Sunday, July 11, 2010

Increasing Sales Using Online Lead Generation

Generating positive leads online is a simple and rewarding way to increase sales when it comes to your website or product. Online lead generation is an applied marketing concept that helps generate attention as far as your services or products are concerned and should be taken advantage of in order to take your business or website to the next level. Generally, there are two kinds of online leads: sales leads and marketing leads.

Sales leads are common in the finance, mortgage and insurance fields. They focus on demographics and are often sold to multiple advertisers. These leads are then followed up upon by the advertiser. Demographics that are often requested by advertisers include gender, age, income level, education level and credit scores.

Marketing leads normally focus on a certain brand and are tailored towards an individual advertiser. These are targeted and are only sold once. Marketing leads are often used on popular websites that are related to the advertiser’s product.

If you’re interested in generating leads, there are a number of things you can pay for:

Impressions: This system revolves around how many times an advertisement is viewed. There are no requirements for clicking the advertisement and there isn’t any information submitted. The rate of compensation per impression is normally very low.

Cost-per-click: This system is all about only charging the advertiser when a consumer clicks an advertisement. This is called a "click-through". This is currently one of the most popular ways to generate leads, and understandably so. The click-through rate of an advertisement, among other factors, helps determine the cost per click.

Cost-per-lead: This system has submission fields built into the advertisement and generates leads through information submission. Advertisers pay per submission and follow up on the leads. The amount of fields and the size of the ad can vary from a small banner to a full-page advertisement.

These techniques are used in order to generate leads for the advertiser. What the advertiser does with these leads is also important. A few things that leads can be used for are:

List building: By analyzing leads, you can create a list of interested customers. These potential consumers already have an established interest in your website or product.

E-Newsletters: By sending interesting and informative newsletters to your leads, you can attract new customers. Be sure to include opt-out clauses or your leads may consider your newsletter as spam.

Building reward/loyalty programs: Keeping track of leads and consumers allows you to create incentive-based reward programs that will entice your leaders to return to you for future business.

Member acquisition: Leads are a great way to acquire new consumers. By targeting these interested parties, you increase the chance that they will spread the word and recommend you to friends as well as return to your website.

If you are looking to attract some new customers as far as your website or product is concerned, you should definitely consider online lead generation. Your business or website could have the potential for explosive growth, but just needs more people to know about it. Online lead generation is a versatile and effective method of finding customers, so why not take advantage of it today?

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