6 types of business leads and how to acquire them.

6 types of business leads and how to acquire them.

There are people all over the internet who run their sites or manage some client sites that want to know how to generate leads for these sites.  There are hundreds of ways to generate leads for a single website, such as funnels and doorway pages, but those aren't the bread and butter for most websites and businesses, so let's stick to the basics and get you some leads today.

Now, if you've still read, you've had your interest peaked, and I love that you're still here.  What I'm about to tell you isn't rocket science, but you'd be amazed at how many people get this wrong.  Some people will go to social media for free leads or think it's going to have a quick ROI but inevitably end up burning out because that's not the case.

Below I'll list the top 6 ways to generate leads for your website, or clients, that will boost your ROI.


SEO for "Free" Leads
We all know what Search Engine Optimisation is and how to do it (hopefully), but a lot of people think this is a quick and free method to generate leads.  This is one of the longer methods that takes a bit of caress and fine-tuning to get right and pull in plenty of traffic.  Sure, you could get lucky and have an article spike in the rankings that sends you a flood of leads, but it likely won't last long, so keep working and keep ranking.

SEO isn't something you should start if you need to generate profits today.  Many of my past clients complained that their websites weren't making $1,000s per day, and their investment into SEO was pointless.  What they didn't know is that a week of SEO won't do much, no matter the investment you put into it, because it takes time to age and starts to gain traction within the SERPs.  So, don't do SEO if you need quick leads but do it over time, and you will get those "Free" leads coming in eventually.

PPC for Quick Leads
One thing I love about Adwords and Bing Ads is that I can start generating leads today for a website I just finished.  I don't have to wait for my SEO to start getting noticed or my articles starting to rank, I set up an ad and wait for it to get approved and then watch the traffic roll in.

The downside of PPC leads is that when you stop paying for them, they stop coming in, and that is why you should never rely on pay per click leads to funding your entire business.  If you happen to get banned from Adwords or Bing Ads, and that was your only source of leads, you're not back to step 1 and have to start your marketing all over again.  This is why it's always good to start your SEO on day one and start your PPC ads on day two just in case your accounts get banned you can fall back on the SEO you've been doing.

Social Media Marketing for Spontaneous Leads
A lot of people swear by social media platforms like Facebook to bring in leads, but I see it more of the candy rack in the checkout lane when buying groceries.  Sure, you could build a large following of people on your page, but they aren't all going to hop up and purchase from you, and this is why I see it more as a spontaneous lead generating system.

Running ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram can help your brand grow, but the majority of those people who like and follow you won't purchase right there.  Some of them might take a chance, make a purchase, but they probably don't need your service or product right now, and that's why I call it more of a spontaneous lead.

Email Marketing for Warming up Leads
If you're not building an email list already, you're falling behind, and now is the best time to start.  Don't think about all the emails you could have gotten up to this point, focus on the ones you'll get today and tomorrow, and you'll be less worried about the "What ifs."

I love using email marketing to warm up my leads because it gets my content to their inbox where they might read it, they might delete it, but they'll always see my domain name in the title

It's pretty common, and tested actually, that it takes six emails on average to get a response from someone via email.  I've had the same success rates through my pre-set sequences that I send out to businesses when I'm running a cold email campaign, so I know a warmed up email recipient will convert better lol.

Take your time with this, don't get pushy, and offer to help when you can so people on the other end start to trust you more over time.  You could schedule 100 emails to be sent out, once every week, but be sure to have that Unsubscribe button in there so people can opt-out of your list whenever they want. 

Snail Mail for Specific Leads
One method people don't use much anymore is snail mail, which is postcards, because the conversions can't be tracked too well.  One thing I noticed from this type of marketing is that you need to be pretty specific in which mailboxes you're dropping these into.  You'll want to target bigger companies, maybe medium-sized ones, but never target small mom and pop shops or businesses with one worker. 

Targeting larger businesses increases the chances that you're going to get a fish on the line that can pay $1,000s per month for an SEO service, $10,000+ for a new web design, or even more for a full marketing campaign that you'll set up for them.  Smaller companies will throw away your postcard, most of them will actually, but the ones you want to pique their interest are the ones who can afford you.

I did this a few times in the past and was always profitable because I took the time to target specific businesses after I researched how much they were making.  Sometimes you can't figure out their annual revenue, but you can see how many employees they have, and I could sometimes base my decisions solely on the employee count.  More employees mean more income and the potential to pay me for my services lol.

Attending Conferences for Big Leads
I try to go to plenty of conferences when I can, and I've noticed that a lot of them have whales that show up and might need help in certain areas of their business.  I will dress nice, trim my beard, and make sure I NEVER pitch an idea to these people because I'd rather them see my as a friend when we part ways than another person looking to dip my hand in their wallets.

If you're not a people person, this might not be the best method to generate leads, because it requires you to talk to a lot of people and start the conversations.  I don't mind doing this because I like talking to people, and I'm not pitching to them from the first sentence.  I will talk to them as a human, I'll never pitch to them, and sometimes they will ask for my business card.  Every once in a while, I'll get a person to ask, "Ok, what's your pitch?" and my response is, "I don't have one.  I'm just here to check out the conference," and we'll continue on with what we were talking about.


Final Thoughts,
There are a lot of ways to generate traffic, turn that traffic into a customer, and bring them back time after time but the 6 ways above are a great start if you don't know what you're doing right now.  Start your SEO early on and start your PPC campaigns right after that.  This way, you can have leads coming in tomorrow, and you organic leads will come in gradually.  The other methods will help you bring in leads from the rest of the world, and I hope you become so successful from this that you come back here and thank me lol


Thanks for reading

- Tommy Carey
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey