TRAFFIC = LEADS! - Bobby J. Gallo

There is one axiom that hold true in this industry... "You need more leads than you have time"

Generating leads is an art form. One that is borne of work and in many cases... money. The latter being needed to fund advertising and marketing methods. But let's say you are one of the many people who are working on a limited marketing budget. You have chosen NOT to purchase network marketing leads from a broker and have taken the stance that "self-generated" leads are best... Which they are. What is your first step?

Well, the first thing you need is a squeeze page. And by this I am not taking about your company's replicated website unless it has an effective lead capture feature built into it. Some do... some don't. But what I have found is that most are purely presentational sites to be used "after" the lead is generated, not before. By attempting to use this website as the main focus of your traffic generating efforts, you are essentially "giving away the cart before the horse". By giving a presentation before you generate the lead risks not getting the lead at all. People pre-judge without having all the information first. This is the kiss of death to lead generation efforts and must be avoided at all costs. You in the business of lead generation and that means building a healthy opt-in list of leads that you can contact personally to qualify them and give them the proper information they need to make informed decisions. This also helps when you are promoting to a web-cast or event. This is your pool of "highly qualified" prospects and you need as many of them in your sales funnel as possible.

Ok.. Now that we know we need a good converting squeeze page... a page that "teases" the viewer into wanting further information in exchange for contact information... We need a way to drive MASSIVE amounts of traffic to that page. This is the KEY folks! Don't take this lightly!

There are many ways to do this AND EACH ONE WILL PRODUCE A DIFFERENT TYPE OF LEAD! Read that again. All leads are NOT created equal. Some will opt-in for entirely different reasons than others. Here are some methods of advertising... How effective each one is... and what type of lead they will produce.

Print Advertising:

Arguably the most expensive form of advertising and also one of the most effective in terms of producing the most qualified leads. People who respond to print have done so precisely because, in most cases, they are LOOKING for an opportunity. Most of the time, they went out and PURCHASED a newspaper or business opportunity magazine... went back to the classifieds, read the ads, then went to your website to fill out your form... Those are a lot of hoops! Those who jumped through all of them are about the best leads you can get.

Google Ad Words & Yahoo Search Marketing:

Right up there in cost with print... This form of advertising is good because in most cases, people are searching for your opportunity before they get to your site. This makes them very qualified. However, you will get some people who will click out of curiosity and fill out a form who weren't looking as well. So in this case you will get a fair amount of tire kickers as well. That being said. Some marketers use this as a sole source of generating leads and have built large businesses this way.

Mass email marketing:

I have done this for several years. And contrary to popular belief, is not as inexpensive as you think. First you need a good auto-responder service. Then you need a good lead vendor where you can purchase THOUSANDS of opt-in leads where people at one point in their existence, wanted to learn about a business opportunity. Create an autoresponder series (this is a ton of work) and mail it out... It takes thousands upon thousands of emails to generate a few good leads... Yes, you read that correctly.

Traffic Exchanges:

Some people say this method is a waste of time and doesn't work. I can tell you from personal experience that it does, for the same reason some people prospect other networkers. Because the VAST majority of those who are surfing traffic exchanges ARE already networkers. Your job here is to entice them to learn about YOUR opportunity. Some will subscribe to your page just to see what you are doing. Others will try to cross-prospect YOU, and the third category may actually be leads you can use. You see, a different type of lead is generated here.

If you do elect to try traffic exchanges... You may want to purchase credits for page viewings rather than surfing for credits. It is more practical in terms of time invested. What I like about this method is that you can get your page shown in front of other eye-balls thousands upon thousands of times for very little money.

Safelists:

This is a way to email directly to thousands of other networkers in exchange... They can mail to you! I used to think this was a waste of time since everyone is pitching the other person, but I was wrong... there I said it! You can generate a lot of leads this way if you do it the right way. Since space here doesn't really permit that. I will leave that for my team trainings or a future blog post.

But, you can email thousands of people and never get a spam complaint... The big secret here??? .... "contact solos".... nuff said.

Purchasing web-site hits:

Don't do it... There are too many scam companies out there that just set you up on a "bot" that will produce artificial hits on your website by refreshing a virtual browser. In essence you are paying for nothing. If you want to buy website traffic. Go with a good traffic exchange and buy the credits. At least this way you know that your page is being promoted and shown... albeit to other networkers.

Pop-ups / Unders:

The jury is still out on this in my opinion. Some people say it works GREAT, some say it doesn't work at all. Either way, it will produce a person who was never looking in the first place and has filled out your form out of curiosity because it appeared out of nowhere.

Networking Sites:

I honestly think that sites like MLMGateway are the future of lead generation... Places like this are based upon the principle of a value for value exchange of ideas and opinions...  The key here is to be professional and offer value to those who are connecting with you and reading your material...

I hope this has been of value to the reader... I encourage you to connect with me and send me a partnership request... Let's build something exciting together!