10 Lead Generating Tips That You Can Start Using Today

byMariaDale

2.1K followers

Updated 4 years ago

I am all for generating leads, but Ido not pay for them, simply because of a very horrible experience I had with AdWords several years ago.

Over the years, I have used the following free (and semi-free) advertising methods, to generate leads that are highly targeted for whatever particular niche I am actively working with at the moment.

These methods work, no matter what niche you are involved with and I wanted to share these tips with the community because they are tips I am starting to follow this week for the "Affiliate Marketing Niche" where I plan to start aggressively promoting wealthy affiliate.

You must have a great landing page.

Opt-in forms are awesome for your website to gain new subscribers to your mailing list, but one should always have a single page devoted to advertising their "Ezine".

I am currently working on a tutorial that will show how one can create a landing page here at WA, it will show how to use a free theme that is perfect for this.

I have had great success with this theme as far as the captivating design and features being perfect for converting site visitors to subscribers.

I personally recommend that you purchase a separate domain name for your mailing list, or you can use the site rubix platform to create it.

Or, you could use this theme not only as a fabulous landing page but also as your sites design, there's a little trick where one can use the theme as the landing page, and also use it on your main blog.

I do not know who coded the theme nor do I endorse it other than for the fact that I use it, it's free, there is no need to buy the premium version and it's great.

The tutorial should be complete within 24 hours, it's a bit more extensive than I originally thought it would be.

If you already have a landing page, that's great. if you want your landing page on your blog, and you do not wish to change the theme, this is great too. You can make a separate page just for that, but make your landing page GREAT!

This is the most important tip.

Tip One:

Provide a free offer, most know that there should be some sort of free incentive to entice others to subscribe to a mailing list.

Grab 5 of your best articles, and compile them into a PDF file that can be shared as a free Report, eBook, Infolog, whatever you choose to call it.

It's a gift that you need to display on your landing page to entice others to subscribe.

Tip Two:

Once your landing page is created, you will need a short URL.

Try to keep it as short as possible as you'll want to use it in small areas (see tips 3 and 4 below) so it needs to be short enough to fit, when formatted with a large enough font to be comprehensible.

Tip Three:

Business cards, you know about them, now learn to love them even more!

Print up some business cards where the front of the cards have the "Free Offer" printed on one side, and a small ad that advertises your landing page URL.

You can use Vistaprint, or you can print them from your own computer.

You can even print them on card stock if you are in a bind. I have before, and card stock works great!

Once you have these printed, you can hand them out to people whom you meet in person, offering them as a token "gift" of appreciation.

Tip Four:

If you are adding pins to pinterest, add your short URL to your pinterest graphics!

Those tiny graphics are like tiny billboards of your products, get creative with your pins and watch your leads soar!

Tip Five:

Host an online Q&A session, you can use Facebook for this.

Schedule the event, invite your friends, and ask your friends to share the event with their friends. Start asking friends about 4 weeks before you actually hold the event, so that it will give you plenty of time to gain participants.

I have held these in the Beauty niche, and not only does this method generate great leads for me, but it also opens my eyes to more "problems" where I gain more insight on the types of articles I should write for this particular niche.

If you do not know the answer to the question, then develop the habit of googling on your smartphone as you chat with your participants.

Or, you could do as I do, my daughter sits on the sideline and googles for me, then slides my phone across my desk in a way where I can see it, but event participants can't. (Teens can be so helpful when in a jam!)

Tip Six:

Don't forget the old school classified ads. There are still a lot of people who browse local classified ads, so these should be considered. Again, use your short URL, as the space for most classified ads is limited. Nothing is worse than a URL that breaks into the next line!

This tip may or may not work, based on your current location. When I lived near the big city of Atlanta, I had great results. But now that I live in the swamps, I have not had good results at all so I focus on placing ads in papers that are in Big cities. I guess alligators do not need skin care advice, although they do have scaley skin.

I do not recommend craigslist advertising, I have never had good results with craigslist at all. It may work for your niche, but it never has worked well for the niches I focus on.

Tip Seven:

Local lead boxes have always been a great method I have used to create leads where I gain customers in my community. I particularly like doing this, because I am able to provide more personal one-on-one and group coaching sessions.

This method is where you simply get a simple box, I use cardboard boxes I buy off eBay, but you can convert a shoe box also.

Place a flier on the box where people can enter their name for a "drawing" to be held at a later date. Contact a local business and see if they will allow you to place the box in their location.

You will also need to print out some slips that people can use to enter the drawing.

The prize will be a business card for the business that has let you place the box, a 10 dollar gift card is usually suitable. You win by gathering leads, the business wins by gathering new customers.

Rely on word of mouth to get the drawing known locally. My neighbor is a busy sort of person, as is my mother-in-law. They LOVE to gossip, so all I have to do is tell these two, and they get the word out faster than you could imagine! My mother also aids with this, when I place a box near her. People LOVE to get things free.

Do Not Forget To Place An Ad On The Flier About Your Mailing List!

Make it neat, attractive, eye-catching! I've watched people write down my URL, and some even take a photo of the flier with their smart phones, so they can visit the URL when they arrive home.

Of course this tip may have to wait until after the Pandemic, when things get back to normal.

Bare with me, it's about to get great!

Tip Eight:

You can also conduct "virtual drawings" where people can visit your site to enter your drawing, to win something great again. If your product is something related to your niche, then you will know that the people entering the drawing is interested in that particular niche.

To conduct a virtual drawing, simply toss up a page on your blog, add the legal rules and regulations required for your area, and create a form where people can fill in their names and addresses. Cognito forms is the site I use for this, and I can say that this free service can truly handle a load of traffic, as I explain in Tip Ten below.

If you do not know the legal requirements in your area, there are many legal experts online that will draft the wording for you at minimal cost, or you can ask a local attorney about this. You do need these for virtual drawings, and you may need them also for physical drawings based on where you live.

I have never put anything more than "One entry per household and you must be 18 to enter" on my physical fliers, and so far I've not gotten written warning, but the local officials here did inform me that it was enough to satisfy local requirements for my area.

Tip Nine:

Provide a "Free Digital Sample". Now this may sound crazy, but it produces crazy insane results!

Your sample can be anything you like, but it should be digital. In the beauty niche, I give a "Free Lipstick Sample Color Card", where people can sign-up (think landing page again) to receive the sample which is downloaded and printed on their own home computer.

Any other lipstick color cards, they of course have to pay for.

Fishing samples could be "Lure Sample Size Charts" then you could create more size charts to sell for minimal profit.

People LOVE free samples, so whatever niche you are in, think of something great!

You should create a separate landing page for the samples, you'll understand why in Tip ten.

Tip Ten:

I write a very long post, about the benefits one receives when they use my "free sample" and I place a link to the "sample Page" on the post.

I make sure to do this on a website that has been approved for AdSense, you do not need to do this, but I like to and you'll understand why in a moment.

Once my post is ready and my sample landing page is linked to it, I conduct a google search for websites that have mailing lists for "freebies" and anything related to my niche.

I shoot off an email to the webmasters informing them about my free sample offer.

I then sit back and wait. I also let friends on Facebook know about it, this too brings traffic.

I have been told no many times by many webmasters, but I have never not received a yes reply from one or several.

I do not let rejection hinder me, I simply send more emails to more webmasters, a no is a no, but a yes is fabulous!

I will not get into all of the "results" I have obtained by doing this, but I will say that the "Worst Case" I have had with this method, netted me over $400 in AdSense income and over 6,000 leads, in less than 24 hours (I was using cognito forms, the free version, the traffic was amazing and the service handled it like a true champ).

All it takes is that one webmaster to say yes, and BOOM, you will have more leads than you know what to do with.

I wanted to share this post, mainly because I know there are some here who could probably benefit from it, and secondly because these are the first "steps" I plan to take to start generating leads that I can use to gain my trip to Vegas.

I will be utilizing all of these (except the box giveaway, I will do that after the Pandemic when things get back to normal) starting this week, and I will be following these steps as I work towards my goal.

I hope some find this information useful, and if you have any questions or if you need clarification on anything, please comment below and I will respond as quickly as I am able!

If you have a particular niche that you can't think of a way to create a "free digital sample" for, let me know and I will brainstorm a bit with you!