Information on Internet marketing and how to become a millionaire while working from your kitchen table is easy to find. Of course, I can't really compete with that. My affiliate income is only a few hundred a month, so I can't talk much about getting rich at this point.
But let me talk about this: my marketing consulting practice monthly income. I built it up from zip to five figures and only used internet marketing strategies. Well, I did place one ad about a year ago for $500, but that was it.
My marketing costs are around 2% of sales, and I spend zero time directly prospecting or looking for new clients. (OK, there are some activitites such as writing newsletters that play a part in getting new clients, but I see these as distinct from traditional "cold calling" or prospecting activities).
Faster and better results have been accomplished by many people out there but there are just as many who haven't been able to build their websites into one that generates good leads yet. These people will most definitely want some tips on methods that work for others.
So here are some of the strategies that I've successfully used to build up my consulting business. Your business may well be different, but if generating high-quality sales leads is a challenge for you, you may find many of the same tactics directly applicable.
I need to make it clear that it took a lot of trial and error before I arrived at these successful tactics. To get lasting results, you have to stay with these tactics to get over the plateaus.
1. Differentiate yourself
How you position yourself has a big effect on how attractive your offerings are to your target audience.
Most web designers are technically competent. They produce nice looking websites. But in most cases, the website is an end unto itself.
Our pitch has always been Results. In other words, "we don't just build websites, we provide you with an automated revenue-generating tool".
We prove what we say by having plenty of information and case studies on online marketing that back up our claims.
Many business owners appear to be attracted by this pitch. It's a lot more effective than saying "We're wizards at PHP, XHTML, Java Script and tonnes of other acronyms that you probably haven't heard of, but we're not exactly sure whether or not your website will pay for itself."
2. Educate. Educate. Educate.
It is important that clients know the benefits and value of the service or products you are offering. This is especially true in marketing consulting, as it requires a high level of trust to get sales.
In the quest to educate and build trust, I distribute a newsletter and online marketing guide that is free to prospects so they can see our expertise in our field and a few of the solutions they may need for problems they face. A newsletter subscriber will contact us about setting up a business arrangement if he or she finds that our approach suits their goals.
This policy of "education before selling" is a lot more effective than the traditional sales pitch alone. Use newsletters, white papers, evaluations, and case studies to offer value to your market. If your information is of high-quality, this will turn into sales leads.
Because of all the information online that is freely available, it can be difficult to get a good grip. But subject matter that is one of a kind with a high value will help to ensure this strategy works. I endeavor to give away strategies, advice and information that prospective clients would have to buy from other places.
3. Everything must be tested
Many of the marketing activities we've tried such as banner ad services, paid link exchange and PPC search engines such as Overture have produced sub-par results. But we've always known they weren't working and cut them off before they costed too much money.
However, there were a few things that worked quite well. Among them was Google Adwords. Those things that did work were expanded and fine-tuned to keep the success growing.
You will find it rather difficult to fail if you expand on the strategies that are getting the best results.
4. Keep your education current
Since the internet is not static and new innovations are developed continually, it is necessary to keep current on them. Making an investment in software, ebooks and courses, as well as reading blogs is one of the best ways to keep up with these developments. You will find a lot of wonderful profit-building tools out there after sorting through all the outdated garbage being offered. It makes more sense to avoid the trial and error route yourself and hire someone for about $100 who has already been through all that and can teach you about what works and why it works.
I invest about $300 to $500 a month in self-education and info products.
5. Online success elements must be understood
These four things are necessary to keep current on if you are to build a successful lead generating system:
1. Strategy - the way your sales process is put together makes a difference. This is especially important if your product or service is expensive or complicated.
2. Design - the layout should be simple and easy to understand and navigate for users rather than contain the flash and dash of animated graphics.
3. Sales copy - motivating users to take action in contacting you for more information requires good sales copy. Your lead generation will be significantly impacted by the quality of your sales copy.
4. Targeted traffic - The more targeted your traffic is, the better your sales figures will be.
I regularly exam all of these things so I can make necessary improvements when and where they are needed.
Ongoing improvement
Being impatient and getting discouraged is easy if things seem to be moving too slow and the results of your lead generating are sparse. Making consistent efforts over the course of time is key to seeing improvement in your online results. You can short cut the learning curve by hiring an expert to help you achieve this. This is a wise move if your business is not primarily internet marketing.
But let me talk about this: my marketing consulting practice monthly income. I built it up from zip to five figures and only used internet marketing strategies. Well, I did place one ad about a year ago for $500, but that was it.
My marketing costs are around 2% of sales, and I spend zero time directly prospecting or looking for new clients. (OK, there are some activitites such as writing newsletters that play a part in getting new clients, but I see these as distinct from traditional "cold calling" or prospecting activities).
Faster and better results have been accomplished by many people out there but there are just as many who haven't been able to build their websites into one that generates good leads yet. These people will most definitely want some tips on methods that work for others.
So here are some of the strategies that I've successfully used to build up my consulting business. Your business may well be different, but if generating high-quality sales leads is a challenge for you, you may find many of the same tactics directly applicable.
I need to make it clear that it took a lot of trial and error before I arrived at these successful tactics. To get lasting results, you have to stay with these tactics to get over the plateaus.
1. Differentiate yourself
How you position yourself has a big effect on how attractive your offerings are to your target audience.
Most web designers are technically competent. They produce nice looking websites. But in most cases, the website is an end unto itself.
Our pitch has always been Results. In other words, "we don't just build websites, we provide you with an automated revenue-generating tool".
We prove what we say by having plenty of information and case studies on online marketing that back up our claims.
Many business owners appear to be attracted by this pitch. It's a lot more effective than saying "We're wizards at PHP, XHTML, Java Script and tonnes of other acronyms that you probably haven't heard of, but we're not exactly sure whether or not your website will pay for itself."
2. Educate. Educate. Educate.
It is important that clients know the benefits and value of the service or products you are offering. This is especially true in marketing consulting, as it requires a high level of trust to get sales.
In the quest to educate and build trust, I distribute a newsletter and online marketing guide that is free to prospects so they can see our expertise in our field and a few of the solutions they may need for problems they face. A newsletter subscriber will contact us about setting up a business arrangement if he or she finds that our approach suits their goals.
This policy of "education before selling" is a lot more effective than the traditional sales pitch alone. Use newsletters, white papers, evaluations, and case studies to offer value to your market. If your information is of high-quality, this will turn into sales leads.
Because of all the information online that is freely available, it can be difficult to get a good grip. But subject matter that is one of a kind with a high value will help to ensure this strategy works. I endeavor to give away strategies, advice and information that prospective clients would have to buy from other places.
3. Everything must be tested
Many of the marketing activities we've tried such as banner ad services, paid link exchange and PPC search engines such as Overture have produced sub-par results. But we've always known they weren't working and cut them off before they costed too much money.
However, there were a few things that worked quite well. Among them was Google Adwords. Those things that did work were expanded and fine-tuned to keep the success growing.
You will find it rather difficult to fail if you expand on the strategies that are getting the best results.
4. Keep your education current
Since the internet is not static and new innovations are developed continually, it is necessary to keep current on them. Making an investment in software, ebooks and courses, as well as reading blogs is one of the best ways to keep up with these developments. You will find a lot of wonderful profit-building tools out there after sorting through all the outdated garbage being offered. It makes more sense to avoid the trial and error route yourself and hire someone for about $100 who has already been through all that and can teach you about what works and why it works.
I invest about $300 to $500 a month in self-education and info products.
5. Online success elements must be understood
These four things are necessary to keep current on if you are to build a successful lead generating system:
1. Strategy - the way your sales process is put together makes a difference. This is especially important if your product or service is expensive or complicated.
2. Design - the layout should be simple and easy to understand and navigate for users rather than contain the flash and dash of animated graphics.
3. Sales copy - motivating users to take action in contacting you for more information requires good sales copy. Your lead generation will be significantly impacted by the quality of your sales copy.
4. Targeted traffic - The more targeted your traffic is, the better your sales figures will be.
I regularly exam all of these things so I can make necessary improvements when and where they are needed.
Ongoing improvement
Being impatient and getting discouraged is easy if things seem to be moving too slow and the results of your lead generating are sparse. Making consistent efforts over the course of time is key to seeing improvement in your online results. You can short cut the learning curve by hiring an expert to help you achieve this. This is a wise move if your business is not primarily internet marketing.
About the Author:
About the author: David B. Ascot's knowledge is in improving sales lead generation results and your company can utilise his winning strategies of online lead generation.
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