Making money online has never been easier. It has also never been more confusing. Affiliate marketing opportunities, work from home businesses, Internet marketing and plug-in profit websites all offer multiple streams of income. All of these online money making opportunities have one thing in common, they depend on opt-in leads to generate online business success.
An opt-in lead is generated when a person comes across a website or online ad that features a money making opportunity like affiliate marketing. The person may arrive at this point by running a specific keyword search through a search engine like Google or they may view an ad on another website or receive notification about the opportunity through email. When presented with this opportunity they simply enter their name and email address in the opt-in form to receive additional information.
How to Increase Your Opt-In Leads
Tools like pay per click advertising, search engine optimization and purchasing opt-in leads from a vendor are all viable options for increasing a business' useable leads and each one has unique advantages.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay per click (PPC) advertising gets your business noticed. You determine which keywords a potential customer might use to find your business with a search engine inquiry and bid on a price to pay each time a user clicks on your advertisement after searching for those keywords. If you are the winning bidder for "affiliate marketing opportunity", your company's ad will display prominently on the search engine results page when a user types in those three magic words into the search box.
This concept is somewhat similar to outdoor billboard advertising. Prime real estate locations are like prime keywords; everyone wants them and you must pay more to get them. One interesting twist on PPC advertising is that the keywords are constantly up for auction. The major limiting factors in how successful a PPC ad campaign might be is your monthly advertising budget and quality of your advertisement.
This option is used to quickly attract visitors interested in your business' products, services or money making opportunity.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complicated process that helps a business owner design a user friendly website that will rank well on a search engine results page when certain keywords are searched. This ranking is determined by search engine spiders. These spiders are complex programs that search the web continually and determine what each website is about in order to display the most relevant search results to each search engine inquiry.
It is unlike PPC advertising in that you cannot pay to get your website ranked well. Ranking is based on the quality and relevance of your website's content in relation to given keyword or keyword phrase. These are often referred to as organic results since they are natural instead of purchased.
This technique also helps to direct relevant users to your website, but it takes time and effort to rank well on a search engine results page. Search engines are constantly changing the way their spider programs work. An SEO specialist stays up to date on the latest known tactics that help a website rank well. This process is complex and changes are often closely guarded secrets, so never trust an SEO company that guarantees number one ranking on any search engine. There simply is no possible way to guarantee top ranking of organic search engine results.
Opt-In Lead Vendors
Opt-in leads are a great way to increase your profit potential. Investing in personalized leads is best, but leads can also be purchased from a vendor for faster results, but you will be paying for unusable leads as well as legitimate ones.
More leads equal more sales. Investing your time and money in activities that increase the number of legitimate leads generated every month is always a solid step towards online business success.
Automated lead generation to a network marketer seems exactly the sort of thing the internet is designed for. It may be that at one time gathering cheap high quality leads with a few ads and forms was easy, but no longer. Lead generation requires diligence and in most cases, spending, to get the large numbers of prospects marketers need to build their businesses.
Its no surprise that many network marketers and direct sales pros turn to lead brokers to provide a steady stream of leads. The price may be high however, or the leads may be generated with deceptive ads placed in the wrong places for your business. Incentivized leads are among the worst: these people have been promised a free Ipod or something else in exchange for contact information. Finding business builders in this group could be a lot of work.
Using automated lead generation strategies to generate your own, high quality leads is clearly the way to get the freshest, most exclusive leads who actually know something about you or your business. That being said, some lead vendors provide opportunity specific leads for particular businesses, particularly weight loss and wellness industry products.
I consulted with one gentleman who was buying TV lead lists and complaining that he wasn't getting business builders. These prospects were costing him $15 or so each, and while he was getting a lot of signups, after a year of doing this he still found himself pounding the phones daily. Clearly, there was something a little awry with the TV leads campaign. This is a case where outsourcing lead generation clearly wasn't working.
It makes sense for any serious marketer to have some proficiency at automated lead generation. While some high quality leads can be purchased, the best leads are always self-generated and expecting your call. Automating the lead generating process requires the marketer become proficient at placing online ads that drive targeted traffic to a lead capture or "splash" page. This page should have compelling content which encourages the right kind of prospect to give some contact information.
Keep in mind that the content of your ads has everything to do with who visits your lead capture pages. An ad that says ,"no investment needed," is unlikely to attract serious individuals with money to bankroll a new business. While you might get a lot of leads with this ad, most of them will definitely be flat broke.
An ad that says ,"$4k investment positions serious people to earn $100k plus annually," is much more likely to produce a smaller, but more qualified stream of prospects for your business. Most serious marketers only wish to speak with qualified prospects who have some capital. This type of lead, even if its more costly to generate, is clearly desirable.
Running ads which direct potential prospects to splash pages is the most basic, most easily targeted way og generating your own leads. I use it all the time, and as long as the cost per lead is reasonable I keep the campaigns active. However there is a more sophisticated level of online lead generation which involves recruiting potential leads into an email list by offering free information or online tools. Look for more information in my future article ,"Advanced Strategies For Automated Lead Generation,"
Both Mike Tansey & Loren Woirhaye are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Mike Tansey has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Business Plan. Mike has been online since 2004. He can show you 3 simple steps to turn your Internet Marketing Business profitable.