A good way to improve your lead generation is to target a specific niche rather than the general population so I want to give you 3 killer tips for mortgage lead generation that will help you capture specific leads for people interested in mortgages.

Mortgage Lead Generation-Tip 1

One of the first mortgage lead generation tips I want to give you is all based around targeting. To implement this I want you to do a little bit of research on your competitors. Start by looking at the website of one of them and see what keywords their visitors are typing in to find them. Now there are several different ways to do this but the best by far in my opinion is to use a piece of software called SEO Spyglass, you can find links to this on my site. This software allows you to see everything about your competitors website from the keywords they are targeting to the actual web pages that are linking to them. In fact this one piece of software alone will allow you to jump right over any of your competitors as it has so many powerful features but that’s a conversation for another time.

Now once you have determined which keywords their visitors are typing in then you can start to build up a picture of the exact demographic you want to be targeting. You can then use these exact same keywords yourself to improve your mortgage lead generation online or simply use the profile of your target market to create an offline marketing campaign.

An interesting point you will note is that you’ll find some keywords that are being typed in that you would never have linked to your market but in fact are being used by your prospects and so will give you a marketing angle you may never have thought of.

Mortgage Lead Generation-Tip 2

My second killer tip for mortgage lead generation is to setup correct tracking in your marketing so you can slowly refine your campaigns both online and off. The best way to do this is to simply add a tracking code to your adverts that you can analyse once you start to get your mortgage lead generation analytics back. So what is a tracking code and how do you set one up?

I’m still amazed at how many marketing campaigns still don’t have correct tracking in place and wonder how they determine what works and what doesn’t; but after today you certainly won’t be one of them.

Essentially a tracking code is just a tag you link with each piece of marketing you do. This then enables you to determine which one of your adverts triggered which lead. It sounds so simple and yet so many people fail to do it, even big corporations!

For example, instead of having the call to action on your ad as ‘Go to www.Widget.com for more info’ you would put ‘Go to www.Widget.com/TV’ in this example you would know that any leads coming to you from your TV ad would go to this specific page and you can then distinguish them from the general leads that go to your main page.

The above example was really basic but even just doing this would improve your mortgage lead generation in itself. However a much better way to do it would be to use an autoresponder such as Aweber where you could add tracking codes to all your ads and simply direct them to the same web page and just set it up so that each of them is logged in Aweber accordingly. If you’ve never heard of Aweber or autoresponders then check out my site for a lot more info on the subject.

Mortgage Lead Generation-Tip 3

The final killer tip I want to give you is going to help you take your mortgage lead generation business to the next level and you’re going to do this through the power of cross promotion.

Now we’ve already talked about checking out your competition and figuring out what keywords they are searching for but you should also think outside the box and figure out what related products and services your leads are interested in. For example, people interested in mortgages will most likely also be interested in new furniture or other house hold items that they need when they move into a new house.

So it’s your challenge to figure out what all these related products and services are and approach the various companies and discuss cross promotion. The great thing about this method of mortgage lead generation is that you don’t encounter any resistance from the businesses because it’s a win win scenario. In the most basic sense you just ask them to display your flyer’s in their location and in return you display their ones in yours. Now this can either be offline locations or you could both display each others ad on your website. The more businesses you cross promote in this way the more success you are going to have with your mortgage lead generation; it’s really all about numbers.

If you just implement these 3 killer mortgage lead generation techniques alone then you will increase your business success through the roof.

Out of all the techniques I have learnt over the years Internet lead generation has got to be up there with the best of them.

Why?

Well, because I have found no better way to leverage your time and maximise your lead generation than through the online world. Let me explain the benefits…

Internet Lead Generation: Benefit 1

One of the keys to successful marketing is good use of analytics which in essence means analysing the results you are getting, determine what works and increase it whilst figuring out what doesn’t and ditching it. Now this is just sound marketing but when we look at Internet lead generation what we start to see is that we can get the results a hell of a lot faster than through normal offline means. The pure fact that we can get this information a lot quicker means we can therefore analyse it a lot quicker and refine our marketing methods whilst others are still waiting for their results.

Internet Lead Generation: Benefit 2

The second reason Internet lead generation is so powerful is because it is highly scalable in a very short time frame. What I mean here is when you find something that works in your marketing then you can pour all your focus into it almost straight away. You can also ramp up your online spend to increase your Internet lead generation immediately. Other offline marketing techniques might require days or even weeks to implement. For instance if you found out that adverts on the back of buses were bringing you lots of business then it might take a while to get more out there circulating; with Internet lead generation this is simply not a worry

Internet Lead Generation: Benefit 3

The third reason and possibly most important is because once set up it is almost entirely hands off and allows you to do other things while your Internet lead generation is doing all the hard work for you. You can setup an entire online marketing funnel from the comfort of your own home or in fact any home in the world seeing as you are not tied to any specific location. One of the keys to success in any business is being able to leverage your time and money to produce great results; Internet lead generation is quintessential time leverage.

Enough Theory, Lets Practice!

So now that I’ve given you the benefits and whet your appetite it’s time to give you some real concrete techniques that you can use to improve or even start your Internet lead generation.

Lead Generation Techniques Step 1

Get a free analytics account setup through Google and link all your websites to this. Now if you’re not already using WordPress to build your websites then I strongly recommend you switch immediately, in fact go do it right now, I’ll wait here for you. Sorted? Great then you will now see that there is a special place for you to simply drop your analytics code into to start tracking your site.

On a serious note, if you’re not sure how to setup WordPress or even what it is or where to begin then please checkout the links on my site where I go through everything step by step and hold your hand all the way.

Lead Generation Techniques Step 2

Once you are tracking your site correctly then I want you to figure out what is working and what is not and the simplest way to do this is to check your lead conversion. You should now be able to see how many people are coming to each page on your website and so you can see which pages are converting to leads better than others. You can then put more of your marketing into these pages rather than the other ones.

Once again, if some of the terms I’m using are confusing or you’re not sure how to do any of this then don’t worry, I’m here to help you and can show you very quickly how to get up to speed with everything.

Lead Generation Techniques Step 3

Finally I want you to go through every stage of your marketing funnel and make sure each one is completely hands off. What I mean by this is that say you are using a contact form to get feedback from your visitors. You might have a survey you want them to fill out to get an idea what they are looking for. Now, while this is all very good and I do encourage it as part of your overall business you first want to start with elements that are much more hands off. For instance, in this case I would strongly recommend getting an auto-responder account which basically allows you not only to capture your visitors details while they are on your site but also to set up prewritten emails that are sent out to them at predetermined times based on your business. This means that whenever anyone goes to your site and fills in your auto-responder form then they will instantly receive an automated email from you and subsequently more emails whenever you set it up, perhaps 3-4 days after the first one then another one 4 days after that one etc.

What this allows you to do is send a string of automated emails, all of which are designed to steer your lead in a certain direction based on your business. You can make these emails a soft sell technique or you can go for the total hard sell depending on your plan. Either way you can set up as many as you like so potentially your leads will be receiving ‘selling’ emails from you for the next year or 2 and you won’t ever have to do a thing once you have set it all up initially.

If you can go through and make every element of your marketing funnel operate in this way then you will find you start to run your business with very little time input from you allowing you to focus on other areas to improve it. Once again, I have given you some very basic information here and I encourage you to check out my website where you can get a lot more information on this specific subject along with many others that will allow you to take your business to the next level and explode your leads through Internet lead generation.

There are many different lead generation companies out there but it’s sometimes hard to determine which are the better ones and what are the pros and cons of each. This article will give you a clear overview of the things to look for and how to make the best choices for your business.

Lead Generation Companies-The Bad

A good starting point for lead generation companies is to simply check the actual cost per lead through their model. These costs will vary greatly from as little as 10c / lead all the way up to $20 and above. Now although I cannot speak for all companies out there, in my experiance you will want to be looking at least around the $5 mark / lead; lower than this has never really proved to be a high quality of lead in my opinion. So why does the cost / lead vary so much and what are the main differences between them? Well let’s look at the various lead generation techniques that these companies use to source the leads.

The thing to first understand is that there are many different types of leads that these lead generation companies will sell you. In the case of the cheapest leads these are generally people who have simply signed up to some free newsletter or similar form and are usually not even related to your niche in the slightest. They will usually be very old leads that have been passed around through various different companies and are probably so sick of the same old emails they keep receiving that they will never even look at your business opportunity. For any of you out there that have signed up to one list and then suddenly started receiving emails from someone else then you have experienced the same thing. Most opt in forms say they will not share your details with other companies but always make sure to check out there privacy policy before opting in as there may well be a clause that allows them to do exactly that and then you will yourself become another one of these very cheap leads handed out by one of the bad lead generation companies.

In general these bad lead generation companies will never give you any real value. You will end up with a lot of cheap leads that will never convert and just drain your bank account and time as you try to market to people who are not interested in your business at all.

Lead Generation Companies-The Good

Now there are actually some good lead generation companies out there and as I mentioned before they can usually be spotted simply by the cost of their leads. If they are charging you $5 upwards then in my opinion you are going to be getting a much higher quality of lead. These leads will usually be fresh and current and much more related to your niche; by the way, if one of these lead generation companies doesn’t even ask you what your niche is then you’re already on a downward slope!

There are some lead generation companies out there who specialise in targeting certain niches and just simply mark up their cost of acquisition of each lead onto you so if it might cost them $2 / lead then they may charge you $5 which all in all is a fair deal. The key thing for you to look at in your own business is to make sure you know exactly what your allowable cost / lead is before you even start. What I mean by this is you need to work back from your end product so for instance if your top product sold for $1k and you know from your analytics that on average you have to get 1k leads into your marketing funnel in order to sell 1 unit of your top product then your allowable cost / lead would be $1 ($1k / 1k). This is so key for the success of your business that I cannot stress it enough. It doesn’t matter what industry or niche you are in you simply must know the allowable cost / lead otherwise you cannot really expect any kind of success. Naturally it may take a lot of trial and error to find the average value but you have to go through this process to move forwards. However, once you get it figured out then you can really start to scale things up. You just then need to find one of these lead generation companies that are offering good quality leads for $1 each and then buy as many as your budgets will allow. Allow I mentioned before that $5 / lead would be the minimum I would personally look at it doesn’t mean there aren’t some ‘gems’ out there that you can discover if you look hard enough.

Lead Generation Companies-The Ugly

And now for the ugly lead generation companies out there and one of the best lead generation tips I can give you is avoid them like the plague! Thankfully nowadays these are very few and far between but they do still exist. There lead generation companies will sometimes sell you leads that don’t even below to them or leads that have not given their permission to be passed onto other companies. In these cases you will generally find that as soon as you try to market to these leads that you will get a lot of complaints and spam logs which will ultimately lead to many problems for your marketing. If you use some kind of email autoresponder such as Aweber then you will be contacted by them and they will start to look into your business and find out where you sourced the leads from, how your marketing is structured with the intention that they may close your account down if you continue on the same path. None of this activity is good at all for your business and so you will want to avoid them at all costs.

So how do you spot one of these ugly lead generation companies? Well unfortunately it’s not really that simple but so long as you do your due diligence correctly and read all the small print in their privacy policy then you have a good chance of avoiding them but there are no guarantees. Keep yourself aware and up to date on the various forums and good value websites such as this one and you will have your best chance to dodge the bad eggs out there.

So in overview, you will want to check out these lead generation companies as much as possible and look at the various reviews and get other peoples opinions before you make your own decision to give yourself and your business the best chance of success.

Leverage is the key to success in any area of business so when it comes to lead generation you will want to look towards building or using a lead generation system that will maximise your time to allow you to focus on closing those leads rather than spending all your time trying to find them.
In this article I’m going to go through the basics of a lead generation system and what to look for when building or using one. It’s also important to note that a lead generation system is really just the beginning of a full marketing system which we will talk about in further articles.
So how does a lead generation system work and how do you use it to improve your business?

Lead Generation System Basics

The key to a successful lead generation system is first and foremost to make sure that it is fully automated. If you have to spend even a small amount of time on it then it defeats its main purpose and takes away from your closing time and ultimately your bottom line profit.
Lead generation is simply based around numbers, the more prospects you get at each stage of your system the more leads you will get at the end. So let’s start by running through the different stages of a lead generation system

Stages Of A Lead Generation System

A lead generation system consists mainly of 5 different stages.

Stage 1-Traffic

This stage is not so much part of the actual lead generation system but more is the process of getting visitors to your website so that you can put them into your funnel and start the automated process of converting them into leads.
Now there are many different ways to generate traffic to your website and in fact, generating traffic is a whole business in itself. You essentially have two ways of doing it, either paid or unpaid. Personally I don’t really like this terminology because unpaid takes up your time which in essence means it’s actually paid, if you value your time that is; I prefer to put it in a different way.
X > Y = Your Business Fails
X< Y = Your Business Succeeds
It’s that simple!
In this terminology X = The cost of your marketing per lead, whether that is paid or equivalent cost of your ‘unpaid’ time. Y = The profit you make for each lead that you get.
For example if you spend $100 to drive 100 prospects to your site and say 10% (10) of them convert into leads then your value of X would be $10 ($100 x 10%). Now let’s imagine that you know that each lead you get can potentially make you $15 of profit then your value of Y will be $15. In this case X < Y and therefore your business succeeds.
Now although this model is very simple it really does sum up the whole process and if you get just this simple part right then your business will have a huge chance of success. I’m not going to say it WILL be a success because there are many other factors that contribute to a business’ success other than pure profit but that’s for another story.

Stage 2-Lead Conversion

Once you get traffic to your site you then need a way of converting this traffic or prospects as I prefer to call them, into actual leads. Now this is where your lead generation system comes in and the ‘make or break’ part of your funnel begins. So how do you go about converting prospects into leads?
The key to this stage is to fulfil your prospects expectations that they had when they arrived at your site. The simplest way to do this is to create what is called a landing page or a squeeze page as it’s otherwise known. This is the page where your prospects first land when they get to your website. It’s main purpose is to follow on from the initial premise that took your prospect to the site and give them some more information and content based on this; It’s really all about congruence between your marketing strategy and your landing page.
Landing pages usually consist of a title, subtitle, video and opt in box in their very basic form and although this may feel like an overused concept it just works and so there’s no need to change the format. Again, the idea here is to tailor the whole page to your prospects expectation and then invite them to give you some personal details in exchange for some more information or content on what they are interested in. Once they give you their details then the usual way is to send them to what is generally called a ‘Thank you’ page where you give them the extra information or content that you promised.
Now a lot of lead generation systems would stop at this point and simply try and get that lead to purchase some kind of product or service but personally I feel it’s important to add in an extra step before you start moving into the deeper elements of a full marketing funnel such as sales.

Stage 3-Lead Generation Feedback

I believe it’s important to add in this extra stage before trying to ‘sell’ to your lead because in my opinion you just haven’t built up enough credibility with them to sell yet.
At this stage your lead has moved onto your Thank you page and has received some more content or information and will most likely have some questions before they want to move onto any purchases. Therefore it’s important at this point to get that feedback from them and in fact directly ask for it to prompt them into action.
This actually has dual effect, firstly it gives you the feedback you need to help convert that lead into sales but it also gets them to spend more time on your site and therefore improve your sites credibility with the search engines and related sites.
So what type of feedback should you ask for from your lead?
Ultimately this is up to you and will be based on your specific niche and type of product or service but you should always include an area where they can ask you any specific questions they may have. You’ll also want to prompt them into certain trains of thought by asking them relevant questions that have a predictable and positive outcome. Such a question might be: ‘Do you understand you have to work hard to be successful in any business?’ These type of questions, although having an obvious answer are a very powerful way to lead your lead, if you’ll excuse the pun and hold their hand towards your product or service.
You should also include areas for them to enter additional information if they want to such as their phone number, Skype ID etc. This will both give you a better way than email to contact your lead and also tells you that they are much more highly qualified as they have taken the time to give you more information and ask questions which will ultimately lead to more conversions to sales.
Where you take your leads from this point on is a conversation for another article based more around the sales process rather than just a basic lead generation system but it’s something you should always consider even at this early stage when creating or using a lead generation system.

MLM lead generation should be one of your top priorities if you are trying to run a successful MLM business because acquisition of new customers is the key to a long standing success. Of course it’s important to keep your existing customers but more so than standard offline businesses it’s so important to gain a new influx of customers and leads on a daily basis. This is just as important whether you are running an offline MLM business or one purely based online.

Why Is MLM Lead Generation So Important?

MLM lead generation is so important because generally in MLM there is such a drop off rate as people tend to quit this type of business much faster and much sooner than most others so the need to gain new customers and leads becomes ultra important.
This shouldn’t take away your focus from working with and nurturing your existing customers but I do believe it should take top priority in your schedule.

I therefore want to go through several different MLM lead generation tips and rules that will take your MLM business to the next level.
I am going to assume you already know the basics of online lead generation and have therefore setup a website where you are going to capture your leads. If not then I suggest you go through my other articles and information on this site before continuing on this one.

The First Rule Of MLM Lead Generation Is You Don’t Talk About MLM Lead Generation

In the same essence of the fantastic Film ‘Fight Club’ you need to make sure you don’t really focus on MLM Lead Generation on your site. Now this might sound like a contradiction in terms because that is exactly what you are wanting to achieve but the problem is that the MLM industry has such a stigma behind it that even the mere mention of MLM will send people running a mile and so if you also talk about MLM lead generation then people are instantly going to think you are trying to get them involved in something illegal or similar and that is naturally the last image you want to portray.
The thing most people forget when they think about MLM business is the second word ‘Business’. They seem t o reside in the belief that you don’t have to work hard for some reason to make a success. They think that it’s going to be easy and that anyone can do it. Both of these assumptions are not true and are probably one of the biggest reasons that most people fail in this industry. If more people approached it from a sensible standard business perspective then I’m sure they would have a lot more success.
This is why I would encourage you to avoid talking about MLM lead generation on your site too much, certainly don’t mention it on your first page. You want to focus on promoting your business with the real benefits it has in regards to product and service. At the end of the day your business is simply promoting a product or service like most businesses and that should always be the main focus on your site. In some regards, the MLM structure is just a good way to leverage other peoples time and money but it should be the direct selling portion of the business that you concentrate on. This will ultimately lead to a more successful business in the long run and give you a much higher chance of success.

The Second Rule Of MLM Lead Generation-Be Genuine

One of my main annoyances in MLM lead generation is that so many people out there try and pretend they are something they are not when attracting new prospects. They try and bring new people into their business on the pretence that they are going to easily succeed and lead people in the wrong direction when it comes to mindset.
Therefore the second rule in MLM lead generation is to be genuine. Now this is something that everyone should find very easy because being genuine and being yourself should come naturally. I notice this a lot when I watch videos that other people have recorded, it’s very obvious in many of these videos that people have done lots of takes before they got to the final version which is something I really don’t understand. Naturally if the audio or lighting is off then fair enough but otherwise you should only really need 1 take to record your video. One of the reasons movies take so long to make is because people are pretending to be someone they are not but that’s not the case in this industry. If you are just being genuine then it doesn’t matter if you mess your words or if your cat jumps up on your lap. These are all natural occurrences and it will actually improve your videos rather than detract from them in my opinion. At the end of the day people want to work with people they like and ultimately they will buy things from people that they like so it’s important to be yourself and start to generate some rapport with your prospects long before they meet or talk to you in person.
If you get this one rule correct then you will have a much greater chance of long term success in this industry and start to build up your credibility with everyone you meet.

The Third Rule of MLM Lead Generation-Get Feedback From Your Prospects

The thing to remember in MLM lead generation is that your prospects will probably have some questions and concerns about your business that they need addressed before they will give you their personal details, even things such as emails. So many people just try and get their prospects details without giving them any indication of what their business is about, they try and hold back as much information as possible so there’s more to give them once they go to the next stage but I really don’t understand this logic. People will want to work with you and get involved in your business the more they understand it and the more they see the potential. If you hold back this information then you will have a much lower conversion that you possibly could.
A great way to overcome this big problem in MLM lead generation is to give your prospects a way to feed back to you and ask questions about your business before they give you their personal details. Probably the simplest way to do this is to allow comments on your posts and articles where people can comment and wait for your reply before they commit to anything. Possibly a better way to do this though is to offer a survey or feedback form on your site where prospects can send in questions and give you their opinion. The irony of this is that they will then give you their email address in most cases so you can send them the feedback which is kind of what you were after in the first place but by doing it this way they are happy to give you the information because you are supplying them with an opportunity to ask questions and give their opinion and in return they are more than happy to give you their email.
This is probably one of the best general rules to keep in mind in all areas of your business. If you give your prospects something first then they will give you something back and overall your MLM lead generation will increase dramatically.

If you have ever run any kind of business offline or online then you will understand the importance of lead generation but what is lead generation exactly and why do we need it?

Lead generation is the process of finding and logging people that are interested in your product or service. But there are some other terms that I think important to mention here.

What Is Lead Generation Terminology

Prospects

The thing to understand first before you even think of what is lead generation are the acquisition of prospects.

A prospect is someone who happens to notice your business. Now this can be as random as someone walking past your shop in the street or stumbling across your website. Buy it can also be highly targeted where the people noticing your business already have an interest in your niche.

So how do we make sure these prospects are highly targeted?

Well there are many different techniques but a good example would be to set up say your health food shop directly next to a gym. In this case a good deal of your prospects will already be interested in your niche.

What Is Lead Generation Online

This process works exactly the same online but in this case you would engineer it so that your health food shop has lots of links from related sites so people that click through are already pre-sold on your products.

One of the main differences with online leads as opposed to offline leads are that online leads can come from anywhere in the world, that’s the power of the online model. Now this can either be hugely beneficial to you or highly detrimental and here’s why. If your business is local either as an offline store or something similar then attracting prospects and leads from all over the world is not really going to be much use to you. In fact it is going to eat up valuable marketing money that you could be using to promote your business locally. On the other hand, if you have a global business or even a local offline business with an online store then suddenly getting leads from all over the world is actually a really good thing. It’s certainly a nice feeling when you wake up one morning to find someone has bought something from your online store without you even knowing. It’s at this point that you really start to understand the true power of the online model. So before you spend too much money on marketing, first of all try and determine if your market is going to be local or global and adjust your campaigns accordingly.

What Is Lead Generation – Next Steps

Once you have acquired prospects it is now time to convert them into leads. Now a lead is effectively a prospect that has showed an interest in your business and also crucially, left you some way of contacting them back.

In fact it is the amount of contact information you receive here that will dramatically affect your conversion figures. For instance, if you just get their email then your chances of conversion are low but if you also get their name, phone number and Skype address then suddenly your conversion figures will go through the roof; but more on this another time.

A good point to mention here is that the amount of information someone will give you will depend on your credibility and also how much they are already pre-sold on your product / service. At the end of the day they are really going to be in one of three states, they either love it and want to buy, they’re not sure and they want to get more information by leaving their details or they’re simply not interested at all. The level to which they want more information will again dictate how much personal information you can extract from them.

So when you are next asked what is lead generation you can simply say it’s the process of gathering interest and contact details from your prospects. The more efficient you can make this process the more success you will have.

What Is Lead Generation – Other Things To Consider

To be honest the question what is lead generation is really just the beginning of a long but very fun journey which takes you through the entire process from converting prospects into leads all the way through to converting applications into first order sales and so on until your large ticket items are sold.

This entire process is called your marketing funnel and is based up of many different elements, some of which we’ve touched on here. Once you get your funnel correct though you will see your business success soar and you can also then reuse this funnel with small modifications in other businesses further down the line. Creating and perfecting successful online marketing funnels is a true art in itself and can take years of practic to get right. There are some companies out there who have these funnels already build in the most part and you just need to tailor them to your own business. You will find links and reviews of some of these companies elsewhere on this site so please do browse around as there are some true gems hidden around for you to discover when you are ready.

So next time you ask yourself what is lead generation think back here and remember that there are many other elements to consider in your funnel for success.

No matter what business you are running be it online or offline you can always benefit from lead generation tips that will take your business to the next level.

I don’t just want to give you theory here, I want to give you absolute concrete lead generation tips that you can take away and implement straight away.

Lead Generation Tips – Tip 1. Know Your Prospect

Now I talk about this in a lot of my articles but that’s because it’s one of the most important lead generation tips I can give you. In fact it’s fundamental to the success of your business hence why I usually mention it first.

So what exactly do I mean by ‘know your prospect’?

I mean, get inside their head. Think like they do, see what they see. I’m sure you have all heard of an acting technique called method acting, well that’s exactly what I want you to do with this.

First off write down a description of your ideal prospect, for example. If I wanted to promote a high ticket conference such as Tony Robbins then I would start by writing down the following:

Male or female
25-50 Age Range
Medium to high income level
Reads self improvement books / magazines
Usually interpersonal
Outgoing person
Probably runs own business or owns one
Appreciates value of money
Goes to theatre rather than concerts
Hangs out in coffee bars rather than pubs

I could go on but you get the idea and no I’m not excluding anybody, just picking the most common type as i see it. You might disagree, it doesn’t matter. Do your own list and make it as long as you can and each time, re-read it and refine. Now here is one of the best lead generation tips I can give you. Go out and buy the books and magazines that they read, go out to the places where they go, then sit down there and read the books. Talk to the people around you and ask them where else they go, what else they read. Go back to your list and re-write and refine even more.

Do all this again and again for about 2weeks and you will have an extremely refined list which will give you an accurate representation of your prospect.

Now look through the magazine adverts. Look at the flyer’s and posters at the places where they go and make notes on the fonts, the copy, the colours that those companies use to market. They have spent millions collectively to get their marketing targeted to the exact same prospect you are after so don’t reinvent the wheel.

Use this information in all your marketing and market in those places where your prospect vacates; your attraction and conversion will increase ten fold

Lead Generation Tips – Tip 2. Build An Online Marketing Funnel

The key to any successful business is leverage, the more you are able to leverage your time, other people’s time, money and systems the more successful you will be, it’s that simple.

One of the best ways to do this is to build an online marketing funnel. As lead generation tips go this one is in my top 3 because it’s just so powerful when you get it right.

Most businesses out there, whether online or off have a marketing funnel. You think of the tradesman that gives you a free quote then up sells you their services afterwards. The supermarket who puts all your everyday items such as milk and bread right at the back of the store so you have to walk through the rest and impulse buy each time. Whether you like it or not we are all being marketed to every day so why not do it online as well.

In essence an online marketing funnel will consist of several cascading steps that slowly convert and qualify your prospects. Your funnel should be structured in a similar format to below.

Free offer
More info with benefits
Small ticket item
More info with benefits
Large ticket item

The free offer can be anything such as a quote, a gift, even simply a coffee meeting with someone. In the last case your free offer is your time.

After each stage you give the prospect more info about your business and show them the benefits of the next step. For a tradesman the benefits might be that you are cheaper than others or higher quality. You then sell them your small ticket item as a ‘test the water’ scenario. Follow up after this with again more info on your business and the benefit of your large ticket item. For a tradesman again this might be long term savings on bills by upgrading to a better heating system, electrical system etc. You can then close them to your large ticket item.

The key with an online marketing funnel is to recreate all this through your website. So the free offer might be an eBook, the more info and benefits might be videos or pictures on your pages. Your small ticket item might be a DIY video course on how to do some small works yourself. With today’s tools you can produce this very cheaply but with a professional look. You then give more info including maybe testimonials etc. up selling your large ticket items and the benefits other people have received. Here you can give figures on actual money people have saved in ongoing costs by purchasing your system. Your large ticket item might then be a close where you meet them at their home to quote for your expensive system. The beauty is that they are already pre-sold on the idea so your hard work is already done.

All your marketing, whether online or offline then has links to your online funnel and once there your system does the rest. You end up making money while you sleep from your DIY courses and then go to homes where you can quote for large ticket items with people you have only just met in person; powerful stuff!

Lead Generation Tips – Tip 3. Fill Your Funnel

Now that you know your prospect and have built your online marketing funnel you can now happily fill that funnel and not worry about wasted marketing money. You can use all the other lead generation techniques on this site to take your business to the next level.

Whether you generate leads online or off you always point them towards your online funnel knowing that the conversion is already taken care of. I will endeavour to post more lead generation tips on this site based on the feedback I get.

When it comes to lead generation techniques there are certain things you need to be aware of before you even get started on your marketing.

Firstly, you need to understand your target audience and I don’t just mean the niche you are in but much deeper than this you need to understand the exact type of person you are trying to attract.

Are they primarily male or female?

What sort of income range are they in?

Are they full or part time?

Are they technical based?

Where do they shop?

What do they buy?

These are just some of the questions you need to be asking yourself so you can build up an accurate picture of your prospect so that when you use the lead generation techniques I am about to show you, you can get the greatest benefit from each one.

I don’t want to talk about marketing funnels in this article as I will cover that in much more depth elsewhere on the site

Lead Generation Techniques – My Top 5

Lead generation techniques – No.1 – Keyword SEO

Now this is by far my favourite as it equates to free traffic in the end but that’s not to say it doesn’t take a lot of work at the beginning. As lead generation techniques go this one won’t bring in the leads as quick as some others but the quality will be much higher providing you get your keyword research correct.

In essence you are going to build a website based solely around a single keyword term that is related to your business, note I said single keyword! You will then SEO that site and add good value content to get it ranked well in the search engines. Now this is no easy process and will take a lot of research and learning on your part but if you’re prepared to put in the hard work at the beginning then the long term residual payoff will be well worth your while.

There are many exact techniques and courses on this site to help you achieve this and I encourage you to explore them all. If you are someone who is able to absorb information and simply recreate it step by step then this could really boost your business to the next level.

Lead generation techniques – No.2 – Online eZine Lists

This encompasses various lead generation techniques but in overview you will contact online eZine producers. Now an eZine is just like a magazine but purely online and they are all specific to a certain niche. The trick here is to find an eZine dedicated to your specific niche or micro-niche and then contact the publisher to see if you can either market directly to their list, for a fee naturally. Or even better, see if you can work out a joint venture with them in some fashion.

Now it can be really tricky to find the right eZine for your niche and you could spend hours and days trying to find it without much success. I have used a site in the past called the Directory of eZines and you will find a link to them on this site so you can check it out for yourself. Essentially they have masses of eZine directories in their database and best of all they allow you to search for any related to your niche directly. They also contain full contact details of the publishers even down to mobile phone level which you will most likely never get off the search engines even if you find the right eZeine.

However you do it, this is a great way to market to other peoples lists that they have spent time and money building up so have done most of the hard work for you.

Lead generation techniques – No.3 – Google Adwords / Facebook Ads

Now this is the classic one and despite what people tell you it still can be very lucrative when it comes to
lead generation techniques. The key here though is you have to go through the rules of whichever site you are advertising on and make sure you comply exactly with them. It’s not rocket science to do this, it just takes time and discipline and if they say jump, you say how high?

Don’t be swayed to build your site like everyone else out there even if you see them advertising on these platforms because I can tell you from experience that all those sites will have a very short shelf life. Over the years I have been banned and re-activated from both these sites so I know what it takes to get kicked off and also what it takes to get back on again and I share some of that information on this site so hunt it down if you are interested in this area.

The other great benefit of this technique is that it is extremely scalable. You simply put more money into their pockets and they put your ad out there more, it’s really that simple.

Lead generation techniques – No.4 – Paid for Lead Service / Co-ops

This is one of those lead generation techniques that can work really well or you can burn a lot of money very quickly with no real results. The reason is that there are some very poor lead services and co-ops out there so please don’t just jump into the first one you see. Make sure you do your due diligence on any new business venture. Check out the owners, check out the history and talk to other people you can trust who have already done it to get accurate feedback.

On the other hand, don’t be put off by them because I personally use both to great advantage but that’s because I have found the right ones over the years and got rid of all the trash. The thing to keep in mind about this entire site is that I only put links to things I have already tried and had success with myself. There is no room for speculation on this site hence why it is ranked so highly everywhere. So I encourage you to check out some of the techniques I personally use on this site and see if they work for you.

Lead generation techniques – No.5 – Viral Marketing

These lead generation techniques come in various forms and guises and will actually require a little bit of luck on your part to really benefit from them. Don’t be put off by the word luck though as it tends to find those people that put the work in and get enough content out there. It really is just a game of numbers, if you create enough possibilities then eventually one of them will go viral and your traffic will go through the roof.

These lead generation techniques will range from videos to blogging, from social media integration to article marketing. There are really too many possibilities to go into on this article but needless to say that I cover many of the different ways on this site so please have a browse and check them out.