Sunday, March 1, 2009

How to Generate Business Leads

By Jeff Dedrick

Generating business leads can be a costly affair, but it does not always have to be that way. The key is to be efficient and waste as little money as possible generating leads. To do that you must find the most targeted leads that you can for the least financial outlay; and minimize the number of untargeted or unqualified leads that you generate, as these are normally a complete waste of time and money.

Generating business leads is all about attracting people who will be interested in your products or services. That means that you have to gather their attention quickly. In this day and age of short attention spans, you only have a few seconds to keep the attention of your prospects or they will go elsewhere. That means you must be able to sum up why your business, service, or product is unique in less than 30 seconds. Using audio or video on your website will assist greatly with this goal, but the text must also be conclusive.

Business leads can be generated both online and offline, but it is online lead generation that shines nowadays. There are now companies and networks which will help you gather leads - for a fee of course. Many of these networks have affiliates who place information on their site about your company or website. They then drive the traffic to you and keep a small commission for doing so.

There are many other ways to generate business leads online, but utilizing the expertise of CPA (cost per action) networks is an excellent and cost effective strategy. This works particularly well in industries like health, finance, and education, but it can apply to all business types.

Once you have gained some business leads, follow them up regularly. If it is a client that can potentially be worth large sums of money, then 'wining and dining' them should be an option. This involves taking them to lunch and generally discussing their needs.

Generating business leads is not difficult or expensive when done correctly. Never rely solely on buying business leads as these will generally be recycled leads that have been given to many companies; even when you pay good money for them. If you wish to buy business leads, then always ensure they are from a reputable source and that you know where the leads came from and if they are really qualified.

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