Online Lead Generation

October 7th, 2009 → 12:39 pm @ Richard

Getting Started with Online Lead Generation

Do you want to develop leads online?  The Internet can be a great place to develop and grow your business.  In particular it offers a perfect opportunity to attract customers, build your prospect list and ultimately help you close new business. The good news is that internet lead generation is not all that different from traditional offline lead generation.

Yes, the Internet changes the way that people look for information. Yes, the Internet allows you to automate lead generation.  But, ultimately the steps involved in good lead generation are the same:

1. Attract prospective customers through marketing and advertising
2. Build a list of prospects from this initial interest
3. Develop this list to identify the best prospects
4. Close the sale

Let’s take a look at each step:

1. Online Lead Generation Step One: Attract Prospects Through Advertising and Marketing

Imagine your website as if it were a store. Your first job is to attract people to your store using effective marketing techniques.  You can’t sell anybody anything until they’re in your store.  Some of the marketing techniques to consider include:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – This is about making sure your “shop” (ie website) is easy to find and that all the products and services are displayed and described properly.  Do this well online and you will perform better with the search engines.  SEO is very complex, however, so I recommend you check out my FREE ebook for more detailed information.
• Advertising – Advertising online can take many forms. You can use contextual advertising to get your business found next to relevant content. You can try PPC (pay per click) advertising through the search engines to have your ads displayed in search results.  You can even use simple display advertising as offered through a variety of advertising networks.
• Content – Lead generation content is content that is designed to attract online searchers looking for solutions to their problems.  If you create great content on your website – or even outside of your website through lead generation articles – this will help you attract new, interested visitors to your website.
• Social Media – Build a relationship with your target market through Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, etc.  Be polite and offer helpful information so they know, like and trust you.  Every once in a while, give them an incentive to go to your website, such as offering a discount.  Don’t do this too much, or they’ll think you’re only interested in self-promotion.  But doing this sparingly, along with providing useful information for your target market, can go a long way.

It’s also worth remembering that you can still use effective offline strategies like direct mail to drive traffic to your website as well.

2. Online Lead Generation Step Two: Build Your List

Once you have started to generate traffic to your website then the next step is to turn some of that traffic into a list of prospective new customers to follow up with.  Usually this will involve you creating an incentive for them to provide their contact details, the first part of any good permission based marketing campaign.  That incentive could be a special offer, or, more likely, further useful information.

What form this information takes is up to you.  You could consider a blog that people can subscribe to, a free newsletter, or a webinar that people can take part in, for example.

3. Online Lead Generation Step Three: Develop Your List

Once you start building a list the next question becomes, ‘what do I do with this list?’.  The goal has to be to move people from being interested to being willing to buy your product or service. Of course not every prospective customer on your list will end up becoming a customer.

That’s fine.

However, it is important for you to find ways of separating those with a genuine interest from the ‘tire kickers’.  Tools like newsletters and autoresponders can help you automate much of this process.

4. Online Lead Generation Step Four: Close the Sale

Of course the final step is to close the sale.  You can create online marketing tools that will encourage customers to buy from you.  But unless you are actually selling a product via your website, you will almost always have to close the sale through direct contact with your prospective customer or client.

However, if you set your lead generation program up effectively; the advertising you use, how you build your list and what you do with that list can all help ensure that the people you actually spend time selling to are the most qualified prospects you could hope for.

What Next?

Do It Yourself: For more lead generation ideas, Download My FREE eBook