Getting leads or prospects for your business is the eternal challenge for business, and here we'll talk about getting leads for your network marketing business. This article focuses on online methods of building leads; offline you can always build leads by talking with people.
Of course the fastest way to get leads is to simply buy them. This comes in at least two flavors:
1) Raw traffic.
2) Email leads.
But I've found that buying leads is almost NEVER worth it. Those leads are simply not responsive. Take a look at my Google Analytics feedback, comparing organic traffic vs. purchased traffic. Notice "Rebrandable Traffic" and "Direct Traffic," which is largely from the same source (Rebrandable Traffic), where clicks have averaged literally zero seconds to just a few seconds on the site, making me think that most may be robots, or people who hit the "back button" the moment the analytics pixel recognized them:
Of course the fastest way to get leads is to simply buy them. This comes in at least two flavors:
1) Raw traffic.
2) Email leads.
But I've found that buying leads is almost NEVER worth it. Those leads are simply not responsive. Take a look at my Google Analytics feedback, comparing organic traffic vs. purchased traffic. Notice "Rebrandable Traffic" and "Direct Traffic," which is largely from the same source (Rebrandable Traffic), where clicks have averaged literally zero seconds to just a few seconds on the site, making me think that most may be robots, or people who hit the "back button" the moment the analytics pixel recognized them:
In a similar way, I would almost never recommend emailing purchased leads, including those from safelists. Even if they've been pre-qualified, they weren't pre-qualified for YOU. They don't know you or trust you. So your e-mails will probably be ignored or go to spam. In a best case scenario, you may be able to give away something for FREE (the action of building trust) to get them onto your own list. In a worst case scenario, buying leads will get you in trouble as a spammer.
On the other hand, there are people who do buy leads and they call them directly based on the fact that they have shown interest in network marketing. These people move quickly through the calls -- they take a "no" and move to the next call, and they build teams this way. I don't have experience with this approach, but if that's for you then you can experiment with buying leads. We'll focus on other methods here.
The key to building meaningful leads online is to offer value so that someone first gets to know you and trust that you are a benefit to them. You can give away some value for free to build initial trust (for instance, helpful information, entertainment, etc. through a website, social media site, video site, or wherever they might find you); if they want to know more, invite them to join your mailing list in exchange for something you'll give them -- whether this is an e-book, software, an e-mail course or whatever.
You can also build trust simply by developing a relationship with them, which can be done by networking. This does take more time, because it's much more "one on one." And you want to be careful not to oversell to anyone you've built a relationship with. Once you have trust, you should be able to share something like a product or service with them. But turn into a sales machine and you will erode that trust.
So let's take a look at a few ways you can build your leads online:
LeadsLeap
Notice my analytics image above. LeadsLeap leads were LEGITIMATELY on my site for a long time and visiting more than one page when they visited. While they have free accounts (and I recommend this if you don't have money to spend), I pay $20/month for a professional account based on the success I seem to get from this site.
There are a lot of ad exchange platforms out there, and most of them are minor variations on the same thing. Click on ads to get credits to run ads, and then other people will click on your ads. LeadsLeap goes WAY beyond this by offering legitimate tools like these for FREE:
The Link Tracker: use this to track whether you're getting REAL visitors. Build trackable links (for use in email or on websites), link rotators, and announcement bars for the top of websites. Again ... this is all FREE when you join LeadsLeap. (Join for FREE here.)
Reviews: this is VERY interesting. You can review any program you're part of. Other people can do the same. The more people review it, the more likely it is to get excellent coverage in the search engines. When someone visits the page for that program they can see ALL the reviews. If they choose to then visit the program by clicking on the link, LeadsLeap rotates the link among all the reviewers. So if 3 people reviewed it, you'll get one of every three clicks. If 10 did, you'll get one of every 10 clicks. But since more reviews potentially means more search engine traffic, there's real value for you here, and all you have to do is provide your honest experience with the program. I use this to get free leads, especially for free programs like Webtalk.
Tools / Content to Give Away: remember, to build leads it helps to be able to GIVE them things. With LeadsLeap you're able to GIVE them the tools above when they join LeadsLeap. You can also give them this Lead Generation Report with your LeadsLeap link automatically included inside! When you join LeadsLeap, you'll see non-intrusive ads from your upline when you log in, as well as other member ads. (Yes, if you join through me, you would see my messaging.) But this does NOT give anyone access to your email address. You'll only see these ads along with others when logging in. This also means, though, that if you refer others, you will always be able to share a message with them -- something they'll see if/when they log into LeadsLeap.
Besides all this, LeadsLeap is still an ad exchange with an option to upgrade which lets you run MANY more ads and provides plenty of other benefits. If you were to upgrade in any ad exchange program, I would recommend LeadsLeap. I also frankly like that LeadsLeap avoids hype and really tries to EDUCATE its members on how to build their business.
Join for FREE here.
Notice my analytics image above. LeadsLeap leads were LEGITIMATELY on my site for a long time and visiting more than one page when they visited. While they have free accounts (and I recommend this if you don't have money to spend), I pay $20/month for a professional account based on the success I seem to get from this site.
There are a lot of ad exchange platforms out there, and most of them are minor variations on the same thing. Click on ads to get credits to run ads, and then other people will click on your ads. LeadsLeap goes WAY beyond this by offering legitimate tools like these for FREE:
The Link Tracker: use this to track whether you're getting REAL visitors. Build trackable links (for use in email or on websites), link rotators, and announcement bars for the top of websites. Again ... this is all FREE when you join LeadsLeap. (Join for FREE here.)
Reviews: this is VERY interesting. You can review any program you're part of. Other people can do the same. The more people review it, the more likely it is to get excellent coverage in the search engines. When someone visits the page for that program they can see ALL the reviews. If they choose to then visit the program by clicking on the link, LeadsLeap rotates the link among all the reviewers. So if 3 people reviewed it, you'll get one of every three clicks. If 10 did, you'll get one of every 10 clicks. But since more reviews potentially means more search engine traffic, there's real value for you here, and all you have to do is provide your honest experience with the program. I use this to get free leads, especially for free programs like Webtalk.
Tools / Content to Give Away: remember, to build leads it helps to be able to GIVE them things. With LeadsLeap you're able to GIVE them the tools above when they join LeadsLeap. You can also give them this Lead Generation Report with your LeadsLeap link automatically included inside! When you join LeadsLeap, you'll see non-intrusive ads from your upline when you log in, as well as other member ads. (Yes, if you join through me, you would see my messaging.) But this does NOT give anyone access to your email address. You'll only see these ads along with others when logging in. This also means, though, that if you refer others, you will always be able to share a message with them -- something they'll see if/when they log into LeadsLeap.
Besides all this, LeadsLeap is still an ad exchange with an option to upgrade which lets you run MANY more ads and provides plenty of other benefits. If you were to upgrade in any ad exchange program, I would recommend LeadsLeap. I also frankly like that LeadsLeap avoids hype and really tries to EDUCATE its members on how to build their business.
Join for FREE here.
IBO Toolbox is a free social network for people interested in business opportunities. They have a wall you can post to and a "Press Releases" section that is really an "Articles" section, but it's a place where you can build content about anything you want to share. These articles may do well in the search engines because IBO Toolbox is an active, content rich website, although I will note that these articles are not very well optimized for search engines.
You also get a profile page where you can link to your network marketing business(es), and this page automatically links to your articles (press releases) as well.
You can also advertise to the other members (either by paying or by clicking on their ads to get advertising credit), although you will see from my analytics that my visitors from IBO appear to be as bad as bots, with literally 0:00 time on site. So personally I will not spend any more money advertising on the site.
The people on the site, however, are real, and you could spend time networking there if you like. You can choose to build relationships this way if you like. Certainly these people will be interested in network marketing, but you're likely to find that some try to pitch you on things while others are better about building a relationship first.
At the very least, it may be worth joining to write an article on your opportunity with a link to your personal website, where you talk further about it; along with a link to your replicated website from the company. This can help you to get some search engine traffic. But I do recommend LeadsLeap long before this one.
Join for FREE here.
Webtalk is a more traditional social network but, because it offered 5 levels of referrals to those who joined during its beta period (still available as this writing, but not for long), it has a foundation of many people interested in network marketing.
(Webtalk is free to join, and there's no cost to share and earn from it. But those who join up after the beta period will only have a 1-tier affiliate program.)
This means it's important to use Webtalk in a more professional or personal way to network with others, as you would on Facebook or LinkedIn. The benefit of Webtalk is that it offers (or will offer) a lot of features not offered by others, including a way to separate business from personal messaging (both in what you post and in what you read on your news feed).
Eventually they will have optional upgrade options like LinkedIn does, which will help you to speak with those you're not connected with. This isn't a way to go after the masses, but is a way to potentially reach those who are tougher for you to reach -- quality over quantity.
Because this is a free network with many powerful features coming and an opportunity to earn by sharing it, I do recommend joining. You can join here for free.