You've heard the saying "where there's a will there's a way." This applies to lead generation too. If you're strapped for cash, but still motivated to generate leads then this article might just make your day.
Any marketer worth their salt is laughing at this article's title right now. You see, they are already getting paid to generate leads because their profits are far exceeding their advertising costs. Sadly, this is rarely the case for newcomers to this industry.
So let's cut to the chase. You want some quality leads, and you want to know how get paid to generate them. Let's begin.
Tactic #1 - Paper Placemats
You've seen them at your favorite restaurant. Sometimes they are plain, sometimes they have a map of the city printed on them with advertisements placed around the perimeter.
Here's where you come in. Start thinking about selling advertising instead of buying it. You can easily sell advertising in these spots, insert your own ad for free, and let the restaurant owner place whatever ad they want in the center.
You'll have a tidy profit leftover after you get done paying your printing costs, and the restaraunt will love you for giving then free placemats when they previously had to pay for them!
Yes, lead generation can be, and should be, simple.
Tactic #2 - Amazing Fish Bowls
The simplicity of this strategy may just blow your mind when you see how effective it is. You've seen the fish bowls at restaurants typically where you drop your business card and enter a drwaing for a free meal...or whatever the business sells. Guess what, there's money in those fish bowls for you, and lots of it.
Let's say you take over the fish bowls. The restaurant has their weekly drawing and you come along and pick up the leftover business cards. You then extract the contact information from each of the cards. Make sure you require an email address to win the drawing. Now you are building a contact list of the restaurant's patrons! You keep the list and allow the restaurant to broadcast emails to their customers any time they like with daily specials etc in exchange for, you guessed it, the right to send your own non-competing advertisements to the subscriber list.
Once you've built a list for one restaurant you can easily sell advertising space to other local businesses hence again letting someone else pay you to insert your advertisement. You can easily build 100's of contacts every week from a single restaurant using this method.
There are many, many ways to get paid to generate leads. If I had time I'd probably write down more of them! So get creative and start thinking about selling advertising instead of buying it. This minor adjustment to your thinking may radically change how you generate leads. Then eventually your primary business will pay for your advertising through profits and you wont need to do the extra footwork required by these methods.
Either way, no more excuses about lacking leads!
Where there's a will, there's a way. Plain and simple. So long as you remain committed to your enterprise there are always ways to succeed.
