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.
Two percent of my sales cover my marketing expenses. On top of that, I don't spend any time searching out new clients or prospecting directly. The newsletter I write does have a role in attracting new clients but that is not the same thing as the old 'cold calling' type of prospecting.
Of course, there are plenty of people who have gotten results better and faster. There are also a good number of people who are still struggling to set up a good lead generating website and would be glad to get tips that work from someone like me.
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. Be unique
How attractive your target audience views your offers will be affected by the manner in which you position yourself.
For web designers, a web site is the final product. They create wonderfully visual websites and most of them are competent in the technical aspects.
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 stand by our claims by providing a lot of information on online marketing and show plenty of case studies to back up what we say.
This pitch seems to attract a good number of business owners. It has a greater effect than making the claim of being expert at XHTML, PHP, Java Script and all sorts of other terms that have no meaning to you. You want to know whether we can make you site pay for itself.
2. Teach. Teach. Teach.
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.
Prospect need to learn about the expertise we have in our field and what solutions we can offer to resolve the problems they might face. To this end, I publish an online marketing guide and newsletter that are available free. If a newsletter subscriber's goals and our methods are a good match, he or she will approach us to establish a business relationship.
Offering value and education with case studies, newsletters, evaluations, and white papers is far more effective than the old school sales pitch by itself. High quality information related to your target market can result in solid 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. Test everything
Quite a few marketing tactics did not bring very good results, such as paid link exchanges, banner ad services and PPC search engines. When we knew they would have sub-par results, we stopped using them before they got too expensive.
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.
By taking what works and expanding it further, you will find it very hard not to succeed.
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. Understand the elements of online success
To build a successful online lead generation channel, you need to stay abreast of four things:
1. Strategy - the manner in which your sales process is set up. If your service or product is fairly complicated or expensive, this is especially important.
2. Design - not flashy graphics and animations, but design that is dead easy for users to understand
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.
On a regular basis I examine each of these areas and action improvements.
Ongoing improvement
It's easy to become discouraged or impatient when things aren't moving fast enough and your lead generation efforts are producing meagre results. But the key to improving your results online is consistent effort over time. You can also beat the learning curve by engaging a pro to do this for you, especially if your core business is not Internet marketing. - 16955
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.
Two percent of my sales cover my marketing expenses. On top of that, I don't spend any time searching out new clients or prospecting directly. The newsletter I write does have a role in attracting new clients but that is not the same thing as the old 'cold calling' type of prospecting.
Of course, there are plenty of people who have gotten results better and faster. There are also a good number of people who are still struggling to set up a good lead generating website and would be glad to get tips that work from someone like me.
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. Be unique
How attractive your target audience views your offers will be affected by the manner in which you position yourself.
For web designers, a web site is the final product. They create wonderfully visual websites and most of them are competent in the technical aspects.
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 stand by our claims by providing a lot of information on online marketing and show plenty of case studies to back up what we say.
This pitch seems to attract a good number of business owners. It has a greater effect than making the claim of being expert at XHTML, PHP, Java Script and all sorts of other terms that have no meaning to you. You want to know whether we can make you site pay for itself.
2. Teach. Teach. Teach.
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.
Prospect need to learn about the expertise we have in our field and what solutions we can offer to resolve the problems they might face. To this end, I publish an online marketing guide and newsletter that are available free. If a newsletter subscriber's goals and our methods are a good match, he or she will approach us to establish a business relationship.
Offering value and education with case studies, newsletters, evaluations, and white papers is far more effective than the old school sales pitch by itself. High quality information related to your target market can result in solid 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. Test everything
Quite a few marketing tactics did not bring very good results, such as paid link exchanges, banner ad services and PPC search engines. When we knew they would have sub-par results, we stopped using them before they got too expensive.
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.
By taking what works and expanding it further, you will find it very hard not to succeed.
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. Understand the elements of online success
To build a successful online lead generation channel, you need to stay abreast of four things:
1. Strategy - the manner in which your sales process is set up. If your service or product is fairly complicated or expensive, this is especially important.
2. Design - not flashy graphics and animations, but design that is dead easy for users to understand
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.
On a regular basis I examine each of these areas and action improvements.
Ongoing improvement
It's easy to become discouraged or impatient when things aren't moving fast enough and your lead generation efforts are producing meagre results. But the key to improving your results online is consistent effort over time. You can also beat the learning curve by engaging a pro to do this for you, especially if your core business is not Internet marketing. - 16955
About the Author:
Author: David B. Ascot's knowledge is in improving sales lead generation results and your business can utilise his winning strategies of online lead generation.
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