The Pros of Lead Generation
There are some definite advantages of lead generation, one of them is that you don’t have to be a business owner in any of the niches you want to market it, and instead can pretty much go into any niche you like and sell leads in it.
The set up cost is low, as all you need to do is set up a simple information site with a lead collecting form.
You can also use Google Adwords for these kind of sites, as Google doesn’t mind you sending traffic to lead generation sites, as long as the sites primary goal does not look like it is for leads, as then Google see it as a gateway site and will not allow it. So they way to get around this is to make sure you have other useful articles on the site and a navigation and it is fine.
Here’s a good example of one I used myself as a customer recently – http://www.mysolarquotes.co.nz/
Once you have a site that is working, lead generation can be a nice earner, especially if you have lots of sites. Or if you choose the right niche you can just scale what you have and create $10,000+ a month sites, I’ve done this myself selling leads.
The Cons of Lead Generation
The downside of lead generation is that it can be hard to find businesses that are good at converting the leads, and if they can’t convert the leads then they will stop buying them.
The reason some businesses are not as good as others at converting leads is usually a lack of sales ability and also a lack of infrastructure to manage all the leads. You have to make it clear that when you start sending leads to a business they’ll have to make sure that someone is ready for these leads and following up quickly on the phone and or email, otherwise they’ll miss the sale.
The other downside with lead generation is that some niches will require you to set up a site where you have to almost position your site as the actual service provider. Whereas something like mortgages, you can set up a site that is simply an information resource for the niche and have your lead capture form on the site.
However if you compare this to something like ‘cleaning’ then you can’t exactly set up an information resource site on cleaning, so all you really can do is set up a site that acts like a cleaning site and collects leads OR you can do one like the example solar site I showed above, where you offer to get the customer three quotes that they can compare.
Summary
In closing this post, you can make great money selling leads, however you just need to choose a good niche and make sure you can get the traffic!
If you want more in depth training on Lead Generation, I teach this inside the I.M. Super Elite.
Related articles
Hi Matt
As always you provide great information on ways to make money.
Thanks
Matt Carter Reply:
November 13th, 2012 at 6:16 am
.
.
Thanks!
Eric @ ShuckaBuck.com Reply:
November 22nd, 2012 at 3:11 am
Hey Matt, good stuff here. I’m actually using paid traffic techniques to generate leads to a new website I launched not too long ago.
Thanks for the tips!
awesome post………….I’ve been using this business model for over 2 years, specialising in financial leads i.e. mortgages, credit cards etc. This is a very lucrative industry and one that is hardly talked about in IM.
Matt Carter Reply:
November 13th, 2012 at 6:16 am
.
.
Great stuff Michael!
Hey Matt!
I like this idea a lot. You could set up a paid advertising campaign, send the traffic to a squeeze page, give them your free offer/incentive and there passed onto another companies mailing list…right?
You mention you’d have to ring them up and sort out a deal with them yourself, but do you know of any sites that could help with this? If there are any??
Also off topic…..
Am I the only one receiving ‘(not provided)’ in place of what should be keywords in my Google Analytics??
Sorry for chewing the ear!
Chris
Hamilton Reply:
November 13th, 2012 at 10:54 am
@Chris, Matt is right…many people like to promote the same things (ie, Clickbank products), and I am experience this issue myself by getting tons of junks.
Worst thing is that, my mailbox is flooded with the same offers from different marketters on a daily basis…and it’s definitely a waste of time.
I like promotting unique stuff from “shareasale, cj, amazon, etc…” the sky is the limit when using these merchant sites:)
Great post as usual, thanks.
Regards,
Hamilton
.
.
Hi Chris
As for getting clients you dont want to use a third party like a Clickbank as that makes it too easy and lots of other people will target the same client. Its better to strike up these deals yourself.
Thanks matt this is my new direction im heading as afflilate marketing is getting tougher with all the new algo changes with google. Also its easier to rank site/videos locally.
Wow Matt
I really love your post– Quite informative and eye- catching.
Great post as usual.
More grease to your elbow!
Hi Matt,
Terrific business model and very untapped because it requires just that little bit extra initiative to put it together.
I do something similar with converted sales, but I can see how leads can also work very well.
In some instances I wonder if a combination of lead generation and sales conversions would be a great way to make it work better for all parties.
Quinn
Cool, Matt! Giveaways are a good way to get leads too. I’ve made reports answering the FAQ’s people ask about certain niches. Questions they have just before making a purchasing decision and that has generated many good leads for some of my sites. Good content still works wonders…
I’ve also found amazing leads on LinkedIn of all places! I just go to a discussion group and start helping people and answer their questions, with a link back to my related site and Bingo!, they opt in almost everyday.
Love your posts Matt, Thanks!
Gday Matt.
While I was reading through the first half of your post I was thinking, “if just he’d give us an example site”. Thanks for coming through.
I’m interested in lead generation, but my real take home lesson from your blog today was to provide value in blog posts and people will keep clicking those links.
Thanks mate.
Thanks Matt,
That is some great food for thought as always.
Cheers
Linda
I’ve done this with carpenters in my area. It’s a pretty great model.
A mistake I made in the beginning was targeting local niches in cities that where way to small. This didn’t allow me to easily sell the leads to a new business when someone jumped off.
Stick to big cities and this model is golden.
-Chris
This is a great idea. I’ve not really come across a post on exactly how to start with this before, although I’ve always been intrigued. I’ve spent a lot of my focus on conventional affiliate marketing through promoting offers online with some good success. I’m guessing that a lot of the email submit offers I promote are people doing exactly this, collecting email addresses to sell on. Thanks to your post, I will think seriously about delving into lead generation to add another income stream. All the best.
In addition to my last comment, you’ve inspired me to write about this on my own marketing blog. I will of course credit you and make your article the main focus of the post.
Hello everyone, visited the solar site and see google rank is zero. Perhaps, just for a demo, since cannot be producing any real leads, at that rank? Find people, don’t like multi-quote sites, because they know, it will get them a bunch of big mouth salesmen, calling them on telephone.
I just started an affiliate program direct on the bottom of my main site nucow.com ..I sell hard to find products, for high dollar, hence believe my affiliates, will want to link, due to very high average sale price. My affiliates will earn an average of about $100 to $200 USD per sale. Sure beats .03 for CPC google etc. plus I ship over entire world. Hard to do with solar panels. You would have to have a source, for every city in the world, or freight would kill you.
I am also looking, for sites to affiliate advertise, on my site, but do not want to use, the same Clickbank Chinese Junk Sites. Also, as Matt said, do not like a third party go between.
Clickbank makes you put money up front and take it, if you cancel out. Read the fine print, and it really makes you work for them (users) who provide nothing.
Really like the Matt Carter info. and of course I voted for Obama. Lance, Port Saint Lucie, Florida
Matt Carter Reply:
November 20th, 2012 at 7:47 am
.
.
They do Adwords so they dont care for page rank, you dont need PR to get traffic and make money
Beside my affiliate business i have a small accounting firm. After reading this i will dget leads for it and sign up to your club to learn more. My question is: should i use the current company website to get leads or a hole different website?
Matt Carter Reply:
November 21st, 2012 at 5:40 am
.
.
You could use the current one but you would need to create a good landing page to send the traffic to
Hi Matt, Check this out, this is brilliant for MLM & other niches.
Click on link: http://www.ibotoolbox.com/invited.aspx?jid=29803
Think you for answering My question. What would you do? Create a new landing page or do it on a hole new site? The question is, in the accounting niche, is it better to act as a provider or a information site?
Hi Matt, unfortunately I ran into some trouble with lead generation and it doesn’t seem to do well here in the UK. (at least not for me…) I have a software that allows me to generate 10’s of thousands of .html webpages on any website targeting anything I like. I used it to rank one of my sites and I got to the top of Google for anything-legal + mycityin the form of legalarea+cityname.
I sent an email to a bunch of solicitors in my City and the company I had taken the front page place from reported my site to Google. (I’m NOT a real lawyer of course) Google immediately relegated my site to lower rankings and I had to ditch it.
So next I build a site about plumbers in my area and ranked that… I’m getting emails from people looking for plumbers. So I started contacting plumbers in my area, but out of every single company I contacted (around 20), not a single one was interested. An average plumbing job is around £65.00 and I was trying to sell leads for £2.00 a pop. So I’m not even expensive or anything. Maybe it’s just that some countries are better at buying leads than others I don’t know, but from my personal experience that’s not something I’d waste my time on again.
This is a powerful strategy for local marketers who desperately need clients. If you learn to generate leads you’ll always have work.
Good Stuff!
I could not find many businesses in the Music category so after searching for some time I gave it up. I will start afresh now and check in other niches.
Thanks for the post.
Hi Matt, awesome content. I got your lead gen masterclass from being a member at affiloblueprint. I’m building up several websites targeting local businesses.
What is the plugin you use to collect the leads? I’m shopping around for a good reliable one.
Hey Matt,
I am thinking about doing a lead gen site. Is it taught step-by-step in your IM Super Elite? I’m really the type of person who learns by being given things to do, get them done, then come back for the next task til I finish my site. Is this the type of training that is included in IM?
Thanks!
Matt Carter Reply:
November 22nd, 2012 at 11:41 am
.
.
Yes i provide detailed videos on how to do this in the course
I am certainly going to look into this Matt as I have sold some local sites and this sounds good. Thanks again for great help.
Thanks for the brilliant post Matt! Its awesone how you have obtain the pro’s and con’s of leads. Generating leads is a great source of making tons of money. Thanks for all the tips and well written articles.