LIVE FROM PI LIVE 2021 with Leads Navigator

We're LIVE AT PI LIVE 2021 from Old Billingsgate, London. In this article we chat to chat to George Collins from Leads Navigator to discuss how the show is going for him, the latest topics everyone is discussing, and a little about the best ways to educate lead buyers. 

Below are some key extracts taken from our conversation with George, but be sure to check out the full conversation with links at the bottom of the page.

How are you finding the show George? Is it good to be back?

George Collins: Yeah, really good! It’s great to actually have, you know, human skin-to-skin contact again and not talking to people through a screen. It’s been very, very welcome.

So, we were talking about educating clients in lead gen and how important that can be. How do you approach that at Leads Navigator?

So for us education is about making it clear what the campaign is all about, and there’s an education around what type of supporters - so in our case we are aligned to charity sector - and so what types of supporters sit within what type of audiences, what digital channels you can use to go and acquire that support.

Typically, the types of campaign we’re involved in, value exchange is a growing area. Value exchange has been around forever, but we seem to have quite a cool recipe on getting it to work.

Could you explain exactly what you mean by value exchange?

Value exchange, in simple terms, is when you are asking for some information and in return you are giving something back. So, the exchanges of value in this case, are generally the supporters details - so, we’re very clear that by giving us your details we’re going to then contact you - but by doing that we’re going to reward you with a free gift. Generally a low value gift, but it’s relevant to that specific charity.

You generally see value exchange companies running with things like tote bags pin badges etc.. Which are kind of mass market, if somebody doesn’t have any affinity with a brand or charity, they’re gonna take that tote bag. But what we’re saying is, if you can devise a product that is relevant to that client then actually we’re gonna get individuals who would quite willingly take a phone call and receive a letter and take a call to action.

The charity sector can be perceived as not as advanced as other sectors. How do you approach that with clients you work with?

Digital is definitely a growing area. Lloyds do an index every year and they report on how the charity sector is behind the curve, and so sometimes when we’re talking to new organisations about how to be more effective around lead generation it’s often either new content or they’ve done it before and it didn’t really work. So we’re very much approaching that with education, showing that actually if you do it this tried and tested way that we’ve developed over the last 18 months, there is fruit at the end of that journey.

For us, we have an affinity with the lottery sector as well, and there is a real surge behind digital growth within lottery, and that’s also kind of mirrored with the commercial sector. There is far more ad spend going online now than there is offline. And so often, when we’re talking to clients or prospective clients, their ears are pricked, there is an interest to learn. But yeah, we usually just have to go through the motions.

So we were recently talking to Ben Tyrrell from MVF about the transformation process. How does this work within the charity sector? Is it different?

Interestingly for us, as an agency we’re just over a year old, and we’re on a journey ourselves, so we were talking about how at the beginning it was just about Facebook and how to create leads and how to create an audience. Our sector, and our clients, are kind of used to being provided with Sales. So there’s a whole spectrum within there where we might fit in. And where we’re learning as well is, coming to the table with 5 of 6 different options isn’t always the best approach. There is an element of the client wanting to be led and shown “We’ve done this before, this is how it works, this is the outcome, let’s test that, and then test and learn.”

Want some more of George? Listen to the full podcast live from PI Live 21 on Spotify, Apple, or watch the video over on Databowl’s YouTube Channel.