How do you generate leads?

Yes my techniques are very similar - mainly through Social Media and Web 2.0.
Different business niche's, products and offerings require a different degree in which to generate leads - however when the right techniques are figured out then it's like a gold mine

I noticed that you didn't mention forum marketing this can be a very good way of generating leads if you regularly contribute on a forum in your niche as people get to know you and trust you.

How do I generate leads?

By finding targeted traffic. Forums, lists, swaps, buys, etc.

There are various ways to generate leads and what works really depends on the industry that you're in. Lead generation is always tough, but it's an absolutely necessity. Always continue to tweak your processes.

As for our company, well, we generate leads using our own software, Answer Swipe We're bias but seriously..it works haha.

Best of luck!

I use alot of free marketing, and a little bit of paid advertising right now. With virtually no social media marketing.

1) Article Marketing

2) Blogging

3) Forums

4) Youtube

5) SEO

Hi everyone,

how to generate leads fast?
There is only one way paid "solo ads" but this is the minus it is paid one but it can be very profitable if you are doing it right.

All the best and see you on top. Erwin.

Hi, Litherland,

OK, for your marketplace (will writing), I suspect I have a few ideas that might work. But I have a couple of questions first:

1) You're based in the North West but you are offering a UK wide service. How do you help people in, for example, Norfolk or Cornwall. Do you go and visit them?

2) Why should people use you over someone who is based just around the corner?

I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm in the UK B2B lead generation field (clients include Haines Watts, Price Bailey, Northgate Arinso plc. and a bunch of other big names) so I feel I might be qualified to at least point you in the right direction with more concrete advice than 'finding targeted traffic' and, er, doing some SEO.

CPA offers I would aim for paid traffic as in the past ive had experience where you spent weeks or even months driving traffic to find out the offer has expired or they are no longer paying

Personally, for this kind of business, I think its best first just to do search engine optimization until there's almost no room for improvement. Lead generation and SEO are partners in gathering leads.

Internet is just like human minds, people go for the things that they think of first or find first in search engines.

After all that is done (or even while doing so), you go advertise on sites like those companies who provide life insurance. Or, you can even tweak or rewrite your website in such a way that it can also be found when searching for life insurance companies.

Another good way is to have an employee to browse through the internet and find forums or questions posted in the internet about Wills (etc.) and provide assistance (even for free) while gradually providing information about your company.

There are actually a lot of techniques on how to generate leads for your business. Just be creative or innovative at times because your type of business is a bit tricky to advertise.

ive been using solo ads over the last 8 months to build my list and they work like gangbusters

you do need a few things set up first but once the basics are in place and you have a good quality list of solo ads then you just send all the traffic to your squeeze page and watch conversions

solo ads are very hard to beat in terms of fast traffic methods to build your list (and buyers too)

paul

SEO plays a ,major part in generating leads, including social bookmarks, linkwheels, as well as quality backlinks. Articles are effective but they tend to take a decent amount of time to produce.

Here's a few ideas for you to think on.

Be creative
Buy solo ads
Submit your website to related niche directories on the net.
Create a software program and offer it to visitors for free.
Purchase different variations of your domain name, and your competitors.
Purchase an active domain that already gets traffic in your niche, forward it to your landing page or site.
Pass out business cards with a enticing proposition on them.
Marketing using friends n' fam
Run a powerful website
Use your auto responder for ezine blasts to create trust
Back End offers
Write and syndicate articles
Leave comments on other people’s blogs with a backlink to your site.
Answer people’s questions on Yahoo! Answers - Home.
Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.
Write a press release and use Press Release Distribution - Submit Press Releases Online - PRWeb for distribution
Advertise your website on classifieds
Start a blog and submit it to the 100’s of free blog directories.
Give a testimonial on a product/service for an exchange for a backlink to your site.
Submit your website to the major search engines manually.
Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.
Put a tell-a-friend form on your page.
Add a “bookmark this site” link to your webpage.
Add a link in your email signature to your website.
Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.
Hold contests.
Give away a freebie (e-book, report, e-course)
Participate in banner and link exchange programs.
Video
Purchase ads on other sites.
Exchange links with other related websites.
Engage other people at conferences and seminars.
Buy advertising in popular ezines or newsletters.
Advertise on other “thank you” pages.
Write a free e-book and give it away on the “free e-book” sites.
Be a controversial madman
Submit reviews for products

What I do is I offer a free high quality product on a high converting squeeze page. I capture the leads from the squeeze page. I get most of my traffic through solo ads... I think solo ads are one of the most cost effective ways for generating quality traffic...

Some ideas. Many people don't think about writing wills or they put it off because there is plenty of time or they don't want to face the necessity of it. So you may want to write an article about why people should start thinking about their wills and submit it to either free article directories like Ezine or post them in community Forums or where your target market may be online, e.g. forums for seniors, popular blogs about insurance, retirement, family, legacy planning, legal matters, etc (you'd know better than me what your target market would be like and so where they are likely to hang out online...). Post your articles with links to your site.

Hope that helps.

I usually just buy mine... through either solo ads, hiring out people to mail purchased data (leads) or other means

Luke

Definitely, you can do Social Media and Forum marketing. It isn't needed to market on forums where you're an authority. You can also offer your things on forums where you're a newbie, but you have to know the right way to do it, and you'll succeed.

Affiliate marketing is one of the great way to generate leads to your business. Your affiliates are partners who promote your products and services. They sign up as an affiliate and as they promote you, get rewarded financially with commission basis.

Regards,
Dennis

Some really great suggestions from everyone. Thank you everyone its a great help. Time to grab a coffee and crack on

Youtube is my favorite source of generating leads (usually downloads). Until now, I am making some money from my files that they download, and mostly came from Youtube itself.

Not only that, I also publish press releases as well. Web 2.0's, wiki sites, social media and forum marketing are also to be considered great sources to generate leads (as long you show some quality to your content).

I get my leads via offline promotions like newspaper and message boards, but I also try scraping emails online but the success is low with it.

As long as you've got a good sales funnel behind your squeeze page then I'd say that solo ads have got to the fastest way to build your list if you've got a bit of money to spend on them. A lot of the free traffic methods are just too time consuming and will often get a very poor response. Good luck !!

1. For me I ask myself where would my target audience hang out online for what ever niche it is I'm trying to build a list for...

2. I find out how to get my message in front of them in a way that is ethical and not spam...

For example just because your selling a "stop your dog from Barking" e-book does not mean go and search all Facebook Groups and spam everyone with your link...

Tip for today: Spam gets you banned

Only way to build long term business online is just follow the rules and do it the right way...

I use forums, paid solo ads, safelist, twitter, facebook, youtube, craigslist ect.... There is so many places to get leads online it's crazy... Go out and try some places build on the ones that produce toss out that ones that don't and try something else...

Hi,

You can generate leads by a lot of means.
The best way to me is to create a landing page and drive traffic to it.
You will soon build your little empire.
Trust me.

Very similar, it depends on who you are trying to target. As well as my online business I have an offline management consultancy and the results I have received from Linked In have been remarkable. All I did was
1. Join a few groups interested in my area of expertise
2. Post a couple of blogs around challenging topics in that niche
3. Offer a free 1-2 page report answering the question I had posed.
All of a sudden I have a self generating list with people joining every day and I have people contacting me to offer me work. If I hadn't done it myself I wouldn't believe it.

Social Media has been fantastic for us

Mainly through PPC (paid search) traffic. Targeted, relevant, high quality traffic.