Without a powerful lead strategy, your networking marketing endeavors will be stifled. Although warm contacts are usually the best way to start, the number of leads generated through online marketing far surpasses personal contacts exponentially.
Advantages of Marketing Your Product on the Internet
The internet has created the most effective commerce model in history. With the knowledge of how to get traffic to a website and market effectively online, you can be within reach of people who are actually searching for your products or business model.
You can reach millions of people online – far surpassing any traditional marketing model. Without the internet, unless you are a celebrity or famous politician, you have a comparatively limited span of influence. Using the Internet effectively, however, gives you unlimited possibilities for success. As long as you know how to harness the power of the internet, you can leverage it as a powerful business tool.
Here’re some tips to help you get the more leads you need to succeed with your Network Marketing business.
Lead Capture Pages
According to this source, a lead capture page is basically a dedicated page which advertises for your products, training or services. You will need to offer your visitors something of value in exchange for their contact information. Building a list of targeted leads is the most important element in building your business online.
Start a Blog
A blog will help brand you as a leader in your company and is great for building trust and prospects for your business. You can leverage the advantage of search engines such as Google since they offer you organic traffic and leads. Wordpress is one of the best platforms for starting your business blog. Your blog postings should be informative and educational providing content that your readers can relate with.
Check out: Benefits of Blogging: 5 Reasons You Must Start a Blog Now
Social Networking
Conventions, conferences, and meetups have been virtually replaced by social networking. This fast, free, and effective form of marketing gives you a broad range of contacts. List building and networking have never been so easy. Social networking on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo and ZoomInfo is a great way to build your exposure and your leads.
Post Ads
Although it’s sometimes expensive, purchasing banner ads, Pay Per Click ads, or text link ads is a great way to get exposure if you are working on a budget. It is important to choose the right keywords to target, along with the placement of these ads where potential customers will be visiting. You will want to direct the visitors you get from your ads to your lead capture page to get them on your list so you can keep in contact with them.
However, it is advisable to avoid trying to sell to them right away. Instead, give them something of value and build a relationship with them first, then you can show them what you have to offer.
People join opportunities and buy things from people they know, like and trust. This is why you must build a list of leads and provide them with something valuable before ever trying to sell them your products or services.
This “something” is referred to as a lead magnet. With a valuable lead magnet, you can use lead generation tools, take advantage of their full capabilities and convert your visitors into leads.
Confirmed Qualified Prospects to Build Your Customer Base
The advertising strategies will get you some random customers, but the ones that will really be buying your products are the small business owners and their employees because they will already be familiar with you. You will have already overcome the huge barrier to making sales in the process. You will have earned their trust.
I know that this may be disappointing to those looking for the magic bullet to have a “set-it and forget- it” sales system that produces home runs at will, but anything good takes some effort and work. I just don’t like to see someone’s effort and time wasted and this method has produced the best results.
Check out: How to Choose the Right Marketing Strategies for Your Business
If you are looking for a passive way of generating leads, a good way to do this is through internet advertising. This is another place I have done well, but you have to be ready to invest much of your time and resources in the initial stage. You also need to be enlightened and have knowledge on the same. In my opinion, if you do not know a lot about building websites, search engine optimization, pay per click, geo-targeting and such, you would be much better served getting an expert to do that for you. If you want to pursue this, there are some factors that you can control even if you have someone else doing it for you.
Advertising Network – Spend Less Time Calling and More Time Selling
The biggest mistake that I see with websites is that they tend to be to “flashy” and complicated. However, those that have simple interface end up winning all the time. Have a good headline, the questions, how you can help get the answers and a call to action. I have seen a lot of sites with quote engines on them and what I have experienced using these quote engines is that a visitor will end up getting a quote but never take any further action.
Having prospects taking action should be your primary focus when advertising online. Anything else is unnecessary and is a distraction. I just see all too often that managers try to set up a self-service web page that ends up being totally useless, and way too expensive.
The other type of prospecting that I have found to be passive but effective is the old tried and true direct mailing. Although not as effective as the first method of lead generation that I outlined, it has the advantage of being passive and not time-consuming. There are a few twists you can put on direct mailing advertising campaigns to make them more effective. I have found that using the services that hand write the addresses and put real stamps on the envelopes get much better returns. They cost a little more but are worth it.
Anyway, I hope I have given you something to chew on and mull over. These are strategies that have worked well for me over the last few years and have proven to be the most effective way of generating leads in the long haul.
Roy Emerson
Technology Enthusiast
Roy Emerson is a technology enthusiast, a loving father of twins, a programmer in a custom software company. Greedy reader and gardener.