by Stephen Meyer
It’s time to take your business at home to the next level. You have decided to start a marketing campaign. Now the decision comes down to what to do, the answer, you have to prospect.
Now the question is who are you going to prospect? Again the answer is simple, every single person you come in contact with. Well, if you’re like me you will tell everyone who dares come close enough to talk to. These people are known as “leads”.
A lead is everyone you know and they are people you have never met before. To break them down they are your “warm market” and your “cold market”. There are other names for different categories of leads but these are what we’ll discuss.
People You Know:
Your warm market is made up of those people you know. They could be your closest friends or just some one you see at a local shop. Most companies will tell you the first place to start marketing is with your warm market because there is a trust factor and they are more prone to listen.
For your warm market list all you need to do is write down the names of all those you know, first as friends, and secondly as acquaintances. This list will be easy at first because it will be common names but it will get tougher as you try to think of all the people you come in contact with.
This list could literally be in the hundreds and keep you quite busy for a long time to come. The “Warm Market” list is an absolute must and one you will need to create quickly to give your new business a jump start.
Your warm market is the one you hold closest to your heart because it is people you know. You have a new business that has potential to create a terrific income for you and those who come in under you. Your family and friends need to be the very first ones you contact for that reason.
Cold Market:
Eventually your ‘Warm market” list will wear out and you’ll have to come up with new prospects. Although your warm list is the best place to start, you certainly can not stop there if you plan on growing a significant Home Based Business. The next set of leads I’m going to look at is your “Cold Market” prospects.
Although you may be scared to death of approaching strangers with your business you know it is something you must do to grow your business. The only problem you have is where do you get the names for your list?
On occasion I will search the net looking for places to buy leads and there is always more than I could ever use. These companies sell leads for many different prices. If you want the freshest leads possible you could easily pay up to $300. For a list of 20 names depending on how they were marketed and as little as .49 cents per name if they are older than a month or two.
The first thing to consider is lead quality. Usually the more you pay the more you are going to get as far as leads that are responsive to your opportunity because they have recently searched the net looking for money from home opportunities. The less expensive leads are those who have searched for opportunities on the net but may have done it a month or so before.
Hundreds Of leads For A Low Cost:
The number one mistake most marketers make with the high volume cheap leads is to send them directly to their main sales page on the web or hit them up with your longest sales pitch. Usually hoping 1 in 100 will respond. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way most of the time.
More than once I have purchased high volume leads for my web site. Usually in very large numbers up to 20,000 visitors. At first I thought the idea of huge volumes of visitors would produce some sales. Unfortunately they did not. Most of these people were not looking for what I was selling if they were even looking for anything at all and most stayed less than 30 seconds.
The vast majority of these people would never take a long look at what my web site was about because it had no interest to them. These types of visitors are simply names who clicked on some add in a program and were randomly sent to my page.
Considering the fact they only stayed a few seconds I concentrated sending these leads to pages that only took a few seconds to read and did not have any type of sales pitch on them. They were not going to buy but they certainly were going to look. So I began the process of building a “List” of names, one’s I could then market to using email.
When using low cost high volume leads or aged telephone leads you simply need to come up with something that is quick and easy that will open the door for your next call or email.
High Dollar Leads:
The more you pay the more you get is true with these leads. Most often they have been captured through a landing page promoting a specific type of opportunity. These can cost as much as $12.00 a lead. But, these leads are primed and you want to be ready to give them your best sales pitch and to spend some time with them. They are not the best for the inexperienced because of the cost.
As you start to pay more money for leads you will find out you also gain a lot more information about the person you are calling. With leads that cost in the medium price range you should expect very specific contact and location information. As you get into the higher brackets these leads will have even more information including how much they are willing to invest and more. Their value to you in your marketing campaign has increased dramatically the same as the cost of the lead has increased.
It would be a waste to simply put this type of lead in a email marketing campaign or a news letter. Because they are actively searching for a specific type of opportunity they need to be contacted as a soon as you have their information. Waiting could and probably will mean a waste of time and money. Many want to start their new business as soon as they can and it’s a good chance some one else has beat you to them if you wait and they are in another program.
Providing you are confident with your approach you can expect to recruit a couple people for every 20 names you contact. At times the number can be more and it can easily be less. Often these people are searching for information and need time to sort through all the information they have gathered so they can decide on the company they want to go with.
There are many kinds of leads available and some cost a lot while others cost just a little bit of time. The most important thing is to have a specific plan for them before you make your approach. It doesn’t matter if you are approaching your family and friends or some one you have never met knowing what you are going to say and how you are going to say it along with being confident in yourself is the key to your success.