised the consumer – 3-5 instant quotes.
• The value of these leads drop precipitously every day these leads age beyond “real-time.”

Now let’s talk about the opportunities this creates for aged lead buyers:

• These leads can be purchased for a fraction of the cost that it was sold for just days earlier – from around $15/lead to only $1-2/lead
• The consumer is still probably looking for options, but at $1-2/lead that’s not really even important to make your ROI on the purchase of the leads. More on that in a bit.
• These leads are pre-qualified as having an intent to get a quote for your problem and we know that they prefer and are responsive to digital marketing in searching for your product.
• Finally, they have requested to be called and emailed quotes for your specific product.

Aged leads are kind of Internet leads best kept secret because real-time lead providers want to charge top dollar for their real-time leads.

I think you would agree that aged leads are a pretty big opportunity and probably a lot more consistent, productive, and scalable source of prospects over your other lead sources. Let’s learn more about how to integrate them into our business.

What are Aged Leads Good For?

Because aged leads are so affordable there are a lot of great ways to use them to grow your insurance, mortgage, or solar business. Here are just a few ways to immediately use your new aged lead data.

• Building a new book of business – aged leads are one of the most affordable ways to quickly build a large database of qualified and interested consumers.
• Scaling your sales process – once you have a sales and marketing system that is giving you proven results, aged leads is again the most affordable way to fill your sales pipeline with more qualified prospects.
• Training – this is a way to use underutilized aged leads. Too often brokers give new or inexperienced agents and loan officers expensive, premium leads. Aged leads are a great way to give them lots of qualified opportunities without wasting a ton of money to figure out if they can produce closed deals.

How Do You Convert Aged Leads into Closed Deals?

When you start working aged leads it’s important to go in with realistic expectations. Here are a couple of things that you need to remember as you start working on them.

• Aged leads are just that – aged. Therefore, there will inherently be some bad contact data. We did a whole video on aged lead quality.
• Aged leads are a business builder, not a silver bullet. You need to commit to creating a system that allows you to consistently market to these leads over months, not just days.
• Aged lead conversions is a game of large numbers. Conversions will be lower, but for the price you can afford to really scale up to get results.
• Aged leads work best when you consistently feed new ones into your system to build a large database for your sales and marketing system.

Example Insurance, Mortgage, and Solar Lead Strategies

Depending on your business and the products you offer, aged leads can have some different ways of filling into your sales process.

Insurance Aged Leads

I think the insurance business has some of the best inherent characteristics for aged leads. Insurance is one of those products that consumers are, or should be, always in the market for.

As life changes – families grow, jobs and benefits change, income grows or shrinks, or credit improves or worsens – your insurance needs will change. Consequently, whether a lead is a day old or 90 days old, if they went online and filled out a web form once to get a quote they’re probably willing to get an updated quote.

Mortgage Aged Leads

Mortgage leads, which is the industry I came from, needs a little more strategy behind your system. There are a couple of important windows for converting a mortgage deal because it is an infrequent transaction.

First, within the first 30 days or so there is so much complexity, messiness, and inexperience in the transaction and the industry there is a good opportunity to steal the deal.

In the 60-90 day window you can get deals from consumers who weren’t initially qualified, got frustrated, or just got lost in the process.

Then in the 90+ window there are a lot of opportunities for folks that weren’t quite ready to buy a home and a loan officer “made it work” and they got into a mortgage that should be refinanced into a better mortgage.

Solar Installation Aged Leads

This is another good opportunity for aged leads, Solar is a hot market, but the way consumers buy is very different from other home improvement segments.

In this category they are buying more for the “moral” good, technical fascination, and lastly the economic value. In addition, the solar technology and options are constantly changing and improving. As a result, solar consumers are often initially inquiring more to get information and ask questions, not immediately purchase a solar installation.

Because the solar purchase is a longer buying cycle it almost makes more sense to buy aged leads over real-time leads. Let them get the research out of their system or just know that your lead nurturing (education) campaign can move them to a future purchase.

What Questions Do You Have?

Hopefully this has given you a lot more insight into what aged leads are, how they are created, and the mindset of the consumer. From this knowledge you can get the best results from strategically using aged leads in your sales process.

I’m sure you still have questions. Drop them down in the comments section. I’ll answer them in as much detail as possible.

How to Use Aged Leads in Your Overall Sales and Marketing Plan

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