We recently interviewed Jamal English, the CEO and Founder of EDM Lead Network, to discuss his motivation to launch EDM Network, how effective EDM Network is at helping clients find suitable marketing partners and maximize profits over the long term, the ways through which his company’s Pay Per Call and CPL campaigns assist marketers who wish to engage prospects across multiple touchpoints, the proprietary technological network of EDM Network at tracking and reporting the performance of the campaign and delivering real-time leads, followed by the top five strategies for generating more leads for small businesses with limited funds.
Jamal English is the CEO and Founder of EDM Network, a dominant lead generation and marketing company revolutionizing strategic marketing, technology, and distribution innovation. English is an entrepreneur and investor with deep expertise in the needs of the insurance, financial services, and home services industries for large distribution partners.
As Executive Chairman for EA International Holdings, he specializes in customer acquisition brands, fixed-income senior insurance distribution, and long-term collateralized asset management. English helps companies scale by aligning synergies, and he is certified by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
What motivated you to launch EDM Network, a leading lead generation and marketing firm that revolutionizes strategic marketing, technology, and distribution? What do you hope to accomplish with your efforts?
We launched EDM initially to solve our own problems, which was acquiring customers at a reasonable cost per acquisition in order to grow our insurance call center. Eventually from our own success, we reached out to friends in the business and large enterprise companies to take our overflow; and because we closed the business ourselves, we knew what mattered to them and how profitable they would be.
Our mission is to consistently generate and source compliant traffic that converts. We have very aggressive goals for growth and plan to help our clients as partners in scaling their businesses.
How does EDM Network help clients find suitable marketing partners and maximize profits over the long term?
If a business comes to us in need of customers for a product or service that fits our demo target, which is 90% of the country, we strategize to find the best media outlet to acquire and deliver customers.
As lead generation is EDM Network’s primary focus, how does it ensure that the companies receive quality leads?
We use a series of complicated technologies to help us score and validate the data we acquire. We also use old methods to ensure quality through a rigorous quality assurance and auditing department that ensures not only we are protecting ourselves, but also that call handling is done properly for our clients with the agents that receive calls.
What are the ways through which your company’s Pay Per Call and CPL campaigns assist marketers who wish to engage prospects across multiple touchpoints?
Usually, for our clients, the leads received by a phone calls are the starting point at which the funnel is started. From there, our best clients have a thorough process to ensure that diligent follow-up is done on the backend after the initial call to reduce the CPA over time. Usually, it is with a 3-2-1 method. Three different touchpoints to start (phone call, text, email ex.), two touch points in secondary follow-up (phone call, text ex.), and all additional follow-up is done with one method (phone call ex.)
How effective is your proprietary technological network at tracking and reporting the performance of the campaign and delivering real-time leads?
This is a reciprocal relationship, the legacy clients that are growing or have stabilized spending with us on a monthly basis all share this common trend. They want us to know more about how we are doing so we can make the performance better. If you are transparent with a real marketing partner about the performance and it stays the same in a negative way, they aren’t analyzing the report. We have a comprehensive integrated system that tracks QC feedback, Operation feedback, Client performance feedback, and Business Intelligence Feedback to give us comprehensive reporting to show. The overall cost per acquisition reporting, Talk time/sale metrics, CPA per agent reporting, CPA per state, Conversion rate, Conversion Ratio, and overall billing rates just to name a few.
Since small businesses have limited financial resources, what do you believe are the top five strategies for generating more leads for small businesses with limited funds?
- Cold Call/Door Knocking. When you’re limited financially, you have to understand that the only resource you can offer is time, and that time must be put in to have high leverage. Once you execute the hard things and get better then you spend money.
- Work on a performance model
- Understand your cost to acquire a customer. Cost per lead x conversion ratio (if you spend $10 on a lead and you are converting at 20% or 1 in 5 you simply multiply 10 * 5 = $50 and that is your cost per acquisition)
- Allocate a marketing budget based on your monthly revenue goal and your cost per acquisition
- Find organic referral partners to drive you, customers, if you have value to offer them make it a win–win for both parties.
