Is Sales Genie worth it? - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

snciwz8 · 11-09-2008, 03:33 PM

I am in the window and door replacment business and was wondering if anyone else in the same trade is or ever has used Sales Genie or any of the others and whether they're worth it or not? If they are, can you suggest a good inexpensive marketing program to utilize with it?

Thanks
Pat

Kenny K · 11-09-2008, 03:45 PM

you can also try coles directory. thay have very reasonable pricing and flexibillity

pcplumber · 11-09-2008, 04:34 PM

It looks like Sales Genie wants $250 per month. The site does not say whether or not you have a limit.

If you are telemarketing, it is difficult to call 1,000 people per month. That means you are paying over 25 cents for each name.

If you are sending 1,000 letters every month, then you are paying 25 cents, for each name, plus another 60 cents to print, package, and deliver each letter. 1,000 letters will cost you $850 to send.

Direct mail lists are often very inaccurate. So, about 15% of your money will be wasted, raising the cost per letter, or decreasing the number of responses. 50% of all undelivered mail is never returned. Many people throw mail, not addressed to them, in the trash.

If you were to send 10,000 letters, you would have to pay $8,500.

For $8,500, you can send about 150,000 flyers through magazines, newspapers, and hand delivery. Flyers are just as effective. See the link on the effectiveness of flyers.

http://www.contractortalk.com/showth...567#post529567

I send direct mail only to my old customers. I did some direct mail campaigns that cost upward of $15,000 and did not gross what I spent on the campaign.

While other contractors may be successful, I won't subject myself, to the risk, when flyers and newspapers are doing much better.

Many newspapers are starving. Do some wheeling-and-dealing. The Daily Breeze, in Torrance, Ca., is giving me display ads, for 1/2 their regular price, and I get a few calls a month. I pay only $200 per week, and maybe a few thousand people actually see my ad, every week. Better than direct mail. Cheaper!

Aiken Colon · 11-09-2008, 09:41 PM

Salesgenie offers a mailer type package with their leads. Something else to keep in mind with salesgenie is you can get really focused with your demographic. Flyers, inserts, etc are not.

We use salesgenie a ton, and do quite well with it.

You can also call up salesgenie and "wing a deal". We own a few different salesgenie accounts. You can get them down to $180 a month. I also know a trick to not having to click each individual lead. I will not post on how to do it in a public forum, but if you PM me I will tell ya how.

JJ

Aiken Colon · 11-09-2008, 10:22 PM

And also check out Dun & Bradstreet. They personally qualify all their leads, and they can also be bought with D&B credit ratings. Salesgenie is owned by a company called InfoUSA. For you marketing types out there, you will remember those disks back in the mid 90's where you could buy every single residence in the country for $99 or whatever. Those disks were simply all the white and yellow pages in the country combined. That part of InfoUSA turned in to Salesgenie. So what you are buying when you buy that service, is every white page in the USA (residence) or yellow pages (commercial, industrial). And when you look up a business on salesgenie their (salesgenie credit score) is primarly based on the size of their yellow page ad and how long they have been running it.

D&B on the other hand is pretty much a credit resource type company, that happens to sell off their database. Their leads are fairly expensive unless you sign a contract buying at minimum 250k leads a year. I will tell you this much, their leads are really good. I am not sure about residential type leads, since I do not deal with them. But for commercial leads or industrial leads they have a service call "hotlist". What these leads are, are new businesses. They have two types. New to world (NTW) and New to file (NTF). New to world are completly new businesses. New to file just means they have been in existance, but are new to the D&B file. The later of the two are great leads. I would think they would have people that just bought a home, or maybe even recently took out a 2nd mortgage or home improvement loan. I would think those would be great for you guys. Those NTF's would be great for you guys that do maintenance, datacomm, telecomm, HVAC service, electrical service, etc.

Something else to remember when buying "cold" type leads. From what I know, and I have been in the salesgame for 17 years and dealing with these types of companies. Anyone trying to sell you "cold" type leads that is not InfoUSA (Salesgenie) or D&B is simply reselling InfoUSA or D&B leads. And those leads will be old. Stick with D&B or Salesgenie if you want to get mailing, telemarketing type leads.

JJ

mcmuney · 02-04-2009, 02:14 AM

What's the trick to not click on the leads? I'm new so can't use the PM feature. Thanks.

handyhands · 02-04-2009, 08:59 AM

We've been utilizing salesgenie for years. It said on our account, we have only 65 credits, however I think we currently pay them about $200.00 a MONTH and when printing calling lists or mailing lists, "because we're grandfathered" in the system, the rep. at salesgenie said unless we want to buy the mailing lists at 7 cents each name,....I'd literally have to individually click each name (and at the time I was trying to print a list of 6000 names/ addresses).

I'd be very interested in hearing how you've been able to bypass doing it this tedious way.

Please feel free to shoot me some info.--As I would appreciate it kindly.

Kenny K · 02-04-2009, 10:08 PM

cole directory is also a very cost effective list broker. very reasonable and updated lists

**Ed the Roofer** · 02-04-2009, 10:28 PM

Their are other mail and printing houses that do the same for just a bit less money, but I recommend Colony Press. 200 for $ 84.00

Ed

heretohelpyou · 08-13-2009, 08:33 AM

i would love to hear about the shortcut also, the whole not clicking every single check box part
thanks

handyhands · 08-13-2009, 11:26 AM

Ask your sales rep w/ sales genie about the different packages...

We downsized from the regualr sales genie to "salesgenie lite" and reduced our monthly costs from $200 to $125.

$75.00 savings a month isn't going to pay for my new Harley, but it might pay for the gas....lol

You can utilize the same demographics, and as the other posters said there are tricks where you don't have to click on the boxes near the names thus enabling unlimited dl's/ print-outs.

laxdad · 08-15-2009, 05:04 PM

in a previous business we used sales genie extensively. at first we used mail houses and the sort and slowly brought all our direct mail in house. the savings more than made up for the extra work. we sent about 16 - 20k (first class only) pieces a month for almost a decade... and unfortunately watched our returns diminish... as most people utilizing direct mail have

but, if you pick an area and sequentially mail a decent piece in a non-descript envelope (so it gets opened) you'll get some potetial customers. post cards can help defray some of the cost in a sequential drop or two. my opinion for what it's worth... personal personal peersonal, specific specific specific

keep in mind that the typical data avaialble through sales genie is 'modeled' (not incl'ding their BK info etc). and better data will cost more, but may NOT have much, if any addl ROI

MOTB · 08-16-2009, 11:15 AM

A lot of these companies run their models almost identically in house they farm the information and then send it to you. However, many of the companies have been dramatically impacted due to the economy. Before comitting to anyone, contact them and see how long it takes to reply to your inquiry, etc., and possibly even call their office to see if you get back a call within just two to three days max which is reasonable due to their price point. Based on the results, then assume it will be no less than this if you have any initial complaints, adjustments, etc. I have been rather suprised about how difficult it has been to reach a bunch of companies and just gave up, but it could have been me and gave up on this form of marketing. It may be me, but I simply had to move on.
Brian
PS. The topic wasn't worth it to me to go into details of the company names and each individual results. Perhaps you will do better.

EW3 · 08-28-2009, 04:19 AM

Hook me up with the SalesGenie trick!