With over 10-years experience 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 system required heavy responsibility. When I wrote what has now become the email bible called Effective Email Advertising (for a free copy go to http://www.global-reachltd.com/FreeDownloads.asp),I was careful to demonstrate what makes email advertising successful and what pitfalls to avoid. Now it is my desire to teach you how to generate your own leads and this requires just as much skill as email marketing.

Lead generation is very important 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 interesting caveat. You actually have two types of lists. First you have your prospect 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 prospect leads, I accomplish lead generation in two ways:

1. I purchase optin permission-based leads: If you purchase 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 chance that he is buying his leads from another broker or something is questionable about the lead source. I like looking 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 purchase 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 people that will order it. Dont 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 provide 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 provide enough bandwidth to make it cost effective 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 (its unlimited) nor do they have any limitations as to the maximum amount you can email out daily. And also they do not require 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 company and at rates that will cause apoplexy.

BlastPak is simply an email blasting platform that allows you to market your prospect list(s) effectively and at a very reasonable 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 $1400. The rates are on a sliding scale and begin as low as 1,000 emails per month for just $14.99. BlastPak also comes with a verification and tracking link that provides some very important real-time marketing and sales information, which is definitely to die for when it comes to testing. I test everything! I test my subject line, my main body offer, my graphics, the click through to my sales page, etc. I even test my text message. I accomplish my tests by sending out emails in blocks of 1-million with various ad messages and subject lines. The ones that pull the best are the ones I then blast out to the massive 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 company 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 efficient and simple to use. I could not achieve the sales that I accomplish without an email blasting platform. Email is my best ad medium and I rely on it completely since it performs very well for my product base. And please dont 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 attention to what I am about to teach. In Internet sales it is important to set up ONE website for ONE product 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
http://www.auto-loans.com
http://www.instantcarloan.com

The leads cost a dealership $6.00 each and come in the form of approved loans applications as well as bank turndowns. So, rule number 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. Either your lead generation site requires some action 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 company 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 whatever 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 contact information capture page in front of it. In order to get to the free downloads you must first give me your contact information and the capture page states that I am going to send you information.

Keep your lead generation website simple and easy to navigate. Take a look at the above given site Auto-Credit.com. Notice the bright orange color and the simplicity of the site? Color is important 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 looking to acquire the leads the site garners. Last, they use a very generous affiliate program to drive buyers to the site. Remember the rule: ONE product and ONE website. Please do not mix lead generation products. Offer the prospect a viable incentive as a reward for giving you their contact information.

Next, you need to optimize your site with the search engines using proper SEO techniques. I use one of our in-house divisions called GlobalSEO because they are excellent and charge only $750/year for one URL (page) and $180/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. Notice 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 actually assists you when it comes to SEO.

Cross linking is extremely important 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 linked to real estate agents, brokers, realtors, home improvement sites, etc. As long as the links are compatible and/or within the community they will increase the lead generation sites visibility with the search engines.

Thats about it for now. Lead generation requires consistent and massive advertising but it is quite profitable if done correctly. As always, I remain available to answer any questions.