I’ve seen a rather disturbing trend in the training that some people are passing down to their referrals. Not just in NPN but all over the place.. No wonder people are getting frustrated. It’s difficult to keep up the enthusiasm when your sponsor is giving you mis-information on the best ways to promote your business online.
Have you ever been advised to do this:
“After joining my program under me…”
Step 1. Go buy some leads
Step 2. Import them into an autoresponder
Step 3. Sit back and wait for the money to come in
Step 4. Goto step #1.
Honestly those were the same instructions (more or less) that I saw yesterday being sent to someone’s downline as a “how to make money online” message. Sheesh! Either the sponsor is the one selling the leads, or they’ve been told the same thing from THEIR upline sponsor and are just passing it along. Giving out those instructions to a new marketer is sort of like saying “Start with the most inefficient and costly marketing method, then do nothing and hope it works, then do it again”. On the positive side, it sure looks easy to do. In reality, it doesn’t work like that and you’ll quit if you try and do it. DON’T FALL FOR IT!
The problem is the “shortcut mentality” that is out there that dictates that since you need leads to build your business, it’s better to skip the steps of actually generating leads and go right to the followup. What you might not realize is that it’s actually NOT a shortcut. It’s actually faster, cheaper, and more profitable to do it the right way.
Yes, emailing to bulk leads can have a place in your marketing plan but you need to know a bit more about it before you can just go at it. Point being you should NOT be importing leads as your MAIN method of generating leads for your business. Here’s why..
There are many variables that come into play with regards to blasting emails to leads lists that you have purchased.
1. Lead quality – exclusiveness, age, country, origin etc.
2. Outgoing letters / subject lines / spam trigger words
3. Quantity of leads
4. Consistancy of mailings
5. etc..
One of the complaints I’ve had about email blasting is “I’ve imported 10,000 leads into your mailer and haven’t had one single signup. What’s going on?”
My answer: “Because you’ve only imported 10,000 leads and your leads are probably crap.”
Any time you’re dealing with “bulk” anything (leads,traffic,signups,clicks..), you need to keep in mind the number 1,000,000 (yes one million). That is how many leads you’d need to blast to in order to have any idea of the quality of those leads and the quality of your email campaigns. I guess the point here is that importing and blasting emails to people that probably don’t want to hear from you is not a very efficient way of advertising anything. It is “a” way of advertising, but shouldn’t be “the” way in your overall marketing strategy.
As a side note. A few months ago I spoke on the phone to an online marketer that ONLY does bulk email to generate her income. She was sending around 1.2 MILLION emails PER DAY through various email servers that she was paying for herself, to leads she was purchasing herself. She told me she was barely earning a full time income and she was now earning half of what she was earning a year ago, doing the same thing. Sound like fun?
Fact: Your money would be better spent in other kinds of advertising.
I’ll give you an example. Generally speaking, in this industry you should aim to spend between $1 and $2 per generated lead. A “generated lead” would be (in our case) someone that enters their name into one of your NPN capture pages as a double opt-in lead. These leads would be generated from your own advertising.
So… If you bought 10,000 leads at 1cent per lead (which is really cheap) you would have spent $100. Out of those 10,000 you might get a couple people that say they might be interested in your opp. Maybe you won’t get any. A percentage of those leads will never see your email due to spam blocking, and a percentage will bounce back as undeliverable. To get to the $1-$2 per lead point, you would need to get 100 of those leads to optin to your capture page. I’m sorry but with cheap leads, that will not happen. Period. You’ve just wasted $100 and the time it took you to find, purchase, and to import the leads. This is where the frustration and the blame game starts kicking in.
So what’s your solution?
Answer: solo ezine ads, safelist ads, traffic exchange hits.
First off, what am I talking about here..
What is an “ezine”? An ezine, is, essentially, an “electronic” magazine. What exactly does that mean? Like a magazine, an ezine is something you subscribe to and it is “delivered” to you via email (ie. not spam). The beauty of an ezine lies in the fact that you receive articles, information and more, “specifically” on the topics that interest you. The owners of these ezines often sell advertisements either in the newsletters themselves, or as “solo” ads sent to their entire ezine database.
What is a “safelist”? A safe list is an email list you can join for free, and in return for joining you are allowed to email out to the entire list of members that join. Usually most safelists have different levels of memberships you can join at, and each different level will allow you to email more members more often. The best type of safelist to join is a ‘credit-based’ safelist. In this case the members would need to earn their mailings, racking up credits by clicking email ads from the other members. Most safelists sell ad credits as well which can save you from clicking all day.
What is a “traffic exchange”? A traffic exchange is similar to a credit-based safelist except that to earn credits you would be viewing other people’s websites for a determined amount of time (usually 15-30) seconds. Traffic exchanges will also sell you credits which would allow you to avoid having to click on other people’s websites all day to earn credits.
Now, for your $100 that you wasted on leads, you could have put out a number of targeted solo ads to probably thousands of people. And remember that these people are already expecting to receive emails like yours since they’re already active and in the same industry as you (The leads you bought are not). You would use your ezine ads to direct prospects to your NPN capture pages (or your own capture pages) where they would opt in and become generated leads.
The same can be said about safelists ads, and traffic exchange credits.
As I said above, you should aim to spend between $1-$2 per lead. So if you purchase an ezine ad for $20, a good return on your investment would be 10-20 leads that signed up through your capture page. You may get less, you may get more. If you don’t get as many as you’d like, change your ad, change your subject line and run it again. Use the NPN Ad-Tracker to see where your leads are coming from. Re-run what works, don’t run what doesn’t work. DON’T take your next $20 and buy leads. Remember that an ad that doesn’t work in one ezine, may work wonders in another ezine. Test, test, test. It’s what successful marketers do.
Basically, you will get more out of placing these types of ads than you would EVER get in buying and blasting to leads lists. I guarantee it. And it will even take up less of your time, and less of your money – which sounds good to me. We all want to make more money, perhaps we should do it the right way?
Have a great day.
And please please please don’t pass information to your downlines just because your sponsor sent it to you – unless they are actually using it and actually making money with that information.
– Geoff.
P.S. The guy you bought the leads from has already made more money from those leads than you will, just by selling them to you.
🙂 Feel free to COMMENT below..
I think this site is a wonderful site
Thank you Geoff for more good tips !
Actually me and my group do advertise but never buy leads. I have some people who want to advertise NPN outside israel so this post is very good for them!
Yeah, I’ve always stayed away from leads myself because I never knew how reliable they were.
Now after reading this post, I’m glad I’ve been staying away.
Thanks Geoff.
Good info. Althought not a big fan of traffic exchanges, but divesifying ones marketing is key, along with staying consistent in your marketing efforts.
Great stuff Geoff. I have purchased thousands of leads and you are right. They are worthless.
Randy
Great piece of advice, I do not currently buy leads nor do I recommend buying leads. I tell my team to use free advertising, or their own warm market.
Thanks for the advice
Thanks for your post Geoff – couldn’t agree more. We recommend using the Top List Builder programs as an upgraded member. We find it cost effective to pay $197.00 for an Annual or sometimes Lifetime Membership with a good list that allows you to mail 3000 members every 3 days. If one is an upgraded member at 10 to 20 of the top list builder sites and you make certain you never miss a mailing opportunity this gives you good exposure to a targetted audience for a full year or more for a one time cost.
Yes, that’s the way you do it. Thanks for the comment.
– Geoff.
Great advise, and I’m sure you have saved a lot of us, wasted
time & cash.
Thanks
Frank
Thanks for the great marketing tips!
Geoff. Good advice. I have tried this strategy recently following advice from upline and did not get any sign ups – or at least not many. I also recommended this to downline and have had no reports of the strategy working.
Prior to that I used exactly the strategy you described and it worked fine for me – 4 to 6 sign ups a week.
I think its good to experiment but the tried and tested solo ads, traffic exchanges, listbuilders is the best way to go
Best wishes
Peter
Yes it’s good to experiment, find your own way. You have to find the prospects that are targeted to what you are selling. Find the right ezines and safelists and you’ll do fine.
As i’ve read your blog, i was so thankful that i opened it and have read it because i learned what ezine and safelist are. I have nt tried them yet, but now i will advertise using them. I’m using traffic exchanges for my ads.
thank you so much for giving tips like these, it really helps me a lot.
Hi Geoff,
Thanks alot for your tips on Ezine,Safelist,Traffice Exchange and your best advise on buying leads.I have tried buying leads before and ended up disappointing.
Well done,
Yong
Thanks Geoff,
I have always done well generating my own leads with my own capture pages, and that’s what I teach my downline.
Great information
Good stuff once again Geoff.
Keep up the great work.
Cindy
I use the advertising methods Geoff outlined above and can testify that they do indeed work!
Have a great day!
Diane
Hey Geoff, great tips. There are also some “marketing companies” that will, for a price of course, that will sell you leads, automatically load them into an autoresponder and market to them without you having to do anything.
Allegedly, it’s the ultimate hands free, passive income system, lol. We all know that it simply takes doing a few simple advertising tasks every day and track your results.
Anyway, great that you are bringing out these useless tactics for us all to learn about and benefit from.
Tom
Thanks Geoff for the great post and info. I have been through my share of upline, so called leaders, telling me to buy leads and cold call them, As well as the never ending, three foot rule. I hated their advise.
I started developing ways to generate my own leads on and off line.
great post i
Geoff…you are spot on.
I have yet to find a more cost effective means of generating leads than solo ads in ezines, or to other lists…whether that be safelists, listbuilders or private lists that accept solo ad advertising.
I had a talk with a guy a few years ago who bought tons of leads, coreg leads…you name it…and mailed out millions per day just like the lady you talked about.
He actually did well in his MLM with this method, but his cost per acquisition (his cost per new distributor) was SO sky high it was almost insanity.
How much it costs you to get a new customer is so important. Know your metrics…know your conversions.
Global NPN converts very well on a system-wide scale from capture page –> lead –> customer
Send that targeted traffic and it will copnvert.
Nice post Geoff.
Great information Geoff,
I will be implementing some of your ideas.
Thankyou
I concur Geoff. There are far too many free & simple ways to get traffic to a capture page to waste time and money on junk e-mail lists. Good stuff, keep it coming.
I absolutely love it! You always tell it like it is!
Great advice Geoff. I have found this out the hard way. Buying leads does not work. There are much better processes out there that will turn tire kickers into entrepreneurs. General leads are exactly that. General. Your leads should be targeted.
Thanks for the timely post.
Very good info Geoff. I can attest to the effectiveness of Safelist advertising. Roughly 70% of my list has been built through credit based Safelist advertising. I draw new Opt ins daily. The secret is Testing. Testing headlines, and testing copy. Using this as your “free” testing ground, allows you to tweak your headlines and copy to be the most effective. That’s when you pull out the big guns and begin a serious Ezine Solo Ad Campaign. It’s been working for me.
Steve,
Yes I agree. If you don’t test you’ll have no idea what works and more importantly, what doesn’t.
Yes, you’re right Geoff, and now I’ve found a way to simplify scheduling and tracking the conversions from those list mailers it’s really made a huge difference to the ease of doing this. I’ve saved so much time!
And once they’re in the NPN mailer they’re followed up automatically.
Totally true Geoff.
I have tried buying leads in the past and I find that the conversion rate is much lower than with leads you generate on your own.
Generic home business leads are not specific to your opportunity and replies such as “get lost creep” are not uncommon.
Additionally, if you market where other marketers hang out they will have a better grasp on your business model and will need less training.
Randy
Hey Jeoff
Explain something to me. You say don’t buy leads but, you sell leads within the NPN system. So why contradictory statement.
Don’t Understand
Luz
No I think you missed the point. My article is advising not to use the ‘lead blasting’ method of marketing as your MAIN marketing process.
“Yes, emailing to bulk leads can have a place in your marketing plan but you need to know a bit more about it before you can just go at it. Point being you should NOT be importing leads as your MAIN method of generating leads for your business.”
After reading your article Geoff and knowing what I know now I would never have purchased leads no matter how fresh and opt in they are – a waste of money. As you say in your article people need to be interested in what you have to offer, buying leads are not specifically targeted to your offer.
Wow, I feel like I need to be shot in the rear, I joined NPN when it 1st started, and I droped the membership because I just never took the time to read it, I just recently rejoined and was about to drop the membership because I never read it.
tonight for the 1st time I read an artlcle and then another and another, This is good, Just in this one sitting I have learnt so much!
Wow.
I can sing a song , Oh for the time , the money I have wasted!
I know now where to spend my few mins I have to spare each day.!
Great article, wow learned a lot. It’s best to generate your own leads, that way you know they are 100% from one opting in to your capture page. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you very much. This explains advertising and makes more sense than any advise I’v had. I have read the same thing but it was not worded so you could make any sense out of it.
Good Stuff!
I am using leads and results are meager but it is not my main method of advertising. It is no more than very small part of my effort and I do mean effort.
Good advice. We would all do well to take it seriously.
Earl