Generally speaking, there are two ways to get leads on the internet – the free methods and the paid methods. Both methods are equally effective, it usually depends on how quickly you want to see results, and your budget to decide which approach works best for you.
Free prospecting techniques usually consist of forum posting, organic search results, article directory submission, blogging, viral marketing, free press release and more.
On the other hand, paid technologies usually consist of Pay Per Click (PPC), CPA Ads, Paid Banner Ads, Sponsored Reviews, Paid Press Releases, Subscribe Listings, Outsourcing and more.
Most people tend to start with free online prospecting or traffic generating techniques because they are experimenting with them and do not have the ability to take a financial risk. For a start, you can sign up for a free blog and increase traffic there using free techniques. However, you should at least invest in your domain name for branding purpose. Using a blog is also a great way to appear on search engines just to post about your network marketing product or to present yourself as an expert in the industry – especially for longer tail keywords with less competition. You can also get additional traffic by submitting your blog articles to article directories, participating in the forum, and also commenting on other people’s blogs.
When you make some money with the free techniques, you can start investing in paid traffic. One of the biggest advantages of paid online prospecting techniques is that you can get as much traffic as you want. With Google AdWords for example, you can get traffic within 15 minutes to half an hour. You can also invest in banner ads on other people’s blogs or websites. You can even sponsor bloggers to write a product review for you.
When you have the traffic to your blog, you should be sure to sign up their name and email address in exchange for a free e-book or special report relevant to your network marketing product. You can then send out a series of follow-up emails to pre-sell your business opportunity, and when the time is right, they will in turn become your long-term partners.
