Looking to generate leads on the internet? You may not need a website after all.

Zosel Blog

September 05, 2009

Many small businesses looking to connect with new customers via the internet share a very common misconception about internet marketing. They believe the solution to lead generation is paying web developer to build a search engine friendly website that will attract their prize customers, and close the sale.

Makes sense, right? Wrong.

When it comes to truly effective lead generation (B2B or B2C), a well-designed landing page system connected with a highly targeted paid search (adwords, PPC) campaign is the magic bullet that most business owners really need. If all you're after is reaching as many customers as possible for the lowest cost, shelling out big bucks to build a website doesn't really make sense.

For example, a few months back, we were approached by home realtor who was bound and determined to build a new website that targeted his area of town, and promoted his firm's unique home buying and selling specialties. And, as usual in this down economy, his budget was as tight as they come. His expectation for a search engine friendly website that would meet all his lead generation needs for a tight budget was way off base. Long story short, we built the site for him, but sadly, his budget was not sufficient to really get his site rolling.

A few weeks later, we were approached by another small business looking to accomplish the same objective: generate targeted leads from specific Twin Cities are zip codes for very specific promotional offers. And then we had an epiphany:

This guy just wants leads. Why waste his time and money building a website? The client was an established home handyman business, looking to generate leads for small home repair and remodeling projects. So this is what we recommended:

Create a Google Adwords campaign targeting Minneapolis Western Suburban Zip Codes using ads and keywords promoting their capabilities and testing special promotional offers.
Create a series of specific landing pages each connected to specific ads, each with appropriate conversion forms.

Done deal. The home handyman's adwords campaign and landing page system were up and generating leads within 10 days. No fuss, no muss. Here are the other advantages of our adwords/landing page internet lead generation system:

Low upfront cost – a fraction of the cost of building an entire website dedicated to promoting your business.
Start generating leads immediately – total project time is less than 10 days.
Change on-the-fly marketing – change promotions, ads and landing pages in a heartbeat, at very little cost.
Precision targeting – create a unique combination of ads and landing pages targeted by geography and demographics.

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