Using The Internet For Lead Generation and Lead Tracking
Written By: Susan McCrossin
April 11th, 2008
Wouldn’t it be great if every morning you turned on your computer and there were several targeted leads waiting for you in your email inbox? Why not position your website to be your 24/7 salesman, gathering leads! No more cold calling…let your website do the dirty work for you, offering you warm leads on a daily basis.
The internet is the cheapest method of gathering leads, and you should be taking full advantage of the opportunities for lead generation. In addition, internet leads can be tracked with precision, so that you know exactly what you are spending for a lead.
So how do you go about using the internet and your website to generate targeted leads? Here is a short list of effective lead sources.
- Google Adwords
- BuyerZone
- Industry specific lead generation sites
- Social sites
- Your own website (landing pages)
Keep in mind that the internet is a limitless resource for leads, and you are only hindered by your own creativity in finding the best lead sources for your business.
Google Adwords
Google Adwords is instantly available to anyone who has a credit card and an internet connection. Google displays ads on search pages as individuals search for relevant information. This is called search targeting. The searcher is looking for a widget, and the ad for widgets appears on the sponsored listing areas of Google. The ad campaign is charged when a visitor clicks through the ad and onto the subsequent web page. The position of the ad is determined by the bid amount the advertiser is willing to pay, and daily or monthly maximums can be set so advertisers stay within their budgets.
Google Adwords is an excellent lead generation tool if you understand what your online audience is looking for when they search for your products or services. In addition, you need to optimize your ad campaigns by monitoring the results to improve click through rates (CRT). The best way to do this is to create a unique ad, then test different versions to determine which combination of headline and description gets the highest CTR.
Next, you will want to increase conversions on these ad campaigns by creating specific landing pages for your ads. When someone clicks into your web page, you have about 6 seconds to convince them they have landed in the right spot. Make sure the landing page contains the searched phrase in the top left hand corner, where the searcher’s eyes first view your page.
BuyerZone
BuyerZone, and sites like it connect millions of active buyers to a network of suppliers in more than 125 product and service categories. BuyerZone matches buyers with the most appropriate suppliers for their needs. Buyers receive competitive price quotes and can access expert purchasing advice. The service is fast and free. Suppliers receive the buyer’s quote requests, which turn out to be extremely targeted leads with high close rates and impressive ROI. The supplier Network consists of over 2,000 top national and local vendors who represent over 100 categories of business products and services. To see if your business category is part of Buyer Zone, visit this page and begin getting sales leads.
Industry Specific Lead Generation Sites
Use Google search to find specific lead generation sites for your products and services. For instance, search “lead generation automotive” and you will find sites like this: http://dealer.automotive.com/index.html. There are similar sites for the mortgage, education, insurance, manufacturing, and communication industries. There are even companies like http://www.salesgenie.com/ with databases of leads you can purchase. The only caution in trying these services is to do your homework to make sure the leads will be targeted for your business.
Social Sites
You can improve your lead generation by placing ads on social networks. The more specific the network, the more targeted the ad. Many of these social networks have site search capabilities. When a site search brings visitors to a page with targeted ads, the CTRs dramatically increase because not only can you tailor the ad to the content the person is searching, you can target the ad to the type of person searching. All types of ads can be used on social search: banner ads, text ads, or video ads. What’s different with social targeting is the ability to reach the visitors more precisely and not having to worry about offending someone with your ad - they will be shown to people with similar interests. It’s been proven that people actually welcome and click through ads about their interests.
Social marketing enables you to reach people who potentially would be interested in your content but never discover your site. Take a look at some of the most popular social sites and review their targeted ad placement: http://www.facebook.com/ads/?src=aw05, http://technorati.com/about/conversational.html, http://www.youtube.com/advertise
Your Own Website
Almost all your prospective customers will visit your website before contacting you. Does your website move them along the buying process or does it turn them away? In many cases you will need to change your site from an online brochure into a lead-generation funnel. Your website should contain items like success stories, case studies, white papers, FAQs, and other items that instill confidence -to convert prospects into warm leads.
The Next Step
When you have leads coming to your site, and you will need to be able to measure the quality of these leads. You need some kind of web analytic lead tracking software.
Web Analytics Tools
You will need a tool to monitor site visitors, referring websites, and what these visitors are doing on your site. For instance do you know what percentage of visitors fill out a contact form, download something or at least visit your contact page? This will help you see the percentage of visitors who have started down the sales funnel, and you can begin to track them.
A free web analytics tool is Google Analytics. You can see a demo here: www.google.com/analytics. The analytics software requires you to place “hidden” code on your website pages, and it is best to place this code at the top of each page so you don’t miss any visitors.
There are even more robust tools (although they are not free) which track web analytics. Web Trends: WebTrends is a leading provider of web analytics and consumer-centric marketing intelligence solutions. Also take a look at Click Track: ClickTracks Professional features robust analytics, ROI tracking, revenue conversion, and marketing campaign performance, all merged into a professional, multi-user web analytics package.
With more than 8,000,000,000 people searching the internet daily, the potential to use it as a lead generation source for your business is limitless. Search the web yourself, as though you were a potential prospect for your services or products, and see what you find. You may surprise yourself with the potential lead generation sources you find in just a few minutes.
Susan McCrossin is a principle with painternetmarketing.com.
For more information on any of the custom services PA Internet Marketing & PA Website Design has to offer your business, Please call (888) 454-3330 or visit http://painternetmarketing.com or http://pa-websitedesign.com.