How to Find and Generate Online and Offline Leads and Prospects for your Internet / Network Marketing Business

When you’re a business owner of a Network Marketing or Internet Marketing business, you’re going to need sales to generate income. This means you need customers and, in the case of Network Marketing, customers as well as prospective distributors/reps who will join your business opportunity.

There are various ways of finding “leads” and “prospects”. These are basically the same thing – although “prospects” probably refers to slightly more qualified and ready to buy (or ready to join) “leads”. Let’s say for the purposes of this article, we will generally use the word “leads” to refer to any type of potential customers, and the word “prospects” to refer specifically to potential recruits/distributors/reps for an MLM (Multi Level Marketing) business opportunity.

If you’re a small business who has an online presence (such as a website or blog), you will benefit from a multi faceted marketing approach to lead generation through both online and offline marketing strategy.

How to generate your list of leads and prospects online

You can either use paid or free online marketing activities to reach your potential customers and prospects, to drive traffic to your website, and to build a list of leads.

The main paid methods of lead generation are via advertising; and usually Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, such as Google Adwords, is the most effective – but you will need to know how to do if properly, or it could prove to be overly expensive or ineffective. Read more about PPC here: How to do PPC/Google Adwords advertising and How to do PPC on a small budget.

The main free methods of generating leads and prospects are through:

• SEO – Search Engine Optimization – of your website/blog (including keywords and back links),
• Social Media (including Social Networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; as well as Social Bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious),
• Content Marketing, such as Articles, Blogging, Webinars, Video and Email Marketing.

However, no matter which of the above marketing methods you use, they are merely attraction devices. Once you’ve got your target market’s attention, and driven some of them to your website/blog or link, you will need to convert this web traffic into sales (customers) or MLM recruits, through interesting and targeted content and products, and the nature of the relationship you have with them.

Once they’ve clicked on your website or link, it makes sense to also capture their contact details (via a splash page, lead capture page, contact form or webform, in exchange for a free and relevant offer). This gives you the chance of communicating and building a relationship with them over time, via Email Marketing and auto responders, in the hope of convincing them to buy, to repeat purchase or to relook at the business opportunity, especially if they didn’t buy or join the first time they visited your site.

Note that online methods are merely one leg of your marketing strategy, and shouldn’t make up 100% of your marketing activity. Small businesses, especially, can benefit from also reaching out offline, that is, using marketing techniques that do not rely on the Internet as their main communication medium.

How to reach leads and prospects using offline marketing strategies

You could think Internet Marketing is ‘easy’ compared to all the calling and driving around you may have to do with offline marketing. But nothing is easy! Even online marketing takes a lot of time and knowledge, to be able to find customers/prospects who will visit your website and take action, because you are solving a problem they have in an accessible and appropriate way, or you are appealing to an emotion or need they have in a way that touches them.

So let’s look at the various offline marketing strategies you can employ for your business. Just as with online marketing, you need to try and reach the right people, in the most efficient way. So creating and contacting a “warm list” of 100 people you know (from family, friends, colleagues and associates), as you are often encouraged to do by your upline managers in Network Marketing, is simply not the most effective thing to do, because all the people you know cannot possibly be in your target market.

For offline marketing, you simply need to understand who your target market is (whether for your products or for your business opportunity). Then you need to think of places (such as shopping centres, shows/events/fairs, or clubs and groups that meet regularly), where a high proportion of those types of people will congregate or ‘hang out’, as well as which media they will read/watch/listen to.

Now you need to find ways of contacting them. This could be via advertising or articles in local newspapers and magazines, interviews on local TV or radio, handing out or posting flyers where you target market is, having a stand at a show/fair, or doing presentations or talks at clubs or societies that have members who you believe to be potential customers or possible MLM reps because of their interests and activities.

Offline marketing usually means that you need to plan for phone calls, personal meetings and the time to travel to where you’re doing your offline marketing event. Use the Internet, where possible, to find contact details for these people, places and groups, and to arrange your activities, because it is simply the most efficient way to do so. But don’t forget that sometimes small clubs or groups won’t have an Internet presence, so don’t discount also using offline techniques to find them, like business or group directories, notice boards, business cards, Yellow Pages, local newspapers or magazines, and the most old fashioned method of them all, word of mouth!

Finally, in a similar way to online marketing, it makes no sense to reach out and communicate with your target market initially, without also getting their contact details for further communications. Do things like a prize draw, free giveaways, or fun questionnaires or polls as a way for you to get their name, phone number and email address. Make sure you have told them you will be sending them future newsletters/emails.

So which is better – online or offline lead generation?

There is no simple answer to this question, because it depends on your target markets, products, and MLM or other business opportunity; as well as your time, knowledge, skills and preferences. But what should drive most of your business decisions, including how much online and offline marketing activity to do, and which ones, are your customers and prospects. You need to reach them in ways that are appropriate to their habits, needs and likes. The Internet will save you time with some things, so use it where you can; but don’t forget good, old-fashioned talking and personal contact can often go a long way to building relationships and trust, and ultimately to achieving sales conversions or business sign ups.

Here’s to your business success!

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Pasta Making picture courtesy of: http://www.thehungrymouse.com/2010/04/16/pasta-party-giveaway-enter-to-win-a-pasta-machine-lasagna-baker/