Lead generation starts with the methods you use to generate those leads and when you log on to the Internet, there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of different ways that you can connect with potential clients and customers. However, knowing how and actually being able to connect with potential leads are two very different things. You're going to need to bridge the gap between the two to guarantee that your lead generation strategies work and continue to work in the future. So, let's take a look at three very important lead generation techniques websites and online businesses have been using for years to create their customer bases:

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is the basis for many online businesses and their direct sales strategies, but it can also be a great lead generation tool. Because services like Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing offer so many analytics tools, you can measure just about everything about your clicks and by driving your prospective leads to opt-in pages where they provide information about themselves, you can also snag a great deal of solid, useful information directly from their visits. Google is the best place to start with online advertising as they have a 57% market share, but Yahoo! is also a good investment.

Social Networking

Social networking evokes images of teenagers in their rooms talking with friends, but lead generation can get a huge boost from a well run social network for a business. By creating a plan through which your business is able to generate interest in an informal setting, draw traffic back to a main page, or simply to draw names and lead information from the social network itself, you are able to grow your business seamlessly without having to resort to cold calls.

Facebook is one of the more valuable tools in this arena right now as it allows a more direct, spam free access between users. Advertising is also more directly integrated into your profile for easy demographic targeting ads.

Viral or Video Marketing

Video marketing is very popular these days with the enhanced speed of Internet access and interest so many users have in viewing video online. Lead generation can benefit from this environment as well by providing entertaining or educational access points for your leads on numerous websites. These videos should strive not to be advertising but to be interest catching. Advertising videos do work, but not in a viral way and are more successful in business avenues such as commercial websites or before free content on sites like YouTube.

In the end, the best route to lead generation in the digital age is a well rounded, multi-faceted Internet marketing campaign. Lead generation does not have to be boring cold calling - it can be dynamic and worked into the current technology that hundreds of millions of people use every single day. If you can take advantage of the curb of technology in such a way, you can quickly start boosting lead generation to be faster and more effective many times over.