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.
There is something I can talk about, though. I brought my monthly marketing consulting practice income up from nothing to five figures. How? Other than a $500 ad I placed over a year ago, I only used internet marketing strategies.
The costs of my marketing is covered by approximately 2% of my sales. The time spent prospecting and hunting for new clients is nothing. I do have to admit that the newsletter I write and send out does help to draw in new clients but it is not at all like the traditional method of cold calling potential prospects.
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.
It has to be said that achieving these tactics and having success with them involved a good amount of trial and error. To get over the plateaus, you have to stick with them. Then you will see good, long-lasting results.
1. Be different
The attractiveness of your offers to the audience you are targeting will be determined by how you have positioned yourself.
The majority of web designers are competent in the technical aspects of web design. The sites they produce are great looking. However, they see these websites as the end product.
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.
The attraction of this claim to business owners is that we don't say something like "we are the best with Java Script, PHP, XHTML and a bunch of other stuff you can't understand and we don't have a clue as to whether your site will at least cover its own costs.
2. Educate. Educate. Educate.
Especially with a "high trust" sale such as marketing consulting, prospective clients need to understand the value that they're getting and the benefits of using your product or service.
I publish a marketing newsletter and free online marketing guide to first educate prospects about our area of expertise and some of the solutions that are available to the problems that they may be facing. If a newsletter subscriber finds that our approach meshes with what they want to achieve, they normally contact us to talk about doing business together.
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
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.
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. Understand the elements of online success
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 - not flashy graphics and animations, but design that is dead easy for users to understand
3. Sales copy - Users must be motivated by your content to take the action of contacting you for more information. The results of your lead generation is significantly affected by the quality of your sales copy.
4. Targeted traffic - The more targeted your traffic is, the better your sales figures will be.
I track each of these areas regularly and make improvements on a consistent basis.
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. - 15433
There is something I can talk about, though. I brought my monthly marketing consulting practice income up from nothing to five figures. How? Other than a $500 ad I placed over a year ago, I only used internet marketing strategies.
The costs of my marketing is covered by approximately 2% of my sales. The time spent prospecting and hunting for new clients is nothing. I do have to admit that the newsletter I write and send out does help to draw in new clients but it is not at all like the traditional method of cold calling potential prospects.
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.
It has to be said that achieving these tactics and having success with them involved a good amount of trial and error. To get over the plateaus, you have to stick with them. Then you will see good, long-lasting results.
1. Be different
The attractiveness of your offers to the audience you are targeting will be determined by how you have positioned yourself.
The majority of web designers are competent in the technical aspects of web design. The sites they produce are great looking. However, they see these websites as the end product.
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.
The attraction of this claim to business owners is that we don't say something like "we are the best with Java Script, PHP, XHTML and a bunch of other stuff you can't understand and we don't have a clue as to whether your site will at least cover its own costs.
2. Educate. Educate. Educate.
Especially with a "high trust" sale such as marketing consulting, prospective clients need to understand the value that they're getting and the benefits of using your product or service.
I publish a marketing newsletter and free online marketing guide to first educate prospects about our area of expertise and some of the solutions that are available to the problems that they may be facing. If a newsletter subscriber finds that our approach meshes with what they want to achieve, they normally contact us to talk about doing business together.
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
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.
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. Understand the elements of online success
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 - not flashy graphics and animations, but design that is dead easy for users to understand
3. Sales copy - Users must be motivated by your content to take the action of contacting you for more information. The results of your lead generation is significantly affected by the quality of your sales copy.
4. Targeted traffic - The more targeted your traffic is, the better your sales figures will be.
I track each of these areas regularly and make improvements on a consistent basis.
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. - 15433
About the Author:
About the author: David B. Ascot's expertise is in improving sales lead generation results and your company can benefit from his profitable methods of online lead generation.
