With over 10-years touch marketing on the internet, I am often asked about lead generation. Like email, lead generation can be really tricky. When I acquired the moniker “The Email Expert” about five years ago, I realized that focusing and becoming very good at an Internet marketing theory required heavy responsibility. When I wrote what has now come to be the email bible called “Effective Email Advertising” (for a free copy go to [http://www.global-reachltd.com/FreeDownloads.asp]),I was true to demonstrate what makes email advertising thriving and what pitfalls to avoid. Now it is my desire to teach you how to create your own leads and this requires just as much skill as email marketing.
Lead generation is very prominent in email marketing. Actually, many of you have heard from the other Internet gurus that your success is in your list. This is quite true but with an provocative caveat. You really have two types of lists. First you have your hope list(s) and then you have your customer list(s) from those prospects that have purchased from you. In order to garner a fresh supply of hope leads, I achieve lead generation in two ways:
1. I buy optin permission-based leads: If you buy optin leads be sure that they come with a date stamp and Ip address to prove they are optin and always ask for the Url of the lead generation site that garnered the lead. If the list broker refuses to give you the Url then walk away. There is a very good occasion that he is buying his leads from other broker or something is questionable about the lead source. I like seeing at how the lead was generated. Many lead generation sites promise things that cannot be delivered and this produces a very poor lead. For example, mortgage lead generation sites claiming to have loans at a 2% fixed rate is ridiculous. Yes, they may garner a ton of leads but no one is writing 2% fixed loans so what good are they?
Another thing to consider if you buy leads is exclusivity of the list. If the lead broker is selling the same list to dozens of people, what is up with that? Most brokers break their lists down to exclusive, semi-exclusive and bulk leads, which basically means it goes out to as many population that will order it. Don’t let the cheap price fool you. Bulk lists are not worth it! If you need some good lead brokers, please send me an email at drjay@global-reachltd.com and I will supply you with the list of lead brokers that I use.
Once you get fresh optin leads you need a responder or an email blasting platform to send them out. This is without a doubt the most difficult thing to find since not only is it imperative you stay Spam Act compliant, but you must find an email platform that will supply sufficient bandwidth to make it cost productive to use. I use BlastPak ([http://www.blastpak.com]) because they do not have any limitations as to the size of the list(s) you can upload daily (it’s unlimited) nor do they have any limitations as to the maximum estimate you can email out daily. And also they do not want that you buy your leads from them. This is very important!! The new trend in email responders is the requirement that you buy all of your lists from the responder enterprise and at rates that will cause apoplexy.
BlastPak is naturally an email blasting platform that allows you to shop your hope list(s) effectively and at a very cheap cost. I also use BlastPak to send out my weekly GlobalMarketPlace ezine and weekly Ready-Set-Grow newsletter. I personally use the “up to 130 million emails per month” plan and it costs me just 00. The rates are on a sliding scale and begin as low as 1,000 emails per month for just .99. BlastPak also comes with a verification and tracking link that provides some very prominent real-time marketing and sales information, which is surely “to die for” when it comes to testing. I test everything! I test my branch line, my main body offer, my graphics, the click straight through to my sales page, etc. I even test my text message. I achieve my tests by sending out emails in blocks of 1-million with various ad messages and branch lines. The ones that “pull” the best are the ones I then “blast” out to the huge lists I have acquired over the past ten years. Honestly, I have not found any responder that is as good as BlastPak and I should know, my enterprise sends out over a billion emails per day for our products as well as for other companies. BlastPak does not come with any of the limiting factors the other responders come with and it is very productive and easy to use. I could not achieve the sales that I achieve without an email blasting platform. Email is my best ad medium and I rely on it thoroughly since it performs very well for my stock base. And please don’t forget that BlastPak can also be used to drive customers to your own lead generation site.
2. I also set up lead generation websites to garner the leads myself: I need you to pay very close concentration to what I am about to teach. In Internet sales it is prominent to set up One website for One stock and this is very true in setting up a lead generation website. The following are some examples of lead generation websites that garner auto leads for car dealers.
[http://www.auto-credit.com]
The leads cost a dealership .00 each and come in the form of stylish loans applications as well as bank turndowns. So, rule estimate one: set up one website for one product.
With the above examples of auto lead generation sites, there are no incentives offered. The site only requires the customer to apply for a loan. whether your lead generation site requires some activity that the customer is willing to undertake such as applying for a mortgage (http://www.glenwoodfinancial.com), applying for a free printer (http://www.freecolorprinter.com), or you must use an incentive. On my enterprise website [http://www.global-reachltd.com] in order to capture leads for my ezine and newsletter, I offer a free vacation. You can also offer free eBooks, software, free phone cards, coupons, discounts, etc but be sure they apply to anything industry you are attempting to garner leads for prospecting purposes. Please do not offer a free eBook on search engine optimization when you are attempting to garner leads for a new health drink. They have nothing in common. I also have a free download page with a touch information capture page in front of it. In order to get to the free downloads you must first give me your touch information and the capture page states that I am going to send you information.
Keep your lead generation website easy and easy to navigate. Take a look at the above given site Auto-Credit.com. observation the provocative orange color and the simplicity of the site? Color is prominent but flash and all the bells and whistles are unnecessary. Now click on the menu “Partners” and see that they also have developed this site for dealerships seeing to derive the leads the site garners. Last, they use a very kind affiliate agenda to drive buyers to the site. Remember the rule: One stock and One website. Please do not mix lead generation products. Offer the hope a viable incentive as a recompense for giving you their touch information.
Next, you need to optimize your site with the search engines using allowable Seo techniques. I use one of our in-house divisions called GlobalSeo because they are exquisite and charge only 0/year for one Url (page) and 0/year for each additional Url or page. If you are interested in using GlobalSeo please send them an email with your needs at GlobalSeo@global-reachltd.com. One of the Team Leaders will call you to discuss your site.
Seo is only one of the techniques needed to drive customers to your lead generation site. observation the domain names to the auto lead generation sites are basically describing what the site does. When choosing a domain name, pick one that is as close to the keyword(s) or keyword phrase or the type of lead you wish to garner. This really assists you when it comes to Seo.
Cross linking is extremely prominent in optimizing lead generation sites. GlobalSeo builds web communities and then links these communities together using cross links. For example, a mortgage lead generation site would be associated to real estate agents, brokers, realtors, home correction sites, etc. As long as the links are compatible and/or within the “community” they will increase the lead generation site’s visibility with the search engines.
That’s about it for now. Lead generation requires consistent and huge advertising but it is quite profitable if done correctly. As always, I remain ready to retort any questions.
Lead Generation Sites