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Lead Generation is something that many businesses have heard about but few really understand. If you ask 10 people what they think lead generation is they will probably all come up with different answers.

At the most basic level, a lead is a piece of information about a consumer who has stated they are interested in a product or service which they are actively searching for. A lead is created only when a consumer has given their express consent to be contacted about that specific product or service.

The key point to remember for any would-be lead buyer is that a lead is not a gift wrapped guaranteed customer ready to sign on the dotted line. Buying good quality leads is easy – converting those leads into business and generating revenue is the hard part! It is up to the lead buyer to follow up the lead efficiently, build a relationship with the consumer and sell them their company and the ability to provide the service they want.

Where most lead buyers really fall down is that they have no processes in place to manage the leads properly. The companies that do the best from lead generation are those that have every step of the sales process mapped out in advance and have the systems in place to deal with every eventuality. The fundamental strategy that any lead buyer must have in place is a process to maximise contact rates. If you maximise contact rates, you will convert more leads into business. As a minimum lead buyers should have thought about or have an answer to the following questions:

• Do you have the processes to make an immediate follow up phone call when you receive a lead?
• If there is more than one person receiving leads, who’s going to make first contact?
• If you are out on meetings, who is going to call the leads?
• If you don’t make immediate contact, do you have the capacity to follow up every lead for a minimum of 4 calls a day – in the morning , at lunchtime, in the afternoon and in the evening – for 5 days?
• What will you do with the leads that don’t convert? Do you have the processes to email and call them periodically?
• How will you handle leads that come in out of office hours?
• Do you have email templates etc. to follow up every lead that you contact and the ones that you don’t contact?

As an American lead generation specialist once said “Leads work if you work them right!”

About the Author

Justin Rees is UK Head of Marketing for LeadPoint, the world’s first online lead marketplace. LeadPoint provides over 3,000 real-time leads a day to over 2,500 customers across a range of verticals. LeadPoint is a thought leader for the nascent online lead generation industry in the UK and Justin is a regular contributor to the financial trade press as well as being part of the IAB’s Online Lead Generation Taskforce (http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/onlineleadgenerationtaskforce.html).

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If you have read this blog in the last 6 months you would have read me use the term virtual real estate. As I said then I did not coin the word but like it some much, I try and use it whenever I find an excuse.

I have been thinking about a post like this for a while and think it is a good time to write it. I have been speaking with a few clients or late about how they can increase their exposure online without spending lots of money.

A few conversations later I have come up with a few ideas and places that you can add unique content to, which very little cost that will give you more access to your target audience.

The main response I got from clients was that they have never thought of using the Internet much beyond a corporate website and maybe at a push a blog.

Your virtual real estate really is the various locations that you can add content too in order to attract your audience that might not come direct to your website.

So here is a list of 14 sources of expanding your virtual real estate:

1. A standalone blog
2. An industry or secondary website – For example, if you sell classic car insurance, when not run a classic car information website
3. Using Social Networks – Your profile pages are potential routes for clients to find you
4. Article Syndication – writing and submitting content to a range of websites again provides a secondary route to your website
5. Newsletters – Running a promoting a news letter can add some viral elements of sharing which can attract new visitors
6. Guest Blogs – you can write a guest blog post for a related blog in your industry
7. Guest Articles – submit a unique article to another related website
8. Digital Magazine – create a PDF and setup a flash based newsletter
9. Video Site – If you are creating video why not create a separate site just for your video channel
10. Facebook Pages- Setup relevant Facebook fan pages
11. Web Applications – Create a tool that can be given away and circulated. This could be a web tool, Wordpress template or plugin as three examples
12. Audio Site- Create a Audio site for your podcasts and set it up like a radio channel
13. Answers – Using LinkedIn Answers and Yahoo Answers is a great way to get added expert content out there
14. Forums / Comments – Taking part in the on-line conversation on forum and commenting on blogs can lead to increased exposure, plus some of the sites rank well in Google so they can drive you some traffic.

As you can see there are lots of ways of increasing your virtual real estate with little more than a bit of time dedicated to expanding your online real estate every week.

All you need to do is make sure that ALL of the web content you add online adds some kind of value to the potential customer.

There are a huge number of affiliate programmes out there covering a vast array of products and services. Making sure your programme stands out and attracts the quality of affiliates you require can go a long way to ensure your programme is a success from day one. And to let you in on a little secret, your affiliate programme does not have to pay the most money either.

That said, even if you have a struggling programme, the following tips will help to turn it around. Affiliate marketing is still a growing industry and a lot of our own clients are now dipping their toe in this form of marketing as it can be a great way to generate business.

Here are a few tips to help you launch a programme or refresh your existing one:

Creative
Make sure your creative is up to date and is being refreshed regularly. With designers offering good quality banner designs at low cost, there is no real excuse to not having new creative added each quarter. Also make sure your creative has the right logo and brand. Sometimes these slip through the net and your banners do not reflect the new website.

New offers
Do you have new products and services you could add to your programme? Can you afford to pay a bit more commission? These things will go a long way to get you back in front of affiliates.

Communication
Make sure you have a contact plan in place; will you be emailing an affiliate newsletter once a month? Are you going to follow up with them all? Do not rely on your network or the affiliates themselves to be proactive? This is your responsibility to make sure they are keep up to date.

Recruitment Drive
Are you always on the lookout for new affiliates? You need to spend some time each week or month looking out for new affiliates. You can hunt through the search engine results for your top keywords and see if there is anyone new appearing. Then fire them off an email. Do you use forums? Post some information about your programme. You can now add a full page about your programme on our website.

Affiliate Centre
This is a biggie and one that nearly all companies fall down on. Do you have an affiliate marketing centre, with all your creative in one place? Do you train your affiliates and give them articles on different marketing techniques? Do not assume that all affiliates know everything there is to know about marketing online. There could be some fantastic PPC affiliates that do not know how to blog for example. You will be surprised so make sure your resource centre caters for all.

Remember affiliate marketing is a partnership. Do not assume that they will do all this work just because you signed them up. You wouldn’t send out your own salesman without training and educating them about your products so why would you do it with affiliates?

Just using a few of these ideas can really create a huge boost to your programme. If you would like more help and advice on a one to one basis please feel free to use the contact form. We are helping clients build their own affiliate programmes from the ground up and also giving existing programmes a much need makeover.