Generating leads can be a challenge for any business, but particularly for new ones. A proven, time-tested method for continuously generating leads and closing the accompanying sales is the lifeblood of any business. The problem for a new business is that they might not have the time or the money to go through an exhaustive trial- and- error period to try and determine which lead generation system works for them.
In the old days, the different ways of generating sales leads were limited. A business would choose between such lead generation methods as telemarketing, direct mail, print, radio and television. The problem with each of these methods is that the business is marketing to (and paying for) their message to reach a very large population- most of whom have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the product or services being offered. For example, let’s say that a jeweler places an ad in a newspaper featuring diamond engagement rings. What percentage of the newspaper’s reading audience is in the market for a diamond engagement ring? Yet the business, in this case the jeweler, is paying for his message to reach the entire newspaper audience. This can be very expensive. On top of this, you must remember that not all readers that are in the market for engagement rings will actually see the ad! You can see why many businesses get caught in a rut where they can’t afford to advertise and yet they can’t afford not to- they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Fortunately for businesses, a new method for generating leads is taking the world by a storm. It’s called “pay per click marketing”, because businesses pay only for those customers who “click” the business’s paid ad on a search engine’s results page. The paid ads are usually those results that appear at the top and/or down the right side of the results page. Google, Yahoo and MSN are the biggest players in this type of advertising program.
The beauty of pay per click marketing is that businesses have finally been given a method for generating leads that does not force them to pay to reach a large audience when in reality they are targeting only a small percentage of that audience. With pay per click, only those customers who type in certain keywords (for example, “diamond rings”) to the search engine will see the merchant’s ad. Theoretically, only those prospects who have an interest in what the business is offering will click on the ad.
Talk about a revolution! Most people, including business owners, have not stopped to realize how amazing it is for an advertiser to only have to pay for those people who are interested in their products at a time when they are sitting in front of their computer- presumably near a phone and a credit card. Pay per click marketing is a method for generating leads that should be explored by all businesses- old and new.