10 Effective Internet Lead Generation Methods

By Greg Spence

In this article I describe 10 internet lead generation methods that are very effective and are used by the majority of successful businesses that use the internet as their marketing tool. These methods are being used to create high quality leads for their products and services, and the best part is that these leads can be generated for very little cost. By using some or all of the methods I describe, you too will be able to generate a regular supply of high quality, pre-sold leads that are already looking for the product or service you supply.

Your current offline marketing methods are probably costing you a lot of money, and not working as effectively as they used to. You will be able to reduce your costs and get better control of your spend by mastering these methods. These lead generation methods are proven to work and other businesses have seen the benefits of implementing them. Over time people will approach you for your products and services as a direct result of your lead generation efforts.

An Explanation of the 10 Lead Generation Methods

I define an internet lead generation method as a proven method that works online to generate qualified leads. These methods have been used by many businesses and a lot is known about the results that can be obtained and how to get them. What’s more, other people have made mistakes which you can learn and profit from much faster without having to go through the same learning curve yourself.

The best way of working with these methods is to

*choose one you may already be using but only had a moderate or poor level of success with, or one that takes your fancy

*learn more about how it works for others and why

*copy the implementation of the method from someone who is using it successfully and apply it to your business

*make changes to the method by tracking the results

*only move onto the next method once you are achieving the results you expect

Let’s now look at the 10 internet lead generation methods:

1. Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay per click advertising can be expensive. You need to be able to manage it properly to keep the costs to an acceptable level. If PPC is new to you I suggest you don’t implement this method until your revenue has increased to a level where you can give it a try.

PPC marketing is a method where your ads appear on search engine results pages and also other websites. You pay when someone clicks on your ad and visits your website, whether you sell them anything or not. Google Adwords is the most popular pay per click advertising service, Microsoft also have a similar service.

The disadvantage to pay per click advertising is it requires careful management and you have to be good at converting the leads into sales to make it pay. The advantage is you can drive traffic to a brand new website and be making sales within a matter of hours, so it is worth learning how to manage a PPC campaign.

2. Lead Capture Page

Collecting names and email addresses is the sole purpose of a landing page. People give you their details in return for a free offer or gift. You may have visited such pages to take advantage of an offer or free eBook.

To make these pages work you have to offer a high quality and relevant free gift otherwise people will not be tempted to leave you their details. It is also important to drive visitors to the page.

3. Website

On your website offer something of real value for free and in return ask your website visitors to leave their email address and name so you can follow up with them. This will turn your website into a lead generator.

4. Articles

Writing articles can be a good lead generator. Make them around 300 – 500 words in length, don’t try and sell anything, instead make them informative and helpful. Upload your articles to article directories and make sure you include an author bio box at the end of your article with a link to the product or service you are promoting.

Very often you will find that a good article will be picked up by other website owners and re-published on their sites. A condition of them doing this is they have to keep your author bio box intact so the number of links to your website grows and, in turn, this can generate more leads for your product or service.

5. Blogs

A blog is a special type of website that allows you to post short or long articles, known as blog posts, to the website without you having to have any technical knowledge. The major search engines, especially Google, love blogs because typically they have content regularly posted to them. Search engines love fresh and relevant content.

Putting a blog on your website, or even creating your website entirely as a blog, can get your site indexed faster and attracting visitors that much sooner. Attracting visitors to your website can be made easier with a blog.

6. Podcasts

An audio recording can be made using software that may already exist on your computer, this is called a podcast. Podcasts contain informative content and may be published regularly like a radio show or magazine. If you don’t want to produce your own podcast there are companies who can do it for you.

Podcasts can be distributed for free on Apple iTunes, which is now the most popular place for podcast distribution on the internet.

To make them work as a lead generator you should include your website address within the podcast and encourage people to visit. Podcasts can also be hosted on your website and you can offer them as a free gift in exchange for a name and email address. For podcasts to work as a lead generator they need to be informative, useful and interesting to your prospects.

7. Reports/eBooks

Several times I have mentioned giving something away for free in return for getting a lead. Reports and eBooks can be good tools for this. An eBook is simply a book that can be read on a computer or eBook reader. Information delivered in a high quality eBook can raise your perceived status as an expert which in turn can lead to more leads being generated.

When producing your eBooks and reports don’t forget to include a link to the product or service you are promoting but don’t make them simply long sales pages. The content has to be usable and preferably actionable for it to be perceived as valuable. Encourage people to pass it onto their friends and other connections so that it has the potential to spread across the internet virally.

8. Video

Using video as a lead generator can be very powerful thanks to the popularity of Google’s video sharing website YouTube.

If you want to create videos you can do that from your computer using software such as Camtasia Studio. There are also many companies who can create these videos for you if you wish.

I would make your videos informative not a sales pitch. Those videos that work best solve a problem and then lead the viewer to a website or product that can provide further value to them.

After you have created your video get it hosted on YouTube. You can also distribute it to other video sharing sites by using a service such as Tube Mogul, which will distribute to several sites for free.

9. Email Course

An email course is also another good lead generator. This is a series of emails that covers how to achieve something, or how to solve a problem, written as a training course. At the end of each email you give your prospect an exercise to complete before receiving the next email in the series.

Any topic that can be taught step-by-step is great for this type of delivery. You need to make sure the topic is related to your product in some way and at the end of each email provide a link to the product sales web page.

Your prospects need to trust you before they will buy your products and services. An email course can build up an appropriate relationship due to the fact the emails arrive on a regular basis and are filled with really helpful information and advice. It is worth driving traffic to your website to encourage people to sign up for your course.

10. Mobile Devices

Let’s take a look at mobile devices, our last lead generation method.

As smartphones and tablets, such as the Apple iPad, reduce in price, their numbers will increase substantially. Google has aleady stated that more people access the internet from these devices than from desktop or laptop computers. You need to make sure your website can be used from these devices.

This means making sure your business

*has a listing in Google Places (it is free)

*has a version of your website that can be viewed on a mobile device (your standard website may be difficult to navigate from a mobile)

*uses HTML5 to display your video. If you don’t understand what his means ask your website developer about what needs to be done on your website.

More people are accessing their social media communities whilst they are on the move, and this will only increase further as prices drop.

11. Social Media

This is not a lead generation method, as such, but can be instrumental in getting your blog posts, articles, podcasts, videos and other content spread across the internet to help you attract more leads to your business.

Engaging via social media is now a critical part of your marketing mix. Helping prospects to solve problems, keeping them informed about how they can use your products and services to improve their lives, can be a very powerful way of building the necessary relationships required to make a sale down the line.

Focus on One Lead Generation Method

It would be easy to implement all of these internet lead generation methods at once but don’t be tempted.

What I would advise is to focus on one chosen method until you get it working, before moving onto the next one. If that method becomes really successful you may not need to implement any others, although I would advise implementing at least one other in case a method suddenly fails.

The problems that stop most people from following through, and making one method a success, is that they see it is quite simple to set-up each method so fall into the trap of thinking the more methods they implement, the more leads they will generate.

You need persistence to make each method work well. It does not take a lot of effort, you just need to be disciplined.

You should also ensure you are tracking the results of each method, otherwise you could end up losing money. Don’t give up on a method that isn’t working, your tracking will show you what is going wrong so you can fix it. It would be a shame to give up on a lead generation method just because you didn’t track it.

Make sure you track every step of the method from first contact to the sale. Don’t make multiple changes at once as you will not be able to work out which change led to an increase or decrease in performance. You need to approach the fine tuning of each method as a logical process.

Improving your lead to sales conversion ratio is perhaps the biggest impact you can make on your bottom line. By improving this ratio by only a small percentage, you will be able to generate more revenue without having to increase the number of visitors to your website.

If you follow this advice you will generate more leads for your business, higher quality pre-sold leads that will convert more readily to a sale, and you will get leads coming to you once the method starts to work.

One technique you should apply to all of these methods is to make sure the words you use in your sales page, landing pages, emails etc. is relevant to the problem your prospect is trying to solve and is aimed, not at trying to sell them straightaway, but to start building a relationship with them whereby eventually they will trust you enough to buy from you. If you go at your lead generation efforts by always answering the question “How can I help my prospects and give them something of value first?” you will improve the number and quality of leads you generate.

Want to find out more about internet lead generation, then visit Greg Spence’s site on how to use the internet as a powerful internet marketing tool.

Article kindly provided by UberArticles.com

Topics: Marketing | Comments Off

Tags: internet lead generation, Internet Marketing, lead generation, Marketing, online business

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