What are some offline ways of generating Sales leads?

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Generating Sales Leads

Generating sales leads is the process of making contact with and collecting information from prospective clients. In larger companies, generating sales leads falls to the marketing department, since they're responsible for creating all advertising and outreach materials. However, in smaller organizations, it's common for salesmen to have to do their own sales lead generation.

There are several proven techniques for generating sales leads:

Networking
Advertising (TV/print/Web)
Telemarketing and teleprospecting
Direct mail, fax or e-mail marketing campaigns
Web sites and search engine optimization
Buying a sales lead list

Generating sales leads traditionally begins with networking. This is as simple as contacting your friends, family, former coworkers and existing clients and asking if they know anyone who may be interested in your product or service [source: startupnation]. These referrals are also called sales tips.

Besides networking, trade shows are excellent opportunities for business-to-business (B2B) networking. By setting up a table at a trade show, you can collect contact information from dozens of potential buyers and business partners [source: startupnation].

Web advertising is fast becoming the most powerful way to generate sales leads. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, in the week of September 24-30, 2007, Web surfers clicked on over 53 billion online ads selling everything from financial services to cars to travel [source: Nielsen NetRatings]. These ads often lead to short surveys or contact forms that can be accessed in real-time by sales representatives. More on real-time and opt-in sales leads later.

Telemarketing and teleprospecting are two similar but distinct methods of generating sales leads. Companies contract the services of a telemarketing firm that employs operators who read from a prepared script. Operators sell a product or service directly to the public over the phone. Telemarketing, unfortunately, has a terrible reputation for being a nuisance (calling during dinner hours, offering products that have nothing to do with the potential client, et cetera) and has led to the creation of the National Do Not Call Registry.

Teleprospecting, on the other hand, is a B2B sales technique that employs trained operators -- either in-house or from a third-party teleprospecting company -- to contact targeted business prospects [source: intouch]. In teleprospecting, the callers don't talk from a script. Instead, they familiarize themselves enough with the product or service to be able to gauge the client's interest. If a client wants to know more, the teleprospector refers the client to a salesman.

The quickest way to assemble hundreds or thousands of sales leads is to buy a sales lead list. There are dozens of direct marketing companies who collect and sell specialty lists for certain business and consumer sectors. The advantage of these lists is that a salesman can get instant access to thousands of names and numbers for a few hundred dollars. The disadvantage is that all these names are unqualified leads, meaning they haven't been analyzed individually to see whether or not they're a good match for the salesman's specific product or service [source: MindTools]. We'll talk more about specialty lists later in the article.

Now let's talk about tracking sales leads and the technology that makes it easier.

Answer
Generating a steady flow of sales leads should be the goal of any business.
But it is one area that many businesses have difficulty, mostly because they donât have the marketing system in place to generate those leads.There are some methods present by which a business sales lead can be increased such as
1. Leverage your friends and family
2. Join a networking group.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
4. Advertising.
5. Improve your retail display.
6. Affiliate marketing.
7. Advertise on mobile apps

Our school is having a fundraising dinner/dance/auction and we need a Zoo related theme. Any good ideas?

Erin

The event is formal/semiformal and generally brings in over $100,000, so we would like a Zoo related theme that isnt too childish

Answer
Hey there!

I've been heavily involved with nonprofit fund raising for years....so here are some ideas I have that could be relatively low in cost for your cause...

1) Consider a mail campaign - depending on how many mailing addresses you have, you never know how many people might respond to your cause and just write you a check! This works amazingly well for several organizations that are short on time AND resources.

2) Consider running an online auction - this is an AWESOME way to get to the people whose mailing addresses you don't have (ie you've got their EMAILS)...your email base can feel like they're using their expendable income on great stuff AND its going to their community at the same time!
I've included a link of one of the online auction companies that I've worked with...cMarket. They also have another website, BiddingforGood.com, that opens your auction up to all their members so that people who you don't even know can donate to your cause and bid on your items!

3) Instead of having a garage sale at your home, try having a "garage" sale on eBay! Think of it as a virtual way to get rid of some stuff AND make a little more money...(make sure you include the cost of shipping those items online or else you'll end up losing money!).

4) Have a fundraising event - give people in your community something to look forward to, and host a gala....you can sell tickets, have an auction, raffle prizes, etc that will give your community something to look forward to AND a perfect opportunity to donate to something they care about.

5) One last tid bit - consider selling sponsorships for your event...this can help off set some of your cost INCREDIBLY. You'd be surprised how many local businesses want to be a part of your cause-minded event! You can ask for anywhere around $500 per sponsor, and if you put your auction online, you can ask for even more than that because they'll be getting just that much more exposure through your website and event emails!

Best of luck with all of this! :)

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