Andrew Fogg presents a method for generating a large number of high quality leads in a short period of time. The method involves using import.io to extract data from a website where potential customers can be found, pulling the data into a spreadsheet to generate thousands of leads. Personalized messages are then sent to each lead using different communication channels, with the goal of starting conversations to identify interested customers. Over 10,000 leads were generated this way from the oDesk website in just 10 minutes.

1. Andrew Fogg
10,000 leads in 10 minutes
Friday 1 August 2014
presented by

2. let’s start with the basics

3. what’s a lead?
(we call them dog-leads in the UK)

4. “a person or entity that has the interest and
authority to purchase your product or service”

5. the info on a business card
is the perfect example of what is required

6. named individual,
associated company, contact details

7. leads represent the
first stage of the sales process

8. but where do leads come from?

9. where do leads come from?

10. you can buy databases of telephone numbers,
email addresses, mail addresses
@

11. you can attend trade shows
and collect business cards

12. or you can stalk people on social media
in

13. two things are important where leads are
concerned: quantity and quality

14. databases provide huge quantity
but famously bad quality

15. trade shows and social media give great quality
but cost time and money, which limits quantity
in

16. i would like to share a new approach
that delivers both quantity and quality

17. it is based on web data

18. which is what i do

19. and it is inspired by our users

20. i am basically telling you one of the best ways
that people have been using our product
shhh!

21. it is a simple recipe

22. first – where your people at?
find a website where your users can be found

23. build an API to that website using import.io
extract as much data about each lead as you can

24. pull the data down into a spreadsheet

25. this will give you thousands of leads
and will take you mere minutes

26. use the data to create conversational,
extremely-personalised message templates
Hi [first_name], I was browsing [website_name] and
I came across your profile. I noticed that you
mentioned [profile_keyword] and I thought you
would be interested to learn about what we do…

27. make it freaking personal
Hi [first_name], I was browsing [website_name] and
I came across your profile. I noticed that you
mentioned [profile_keyword] and I thought you
would be interested to learn about what we do…

28. start sending out messages
be creative about the channels that you use
@

29. automate the messaging but don’t go too quickly
you need to get the cadence right

30. so as to avoid being spammy

31. and because you are starting a conversation and
you need to be able to respond and engage

32. so how do we do this
(eat-your-own-dog-food-time)

33. with import.io you can turn any website into data

34. without writing any code

35. without writing any code

36. this makes web data available to everyone

37. it is also super-awesome for developers

38. who used to have to write
custom code to get web data

39. developers are an important
market segment for us

40. there are lots of developers on oDesk

41. 13,000 of them list “scraping”
as one of the services they provide

42. they have the exact problem that we solve

43. we used import.io to create an API
to the list of sraping users

44. and pulled them all down to a spreadsheet

45. created a personalised message template that
included a link to import.io
Hi [first_name], I was browsing [website_name] and
I came across your profile. I noticed that you
mentioned [profile_keyword] and I thought you
would be interested to learn about what we do…

46. created link with: Google URL Builder (analytics)
and Google URL Shortener (non-spammy)

47. built another API to the oDesk messaging system

48. it logs in to oDesk

49. navigates to the individual user’s profile

50. and messages them with an invitation to apply for a
job (it is a real job that requires use of import.io)

51. if the user follows the link we can follow them
through to account creation in our analytics

52. 10,000 quality leads

53. props to Matt Ellsworth who pioneered
a lot of these techniques at The Storefront

54. Matt has a Udemy course
that you can follow to learn more