I am not a social media junkie.  My book came out about creating buzz online before FaceBook was open to the public and before Twitter existed.  I have stayed involved but have not made social media a top priority.

However, Google Plus may be different.  I have been in it 48 hours now and I really enjoy Google Plus.  It is cleaner and simpler than FaceBook, although it lacks a few things I would like moved over from FaceBook.  And unlike twitter, Google plus is not as easy to spam which means it actually has somewhat interesting information in it.

I find it nice to be starting over and building up a great list of interesting people from scratch.  Of course I am adding the people from other networks to my Google Plus account too, but I am also looking to meet new people and use it much more collaboratively than the other things from the past.  I’d had high hopes for Google Wave to be a great tool for social collaboration, and that did not work out.  I think Google Plus has a lot of promise in this area.

Also, lead generation with Google plus will be achievable because people are actually paying attention and interacting more on Google Plus than they do in the other networks.  It seems to combine the best of Twitter and FaceBook and does some new management things that make it a really great tool.

I suggest you check out my profile on Google plus and add me to a circle so we can stay in touch.  I am really going to make that my Google Plus about higher quality content than the other networks which I mostly automate.

Whether you are growing a major business or just getting an Internet business going from the couch, WordPress is the weapon of choice to generate valuable, targeted leads for you.

The beauty of this is that it levels the playing field.  WordPress itself is Opensource and fr.ee.  Hosting on a host like Bluehost is less than $6 per month.  Writing is often easier for the solopreneur because the major corporations have such strict compliance issues.

The blogging software itself performs better in search engines than anything you can buy if you spend a few minutes configuring some plugins and settings.  It generates leads through ranking higher in search than other types of websites.

What people do not realise is that most blogs do not have many repeat visitors.  In fact, more than 75% of a blogs visitors are via search on any given day and they will only visit once and never return.

This means if you do not convert them to a lead, you have lost them.

It also means that they are not reading your posts every day.  It is fine if you write on the same topic regularly, because no one will read the back articles anyway.

WordPress also has some built in features you will never see, but none the less they are working for you.  RSS and Pinging are letting other sites know what your site is doing and it lets search engines know that you are ready to have them come and index the site again – pumping up that traffic.

Tagging is another powerful feature.  When you tag with keywords you have identified as high value, you will rank higher for those keywords.

And finally, if you integrate a good call to action or lead capture strategy, a decent number of people are going to give you their information and become a lead for you.

You can use WordPress to develop your personal brand, sell affiliate products, build your list or generate leads for your CRM.  It works great with any of these.  If you want to get videos and tools to help you do this better joing Buzzoodle.com and jump start your success with WordPress.

I was on the phone with a network marketer yesterday talking about lead generation for network marketing.

She knew what she was doing, but was frustrated at the speed of filling her down line.

There was only one glaring flaw I noticed in her strategy. She was too focused on her product and now focused enough on building her community.

What I mean is this. She was driving her network marketing leads to her network marketing landing page instead of getting them on a list and then offering them a variety of options.

By building the list, you will be able to offer different network marketing products to people and let them by into the one that appeals to them the most.

You can also make money offering your network of people various tools to help them market their network marketing business.  This could really boost your income.

When you are doing lead generation for your network marketing produce, add the extra step in your lead generation system to add them to an email list and build a relationship with them that will be far more profitable down the road.

I frequently get people looking for lead capture software and that is the one thing our Buzzoodle lead generation system does not do.  The reason is simple.  Lead capture should be done with your sales software, not a separate form that then needs to be ported over to your sales system.

Now for some people, a simple and cheap lead capture form is all they need and to those people I recommend aWeber Autoresponder.  Now keep in mind, it is better to use a good CRM like Salesforce or InfusionSoft, but if you need a cheap lead capture system and you want to maximize your investment, you cannot go wrong with aWeber.

Now you may wonder why not a free lead capture software solution, which is possible with a WordPress lead capture plugin.  You can go that route, for sure, but for a small monthly fee you can use the aWeber Autoresponder to build nicer forms, capture any data you want, get great reports and schedule follow up emails with your new leads.  This last point is so important.  If you can automate your sales process you will be more productive, sell more and work less.  Sounds good, right?

So go check out aWeber and if you really have to, use a free lead capture software solution but as soon as you can, make the switch to something that is going to get you better results.

Data entry plays an important roll in Marketing.  Marketing is mostly the act of building lists, ideally targeted lists with a lot of really good information like email and phone and mailing addresses.

When a company is out marketing, they might go to a trade organization, show or other event where they get great lists and they have the best intention of entering all that valuable information into excel or some other database or a CRM.

But time goes by and the marketing data entry never gets done and the potential leads get cold.

It was not until recently that I realized that big data entry companies actually will often do a smaller job like just described as well.  In fact, I am currently working with a data entry company and they are doing a number of smaller jobs that surprised me.  They can enter survey results when you have collected paper surveys.  They will enter information for publishers when they get subscription cards back.  They can process rebate cards, customize mailings and key data from paper or electronic directories.

This might not be surprising to you.  But what did surprise me is that they are very efficient and much more affordable than I expected.  I see projects done for as little as $25 which in my world does not seem like it would be worth doing, but for a company that only does data entry, it is just one more project.

Especially if you are looking for a local, Ohio Data Entry Company, please go check out Coleman Data Solutions and get a quote.  They provide an important service for marketing firms in the Akron area and throughout Ohio.  No marketing agency should be doing data entry themselves.  Leave that part of the project to expert data entry professionals.  The nice thing about Coleman is that it is also a Non profit data entry business and proceeds go to funding mental health issues in Ohio.

The idea that you can pick from many lead capture options that are free is a loaded idea.

What I mean is, yes there are many free lead capture software options but you may be better off paying for something because it will look more professional and you can count on it a bit more.

One of my favorite free lead capture tools is Google Docs, as long as you do not mind it being branded by Google Docs and you are not looking for anything other than capturing the lead information.  You just choose the “forms” option and Google docs will build your a form, embed script to add it to your website and a Spreadsheet to capture the data.  I always set it to email me whenever the form is updates so that I know when I generate a lead.

Next would be the many WordPress lead capture plugins (search forms) that you can find.  My advice here is to test carefully and retest often.  All too often I have done an update on WordPress or on a plugin and then gone months not realizing that the form was no longer working.  It is a free lead capture option but I never really trust it.

Next would be to use a Free CRM like Sugar CRM.  This is not for the faint of heart as setting it up and configuring it can take some tech skills, but these tools, vTiger is another, also will give you free lead capture and an actual system for moving the lead through the sales process.

Lastly, you can use a low cost option like aWeber where you can capture the lead and set up automatic responses to them, as many as you want for as long as you want.  This is very effective at generating leads and is a great low cost lead capture option.  You can also get something like SalesForce.com or Zoho CRM and it will cost more, but they have support and reliable sales lead capture services.

Everything is a funnel.  When you are promoting your business or product you are out casting a net and bringing people that are interested or meet certain criteria into a funneling process.

I see a lot of small businesses fail because they are focused on building a better marketing funnel when they have not defined and refined their sales funnel yet.

Things that can be included in your sales funnel are:

CRM – I have used many CRM’s and they are critical to building a good sales funnel.  There are free CRM systems and higher priced ones with more features.

Productize – Even if you are a service company, create products for your services.  Give them names and definitions so you can talk about them and explain them in a way that is clear and easy in the sales process.

Templates – You have to have great templates, because once people are in the sales process they will start asking for more information on parts, and being able to quickly send them things is essential.

Case Studies – In many cases you want to have case studies you can use in your sales funnel.

There are more thing as well, but this is a good start.  Think about the process of selling and everything you might need along that path.  Find ways to illustrate your value and make the sale easier.  Keep refining your sales funnel all the time.

Then, once you get your sales funnel fully defined and running well, that is the time to start building your marketing funnels.  Internet Marketing will be one marketing funnel, but you should look at where your ideal prospects are and build multiple marketing funnels and measure things like lead generation, revenue, profitability, cost per lead, etc.  These will help you identify your best source of leads in your marketing funnels and focus on them, increasing profitability.

Too often the small business owner thinks of this as all one big funnel.  You can never identify your best marketing funnels unless you define each one separately.

I am a sucker for well designed and implemented Internet Marketing software.  I have to say that Andy Jenkins does a great job and go look at Kajabi.  It wowed me so much I signed up to promote it and I usually do not spend my time doing that.

Of course, one of the trickiest things about doing a membership site is producing great content, and Kajabi does not do that for you.

But what Kajabi does do is speed up the process of building your professional membership site and also streamlining your marketing in an incredible way.

Now to be clear, I am just getting access myself to this system so it is too early to say how well I like it or how effective it is.  However, even thought I am capable of building most of these features myself, it is too time consuming.

Do not underestimate the importance of the Kajabi marketing features.  I have written on other websites about membership site software that picking the software, creating the content and setting up the entire thing is hard and it is only the beginning.  Marketing a membership site is also difficult and takes a lot of time to reach a critical mass.  I have seen friends struggle for years trying to build their membership site only to find at the end that now they have to learn marketing.  (I warn them, but they often do not listen)

As is to be expected at this point, Kajabi has a money back guarantee and even currently has a free Kajabi two week trial period to see if it is right for you.  Seems like a no brainer if you are interested in building a top tier Internet Marketing business.

Frequently people want to buy a lead generation tool.  What they do not often understand is that it takes more than one tool to build an effective lead generation strategy.

And it is not the same for everyone.  If you want B2B lead generation you are going to invest in a great CRM that is going to help you follow your sales process from initial lead to final close of the sale.  And that could take years to happen.

On the other hand, you may just want to grow your email list and sell affiliate products to those people.  Getting people on your email list is lead generation as well, but does not require the same tools.  In that case, a simple autoresponder will do and will make you money.

What other tools can you use for lead generation?  You can build a lead generation website and use it to attract people that are doing searches and convert them to leads.

You can do keyword research with a great keyword research tool.

And you could use social media and other tools to attract more people into your pipeline of lead generation and sales.

Then there are many specialty products.  Simple things link WordPress plugins and custom tools and exit scripts that can all contribute to successful lead generation if they are made part of the strategy.

I like to tell people that it is never done.  Even if one site becomes a finely tuned lead generation producer, then it is time to set up another site with a slightly different niche market.  There are a lot of tools you can use that can help but do not feel like you need them all at once.

Please note that the offer mentioned in this may or may not be valid at the time you read it.

Yesterday I bought Traffic Zombie – See the LIVE DEMO to get your 50% off Coupon Code

I’d avoided even looking at it because I hate the name.  But something caught my eye and I thought I would take a look.

It did a very good job of getting me to buy – after all it is a small one time fee and a lifetime membership.

But the question is, does it work?  Like most things, it all depends on if you use it properly.

I just launched a fantastic $1 for 60 day lead generation membership trail offer with it – you should take a look and see how it looks in action.

Personally, I do not like to promote something until I have tried it.  However, I set this up in a way that the visitor can pay full price with a 30 day money back offer or they can get 60 days for one dollar if they do two small things to promote us.  Either way I want there to be no (significant) risk to a buyer’s choice.

Results will take a bit of time to see, I am sure.  However, I like the thing so far and if it produces new clients and new links – how can I go wrong?

You can check out Traffic Zombie and our $1 Offer via Traffic Zombie software and see what you think.