double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

LeadsCon ’12 is just days away!  With more great speakers and topics than we could cover in one – or even two – posts, we welcome you back for Part III of DoublePostive’s “Top Picks.  (If you missed them, check out “Top Picks, Part I” and “Top Picks, Part II”)

As we said previously, speakers and topics make our list solely based on the fact that we are interested in them.  If we left them off, it doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting–just means they are not AS interesting to US.  But as we also said before, feel free to get our attention using the comments below if you think there’s a “don’t miss”session that’s not on our list.

So open your calendar once again, and get ready make note.  Here’s our third and last batch of Top Picks for LeadsCon ‘12, and why we like them:

WEDNESDAY, 9:30-10:00AM
Case Studies Track, “Secrets of Click to Call”

DoublePositive is proud to be partners with Leads360 and RingRevenue.  We’re looking forward to hearing Nick Hedges (President & CEO of Leads360) and Jason Spievak (CEO of RingRevenue) dial up a lot of timely information about mobile advertising.

WEDNESDAY, 11:30AM-12:00PM
Case Studies Track, “Data Driven Lead Purchasing”

Michael Betz, Chief Marketing Officer of Strayer University, is a great client, great thinker and an all-around great guy.  His talk is about taking a multi-dimensional approach to lead buying in the EDU space.  Should be an education!

WEDNESDAY, 2:00PM-2:45PM
Sponsored Workshop, “The Lead Engine in Our Post-PC Future (Presented by: Twilio)”

DoublePositive is a customer and big fan of Jeff Lawson and his company, Twilio.  We’re looking forward to hearing about how new computing interfaces like touch and voice will revolutionize the way the leads industry does business.

WEDNESDAY, 3:00PM-3:45PM
Sponsored Workshop, “Higher Ed Compliance Survey Results: What Are Schools Really Doing? (Presented by: CUnet)”

Presenters Jeff Herz and Steve Smith of CUnet will educate us on how schools are responding to government regulations.  Plus they’ll share emerging best practices, and give tips on how schools can stay ahead of the compliance curve.

So that’s it!  We hope you enjoyed DoublePositive’s Top Picks for LeadsCon ‘12.  We’ll see you in Vegas!

Hi all – just a quick note before LeadsCon.  If you’re a lead buyer, please come see me at the Buyers Forum on Monday!  I’ll be speaking at 2:30 PM on Mobile Marketing & Lead Gen.

As you know if you’ve been following DoublePositive’s blog, we rolled out our new MobilePositive offering last month.  So far, the results have been very meaningful to our advertisers.  If you missed that post, here are the high notes: our new platform connects Advertisers with Consumers on the mobile web and drives quality, net-new inbound calls on a daily basis.

Very often, folks want to know how this works.  If you’re curious, too, be sure to connect with me in Las Vegas next week.  A very common theme of discussion will be how Cost-per-Call strategies on the mobile web can positively affect media plans and drive high quality, net-new leads.

I am eager to share this with you – and hopeful to meet in person.  Again, if you are a lead buyer, please reach out to register for the Buyers’ Summit.  It is the first event of its kind for folks whose primary business is purchase and closing leads.

Learn more at http://leadscon.com/leadscon-las-vegas-2012/buyers-summit/.

See you in Vegas!

Hello again! Last week, we rolled out MobilePositive and gave a hint or two at what we’re up to. If you read that first post, you’d know that our new platform connects Advertisers with Consumers on the mobile web in a very meaningful and aligned way–driving heaps of quality inbound calls to our clients, daily. You would also know that I promised a follow up to that post explaining the timing of this rollout.

Thus, the title (or, question) of today’s contribution: Why mobile; why now?

Because it’s time. And, because before now, it wasn’t. Seriously.

If you’ve attended LeadsCon, Ad:Tech, Affiliate Summit or any other performance marketing event in the past four years, you’ve surely heard the hype on mobile. For years now, soapboxes at major industry shows have been occupied by folks signaling the ‘year of mobile.’ They blogged. They tweeted. They spammed us all on LinkedIn. Some of these zealots even went so far as to don QR-coded T-Shirts that were color coordinated to match their converse sneakers. Indeed, active were the hypesters.

And yet, despite all the hoopla, they were wrong. That’s right – flat wrong. At least in the context of the Cost-per-Lead media ecosystem. Mobile has been unworkable and unnecessaryuntil fairly recently. It’s taken Publishers, Advertisers, Networks and Consumers time to find the right way to play. We just weren’t ready, yet. Mostly, this was on the consumers and the publishers. It’s taken adoption rates skyrocketing, Apple’s stock booming, the Android market maturing, bandwidth levels rising and a whole host of other factors to get consumers ready for this at scale. For mobile publishers, the question has never been if – it’s been how and when. As in, ‘how and when can I make as much money selling leads as I do selling impressions and clicks.’ These groups needed to converge and align. It took help, muscle and risk. And, again, time. But now, it’s clear to me that it’s happening: mobile lead generation is alive and growing.

Ok. Before we get too far, I’m coming clean: I get the irony. In writing the above, one could argue that I’m now guilty of the same soapboxing I’ve just poked fun at. The argument is pretty linear, actually: I just said the people who announced the era of mobile lead-gen were wrong. And yet this post’s thesis is that the era of mobile lead-gen is, in fact, now here. Thin ice, right? Totally. Except I’ve got the in-house data to support this, and I see the interest on the advertiser side mounting: we introduce a new major advertiser to the mobile web weekly.

Last month, MobilePositive facilitated over 25,000 inbound phone calls to our early advertiser clients. These were direct, net-new customers, each happily dialing in. And, a considerably high number of them bought the services our clients were selling. These advertisers include leading brands in the Education, Mortgage, Insurance, Home Services and Identity Protection vertical markets. So far, the proof is the campaign performance. We see cost-per-sale figures that consistently perform on target and our budgets are growing. The publishers are happy, too. Both sides (buyers and sellers) see long-standing, steady campaign growth and an exciting new mix of partnerships as a big part of the upside to mobile.

So, why mobile? And, why now? Because – like I said, it’s time.

That’s all for today, gang. Thanks for reading. Next week, we’ll get more tactical with a piece on why publishers should love the pay-per-call format.

Hey, everybody – JT Benton here.  I oversee DoublePositive’s new mobile marketing division, which we’re calling MobilePositive.  While it’s true that I’m a rookie at DP, I’m certainly no stranger to the world of performance marketing.

I’ll be blogging here fairly frequently.  I’m excited to share with you a bit about our growing work in mobile, how we plan to add value and show first-hand how easily the mobile web can drive alignment in a performance marketing format.  I’ll also make it a consistent point to emphasize that this growth comes from a very solid foundation of connecting sales teams with live, interested customers on the phone.  Indeed, I think it’s fitting that game-changing mobile marketing developments would come from the industry leader in delivering LIVE Hot Transfers.

I’ll spend most of my ‘air time’ describing our mobile product offerings and musing on the industry on large.  The mobile web is quickly transforming the way advertisers connect with consumers, and MobilePositive is helping to lead the charge.  As such, we’re learning a lot – and I have every intention of sharing these learnings with the reader along the way.  With major Advertisers in the mortgage, EDU and insurance verticals already participating, our platform is driving tens of thousands of inbound calls monthly.  We see lots of data, and we talk about this stuff all day.  Just ask my wife.

So please, dig in.  Follow us, and share with others that there’s a new player in mobile.  And, don’t miss next Tuesday’s followup: Why mobile; why now?