Mining the Mother Lode: Lead Generation on the Internet Scott Hickey CEO, Full Partner

Traditional Marketing You always take the initiative to find potential customers You “shotgun” your message to lots of people, hoping someone will be right for you You must follow the existing paths (media, newspapers, ads, etc.) even if you’re not sure if they lead to where your customers are!

Traditional Sales When your prospects contact you, they are usually unqualified, uneducated, skeptical and not ready to buy, certainly not from you Your sales process must qualify them, educate them, establish your value in their minds and create an urgency to buy from you and you alone

Beyond Traditional Marketing & Sales Turn the whole process on its head! Let your prospects qualify themselves, educate themselves, gain trust in your value to them, and get ready to buy from you, BEFORE YOU EVER TALK TO THEM Let your ideal customers find you!

Beyond Traditional Marketing & Sales Establishing yourself as an expert Online Networking Internet Marketing Effortless Conversion

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Becoming known in your market as an expert in your special areas of knowledge and skill Build trust and confidence in you Help the right customers choose you over others, and the wrong customers choose someone else = self-prequalifying prospects Give others more reasons to refer you

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Have a great, content-rich web site – Integrated with pages, blogs, & newsletters – Let others “Digg” your work (also Delicious and Technorati) by putting links to these on your content. These allow others to recommend you. – Offer discussion boards that your moderate, letting others see how you might actually work with your clients

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Be a writer – Write your own blogs – Submit articles to articles directories – Write for other web sites – Write newsletters – one or many (of course, you have to actually DO them) – Send out press releases – Write ebooks and printed books (published or on-demand)

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Show up online – Comment on other people’s blogs – Answer questions in the “Answers Section” in LinkedIn – Solicit testimonials (you can even write them)

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Be a speaker and teacher – Create and offer teleseminars, webinars and in- person seminars – Use these events to bring in new prospects, add value to your existing customers, and make yourself rich and famous! (well, maybe…) – Use a good web system to manage events registration: online, by phone and in person – Speak at others’ events

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Sell your knowledge – People value something they pay for! – People who can consistently sell their seminars, books, ebooks, white papers, etc. are seen as more successful than those who can’t (or just don’t)

Establishing Yourself As An Expert To review: – Establish yourself in the market as an expert using online tools and techniques – Build trust, confidence and a willingness for potential customers to contact and work with you – Raise your value and broaden your influence – Increase referrals – Create a following

Online Networking Participate in various online networks – business and social Be seen and heard Create lots of ways for others to find you, as well as find out more about you Big 3: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter Are others doing it? Install Xobni and see

Online Networking - LinkedIn The main online business networking system Get an account and create a keyword-rich profile. It’s a powerful marketing document, even including Powerpoint presentations. Add links to your web site Actively build your network of links Always accept when others want to link to you Put your real name in the URL to your profile

Online Networking - LinkedIn Great resource for learning and using LinkedIn: – Integrated Alliances, a Denver training company – Take these courses from them: “Fundamentals” - $39 “Profile Development” - $49 “Network Building” - $89 –

Online Networking - Facebook Just a social networking system? It started that way, but its use in business is growing Create a keyword-rich profile for you and one for your company. Put up a picture and pay special attention to your bio. Add links to your web site Be “friends” to those you want to be associated with, and vice versa

Online Networking - Twitter A “mini-blog” system. Posts (“tweets”) are 140 characters or less. Useful as a business building tool if you post often and present information that promotes you, your company, your expertise, your products and services. Add links to your web site.

Online Networking To Review: – Create a unified profile – the same one should be presented on each network. – Be present on more than one network. – Create your profiles with care – they are marketing documents that will be seen many times. – Just get out there. Your competitors certainly are!

Internet Marketing Web Site Blogs Newsletters Autoresponders Affiliate Marketing YouTube

Internet Marketing – Web Site Absolutely critical – your primary face to the world. Its design and content will reflect you. Treat it as part of your business – not just a brochure. Present, inform, educate, sell, convert, communicate, inspire, build relationships. Offer a variety of interactive features – sign ups, event registrations, discussion boards, members areas… give them reasons to come!

Internet Marketing – Web Site Do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to increase traffic to your site Increase your “Page Rank” in the search engines by having links to your site from highly ranked other sites. Linked ranks 8 out of 10. Facebook 9 out of 10.

Internet Marketing – Blogs Moves the world of news from mainstream media to everyone – you control your media! Offer news, information, opinions, sentiments, heartfelt words, whatever… Can use third party Blog services – or better to embed them in your web site Find blogs through Google, as well as dedicated services like Bloglines – 126 million of them as of June 2008

Internet Marketing – Blogs Communicate your messages Share your knowledge and expertise Build your business brand Build your personal brand Create relationships Build a community of interested people Increase search engine rankings and traffic

Internet Marketing – Newsletters Great way to gather and foster prospects Create one or more lists, with sign up forms on your web site Send regular editions – don’t skip for months! Use tracking tools like Full Partner’s to see who comes to your site from links in your newsletters, and what they do there

Internet Marketing – Autoresponders A “drip marketing” technique that has several s automatically go out to someone when then do something on your web site Can automate many marketing functions: follow ups, surveys, special offers, reminders Builds relationships with almost no work for day to day

Internet Marketing – Affiliate Marketing Pay others to refer business to you Affiliates do the marketing Your company gets customers and sales Affiliates get commissions

Who Are Affiliates? Individuals – customers, associates, friends Businesses that know you and your products In house affiliate managers Affiliate management companies and networks that market the products and services of many businesses

How Do Affiliates Market You? Give recommendations, testimonials and suggestions that their associates consider your products and services Provide links to your web site (with their affiliate ID number in the link) on their web sites and in their broadcasts Announce your web site verbally at conferences, teleseminars, etc., along with their affiliate ID which the user fills in on your web site

How Do Affiliates Get Paid? 3 common ways to pay affiliates: 1. Pay Per Click – affiliate earns commissions every time someone clicks on a link going to the company’s web site 2. Pay Per Lead – affiliate earns commissions every time someone registers as a lead (prospect) on the company’s web site 3. Pay Per Sale – affiliate earns commissions every time a sales is made on the company’s web site

Pay Per Click Less than 1% of all paid marketing programs, but very effective where used Commissions paid for every click on a link from the affiliate’s to your web site Display advertising and paid search Usually a flat fee per click

Pay Per Click Google ads are an example of paid search – Google is the “affiliate” – Google presents your ads on its website next to one or more search keywords you specify – Every time someone clicks on one of the ads and goes to your web site, Google gets paid Pay per click requires that the affiliate have a trusted way to track and report clicks

Multi-Tiered Affiliate Programs Pays on more than one level. Example: 10% on the 1 st tier, 3% on the 2 nd, 1% on the 3 rd Compensates affiliates for referring other affiliates, as well as for referring customers Affiliates market to their contacts, looking for both customers and potential affiliates Advantage – the efforts of each affiliate can multiply as they bring more affiliates

Advantages of Affiliate Programs Affiliates are an extended marketing force for your business You may have little or no upfront expenses – it’s “Pay for Performance” Once in place, affiliate marketing goes on 24/7 with no effort from you

How to Find Affiliates Affiliates Program Directories – Lists of affiliate programs like yours – Example: AssociatePrograms.com Affiliate networks that offer platforms for many advertisers. – Already have many affiliates ready to market good products and services – Help you create a campaign – Examples: DirectAgents.com

Internet Marketing – YouTube Video: One of the fastest growing channels for getting your business messages out there Create videos on your company, your products, your services, your charitable work Provide training and customer support Not necessary to create highly professional videos – people want to see interesting content

Internet Marketing To Review: – Billions of people are online every day, all day – Reach out to them with your web site, your newsletters, your blogs, your videos – Encourage others to refer you as paid affiliates – Your presence in many areas will guarantee that a stream of the right customers can find you and work with you

Effortless Conversion Now, people have found you! How do you convert them to customers? – Bring them from the far reaches of the internet to your web site. – Repeat and reinforce all the great things they’ve seen and heard elsewhere. – Build more trust with testimonials and more valuable information – Give them compelling offers and simple action steps to take

Effortless Conversion Give them an easy way to take action: Sign up for a newsletter Download a white paper Register for a free webinar Buy one of your products (ebooks, books, CD’s, DVD’s, etc.) Participate in a discussion board or chat Once you know who they are, you can market to them

Effortless Conversion Make it easy for them to contact you – Phone number and address prominently displayed on your web site – Form to fill out to get more information

Effortless Conversion A great resource for help with creating your website and all the services it should offer: – Full Partner, LLC – – Tom Ledder, Sales Manager – – , ext. 1