With the explosion of the internet over the past decade, lead generation has taken on a new life of its own. Twenty years ago, there were only four major sources none of which are cheap (T.V., newspaper, radio, Billboards).

While these sources still work today a major paradigm shift has taken place online. You see people rarely go to these sources to get their information or business leads. Why? Well two reasons, first is the continual rising cost of these listed sources. For a new business owner with a small budget this primary source of advertising is not cost effective.

Next is the feedback listed online from prior customers who have used the services you need with their experience. This truly allows you to make the best educated guess and how to wisely spend your dollars.

The following are my Top 10 favorite ways to generate HOT LEADS for your online or offline business:

7. Ad Sharing- In this method people swap email campaigns (advertisements) and send them to each other’s list. Example: If I have an email list of 1,000 people and you have an email list of 1,000 people, we swap ads and hope to gain new customers from each other.

Advantage: Free to both parties, great way to build your list.
Disadvantage: Make sure that when you swap, the other person does not compete with you in the same type of business. If I am in Amway and he is in Mannatech both network marketing companies don’t do the swap. They may jump from your company to theirs.

6. Phone Broadcasting- This is a way to get immediate response and is very effective. In phone broadcasting people will harvest a list of phone numbers or purchase them from lead companies, upload them in some type of broadcast software, record a sizzle message and blast it out to hundreds of people at a time.

Note: I recommend if you choose this method then always leave the message on their voice mail. Better response, less response from A-holes (THIS METHOD IS NOT FOR THE FAINT AT HEART)!

Advantage: Immediate response from people, curious about your program. Usually low in cost to do.
Disadvantage: If you leave live messages, it tends to upset some people and they may leave you a nasty message on your voicemail.

5. Email Broadcasting- This method was very popular up until a year ago when Google, Hotmail, the FTC started cracking down on legitimate companies sending emails because of all the spammers who were ruining it for everyone. However, if done properly can still be a great source of creating leads and sending messages.

The two ways I recommend doing it is either buying double opt-in leads where you have the IP address. This helps to eliminate spam complaints, next is doing the above mentioned Ad Swap.

Advantages: Great way to build long term relationship creating the know, like, trust equation.
Disadvantage: Spam complaints which can shut down your email or web hosting if to many are received.

4. Post Cards- If the internet went belly up tomorrow, this method will still product like crazy. Yes I know you might be thinking this is so old school and I would say you are right. However, still one of the best forms used today.

Advantages: Creates lots of curiosity, proven to be effective for over 30 years, works well for the baby boom generation who still don’t use computers.
Disadvantage: Can be expensive if you don’t compare list brokers.

3. Banner Advertisements- Banner ads are growing more in popularity. If you are not familiar with this method banner ads are where you may be on a website and there are clickable pictures on the top, middle or sides of the site. Once clicked on, you will be taken to another site with some form of advertisement.

The only way I recommend utilizing this method is paying a flat rate to the host no matter how many times someone clicks on your banner and not a cost per click (CPC).

Advantages: Creates quick traffic generation from people curious about your ad.
Disadvantages: Knowing where to advertise, cost of banner and advertising.

2. USA TODAY- Ok this might sound controversial since I previously stated that newspaper advertising was expensive. However if you are like me and know who to advertise with in the USA TODAY then for as little as $300 your ad can be seen by 2 million people.
Folks this is a good deal, most advertising in this paper will start around $450.00 and up.

Advantage: On a good classified ad, immediate and great response.
Disadvantage: Cost, ability to respond to the leads fast enough.

1. Article Marketing- This by far is my favorite method. Each time you write an article it is like buying a piece of real estate. What do I mean by this? Well each article that is properly placed with Article Directories never goes away. That’s right it stay on the internet forever so you can write an article today and it will continue to pull in leads one year from now. I do recommend that if you are going to start this method you should also purchase an article submission software program. This will submit to hundreds of directories and put your article on STEROIDS allowing you to rank much higher in the search engine and even the first page of Google.

Advantage: Stays on the internet permanently, brings in high quality prospects for FREE.
Disadvantage: May take several weeks to get high ranking in the search engines and on first page of Google.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

To Your Success!

Robert
314-222-2354

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