Monthly Archives: May 2019

Accenture Interactive signs up as lead sponsor for NABS cycle from London to Brighton

We are delighted to confirm that Accenture Interactive  has signed up as lead sponsor for the inaugural Sea Change for Mental Health cycle from London to Brighton in aid of NABS.

The deal will see Accenture Interactive feature on the official cycling jerseys being worn by all riders and have a strong presence on key promotional materials throughout the event. The global business will also be represented by a team of cyclists taking part in the 63-mile journey.

Sea Change, which takes place on Friday 7 June, is being organised by The Lead Agency (TLA) and aims to raise £25,000 for NABS – the charity that helps people who work in the media and advertising industry to thrive.

100 media professionals representing some of the UK’s biggest media agencies, ad agencies and publishers will be taking part in the NABS cycle.  Joining Accenture Interactive and TLA on the route will be riders from PHD, Mediacom, Blue449, Jungle Creations, Mail Metro Media, Dennis Publishing and Haymarket.

Anton Hanley, founder at TLA, said: “For an organisation of Accenture Interactive’s size and stature to sign up as lead sponsor is a great indication of what we’re hoping to achieve with the Sea Change event. As well as being a fun and memorable experience for the 100 riders, the funds raised for NABS will have a genuine impact for people who work in the media and advertising industry.”

To claim one of the last remaining places on the ride and join the likes of Accenture Interactive, PHD and Mediacom, visit the Sea Change Website.

5 lead handling steps to conversion success: turn more third-party leads into new customer sales

A proactive approach to lead handling and lead nurturing can have a drastic impact on lead-to-sale conversions, removing frustration and maximising your commercial performance.

Last month, we won Best Lead Generation Campaign alongside clients Mindshare, GTB and Ford at the Performance Marketing Awards. Drawing upon the success of that campaign and our 17-year heritage in the industry, we’ve compiled five steps that can help you and your sales to get the most out of the leads you buy – whether it’s from TLA or another third-party company.

1. Provide context

Not all leads are generated equally. If you’re working with a reputable lead generation partner that goes to great lengths to ensure quality, communicating how these leads are different to the sales staff that receive them can have a huge impact.

By providing the context behind the lead – where it originated from, how it has been qualified, what information the consumer provided, what opt-in procedures were used and more – sales staff understand the quality of the opportunity they have. That ultimately means they can dedicate the appropriate time and energy towards engaging the consumer and converting the sale.

There are a number of ways this communication can be done, from presentations to brochures to videos. It will be down to you and your lead generation partner to discuss and agree on what works for you and the sales teams you need to engage.

2. Be quick

Leads cool quickly. A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that qualification rates drop by as much as 400% when consumers are contacted after 10 minutes of submitting an enquiry compared to 5 minutes. Now imagine if they haven’t been contacted for more than 24 hours. The impact of response time on conversions cannot be underestimated.

Our in-house team contacts consumers who have made an enquiry as soon as they’re received. If they are qualified as a lead and distributed to your CRM, we recommend that they are contacted at the earliest possible moment to ensure the lead stays hot.

3. Be persistent

The same Harvard study also concluded that by attempting to contact a consumer six times, contact rates increase by 70%. A qualified lead puts your sales teams in the driving seat to engage and convert a new customer. By allowing a lead to spoil, your sales teams could effectively be handing over the impetus to a competitor.

A qualified lead for us is someone who has arrived by way of an inbound enquiry and has double opted in to be contacted by our client’s team. In short, they’re expecting the call. So, if for some reason they can’t answer straight away, be persistent and keep trying!

4. Remain adaptable

Most third-party leads are consumers who enquire as part of their research and comparison journey – a journey they remain in right up until the purchase takes place.

While they may have expressed a clear interest in one particular product or service, it’s important to acknowledge that they could still making up their mind and remain open to different options. It therefore makes sense for your sales team to do the same.

They could arrive one of your products but now want to discuss other options you provide. Or perhaps they’ve had their head turned by one of your competitors. By staying open to different possibilities, your sales teams give themselves the greatest scope for providing what they want and need. Lead nurturing doesn’t end until the sale is complete.

5. Repeat and clarify

Don’t assume that because the script used as part of the qualification process has covered the key features or benefits of your product or service that the consumer doesn’t want more before committing to a purchase.

We go to great lengths to make sure the information shared with a consumer is understood, but it never hurts for sales teams to repeat and reinforce the message when first contact is made. Likewise, there is only so much information a consumer wants to hear or is able to take in on a qualification call or via a digital qualification.Having opted in to be contacted by your sales team, that consumer is now primed for more granular detail about what you can offer that others can’t.

In our experience, following these five steps can help you and your sales teams to get more out of the leads you buy and maximise your potential for conversion. If you’d like more information on any of the above, drop us a line and we’ll arrange a follow-up call.

TLA staff, clients and friends experienced the opportunity of a lifetime yesterday by playing in a football match at Anfield, home of Liverpool FC.

The opportunity, which came about thanks to a kind gesture by a friend of the business, was organised as a thank you to staff and clients with the additional aim of raising money for NABS – the media industry charity that helps people to overcome challenges associated with mental health and wellbeing.

39 players from the likes of TLA, Octaive, Convertr, Performics, PHD and Wavemaker entered the field to You’ll Never Walk Alone before taking part in a competitive, yet friendly 11-a-side match that ended in a 4-5 scoreline. The away team, TLA Athletic, took a 4-1 lead into the half-time break before sealing the victory mid-way through the second period despite an impressive late fightback from the home side, TLA FC.

As well as it being an amazing experience for all, our day at Anfield raised £700 in donations from the players – a great contribution towards our fundraising push. Through this and a series of other events, we’re aiming to raise in excess of £25,000 for NABS in 2019.

Next up as part of our charity events will be the London to Brighton Cycle, which will see 100 media industry professionals take part in a 63-mile. For more information on that event, please visit our charity page.

TLA, Ford and Mindshare win Best Lead Generation Campaign at the PMAs

We are thrilled to announce that our work alongside media partners Mindshare and GTB on behalf of Ford has won Best Lead Generation Campaign at the Performance Marketing Awards 2019.

The awards were handed out at last night’s (30 April) black-tie dinner at London’s Grosvenor House, where clients, media agencies and performance marketing specialists celebrated the most successful and impactful work from the past 12 months.

In what was a highly-contested category, the judges singled out the Ford campaign for “Strong in-market audience targeting strategy, layering points of contact during the buying process to lead the user down the funnel, further qualifying the lead”.

Alongside Ford, other brand winners on the night included Liverpool Football Club, Debenhams, Etihad and Very.

One of the most pleasing aspects of this win is that the campaign was the very definition of great teamwork. We enjoyed a fantastic working relationship with Mindshare, GTB and Ford that provided the ideal basis for a successful campaign. The work also involved every part of the TLA team – from account management to digital marketing to tech development to customer service to quality control.

Mindshare’s Daniel Sichel commented:  “The Lead Generation campaign for Ford is potentially one of the most important campaigns that the Affiliate team at Mindshare have ever run. Due to the volume of Ford enquiries being generated through the campaign, we have put in place a complex framework of management, commercials and measurement to maintain a high quality of leads.

“We created a transparent working relationship with The Lead Agency, in order to regularly share insights, learnings and we are constantly looking at ways we could improve the campaign. Our aim was to create a ‘Best in-market lead generation campaign’ and I believe we did so,” he added.

TLA’s groundbreaking advertising technology was used to deliver high-quality leads to Ford in significant volumes, helping the client to achieve its challenging year-end targets whilst restoring its faith in third-party lead generation.

For more information about our success and all of last night’s winning entries, download the book of the night.