5 Ways to Generate Leads with Your Web Site

If you sell services one of the biggest challenges is
identifying qualified prospects who want what you have to
offer and are ready to buy. It is possible to waste time on
cold calls and other marketing activities that turn up
little in the way of sales. Wouldn't you rather have a
steady stream of hot leads, leads that not only include
contact information but give you an idea of what the
prospect needs, the problem they want solved?

You have a web site, and hundreds if not thousands of
people visit your site each week. If your site is working
well it should be providing you with a list of hundreds of
people who want to be on your marketing list each week
and dozens of qualified leads, people who want you to call
them right away about your services.

Use the following five tactics to generate a list of
qualified prospects.

1. Collect Contact Information
Strive to collect the email address of every person who
visits your web site and is interested in the problems you
solve. Offer a free article, tutorial or guide as bait to
motivate people to give you their email address so you
can market to them again and again.

Offer prospects something they want, and place your
sign-up form prominently at the top of your home page
and in a side navigation bar on the other pages of your
site. This should help you capture the email addresses of
10-20% of the people who visit your site each week.

2. Use Auto Responders to Collect Detailed Information
If you use a free giveaway and the briefest of sign up
forms to get people to give you their email information
you can market to prospects but wouldn't it be helpful to
have more information?

Use an autoresponder to send people a confirmation when
they request your free article or sign up for your
newsletter. In the email ask them for detailed contact
information and ask them a couple of questions about
what they're interested in.

3. Get People to Tell You How You Can Help Them
Many people use the web as tool to find solutions and to
hire people who can help them solve their problems. If
you are a financial advisor, giving away an article on
financial tips is a great way to get contact information
but what you really want to do is to identify those
people who have an immediate interest in your services.

Prompt people to contact you by including an inquiry form
on your web site, but don't make the mistakes made on
most web sites. Too often inquiry forms are buried on the
site, multiple clicks away from the pages most frequently
viewed by your visitors. Include your form on high
visibility pages, at the bottom of your homepage and
other key pages about your services and products.

Use your inquiry form to both collect contact information
and to identify the services your prospects are interested
in and how you can help them. When you make your
follow up calls you'll know where to start the conversation.

When you receive completed inquiry forms you can sort
through them to identify which ones are worth following
up on based on the answers provided. Then pick up the
phone and use these qualified leads to find new clients
and grow your business.

4. Collect Feedback and Learn More About Your Prospect's
Needs
When people visit your sell pages, the web pages that
describe your products and services, they've expressed an
interest. Some will move directly to purchase, others will
discover they don't have any further interest and a large
number will fall into the middle. These are people who are
interested but not ready to commit.

Before visitors leave your web site sell pages, you can
use exit pop up windows to collect feedback and to find
out what they are looking for.

Offer a free article to motivate visitors to fill in the
form. When you get these feedback forms, follow up with
a call. Use this conversation to find out why they didn't
buy the service or product or to get further information
about the problems they want solved. Once you have these
prospects on the phone you'll be surprised how many you
can turn into clients.

5. Send out Surveys to Identify What Sells
If you have a newsletter you can leverage the trust of
your readers to collect ideas of what they want to buy.
If you've been sending out ideas and information to your
target market periodically they will be more than likely
to respond when you ask for their input.

Two to four times per year, send an informal survey to your
subscriber base, asking for their ideas. Ask them which of
your product or service ideas they like best and what they
need and want. Tabulate their responses and develop the
products and services they asked for.

Use these five lead collection strategies to identify
prospects with a problem, one you can solve. Once you know
who needs your help, its easy to follow up, close the sale
and grow your business.
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