No business can survive without a steady flow of customers coming through its doors. Before the Internet, businesses could only turn to primarily newspaper, radio and television advertising to get customers to come to their business and through their front door.
In the last several years, lead generation has become much more effective and inexpensive, as lead generation companies have tapped into the power of the Internet to better target prospects and reduce their lead acquisition costs.
By incorporating Internet technology into leads acquisition processes, marketers have been able to use the Internet’s inherent ability to distribute and collect information, to improve their market position.
Who Benefits From Sales Lead Generation?
Sales lead generation has been utilized for many years in the insurance and finance industries. It is also important to the real estate and mortgage industries, as each sale earned could generate thousands of dollars in sales commissions.
In recent years, sales lead generation has been successfully incorporated into the new car, contract hire, and car leasing markets. Lead generation is also used extensively in the medical and information technology industries.
“Business opportunity” leads have become the lifeblood of multi-level marketing (MLM) companies that proliferate the Internet.
How To Use The Internet To Generate Your Own Leads
Sure, it is much easier to buy sales leads from third-party providers. It is easier, because you don’t have to figure out the processes for developing those leads for yourself. But, if you can figure out how to generate those leads on your own, your lead generation costs can be cut by as much as 50-90%. This would enable you to generate anywhere from two to ten times the new business for the exact same amount of money.
I would like to let you in on a little secret. Most companies that generate leads for the sales industry online do so in one very specific way. Those companies create websites loaded with very targeted content, and then they ask for personal contact information from their visitors with the promise of delivering more specific and targeted content.
Some websites will offer two to three pages of content with a free report on the backside in exchange for some personal contact information. Others will offer a one-page website that is referred to as a “squeeze page.” A squeeze page is often called a “lead generation page”, and is comprised of a single sales page that promises the visitor access to a special report, an e-book, or a special tool, but in order to qualify for the special offer, the reader must be willing to register their name and email address, and occasionally more specific information.
Consider Wisely Your Approach To Information Gathering
I would like to pass a word of caution to those who decide to pursue this avenue of lead generation. For every additional piece of information you request from your visitors, you will reduce your overall response rates accordingly. If you are only asking for a first name and email address, squeeze pages work extraordinarily well. As you become greedier, your visitors will become less generous with their private information.
In order to increase the amount of information you can successfully gather from a prospect, you must do more than just promise… You must also deliver.
The Paypal Model Of Gathering Information
Think about Paypal’s approach to gathering information from their customer base. With Paypal, the only information you are required to give to them in order to open an account is your name, address, phone number and email address. Consumers generally find this level of information easy to share with commercial websites.
If a Paypal user wants to directly deposit money from their Paypal account to their bank account, the user must register and validate that bank account. In order for a Paypal user to get a Paypal debit card, the user must register and validate a credit card through Paypal.
At every level of the Paypal system, you are offered new features and benefits. But, in order to qualify for each of the additional benefits, you must be willing to give up one more piece of verifiable personal information.
In Conclusion
Self-directed lead generation is a process of give and take. You must give something in order to receive something. The Internet has always been and will always be starving for content. If you become a provider of quality, targeted content, prospects will gladly give some basic information in order to receive the Information that they desire.
The best thing about having your own lead generation system is that you will always have access to all of your own leads at no additional cost. Creating your own lead generation system is a win-win situation. You get to increase your own business and prospects get the quality information that they are seeking.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steve Crawford believes in finding a way to get what you want in life. To get a massive library full of professional content that you can use to generate leads and sales, visit the site:http://my-secret-articles.com Send email to: admin@thenakedmarketer.com
