10 Best Lead Generating Tools

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Question: What’s the most successful giveaway — eBooks, webinars, coupons or vouchers, etc. — you’ve used to drive lead generation, ever?

Full-Sized eBooks

“eBooks deliver a ton of value. The fact that a consumer is getting an entire book for free is perceived to have a LOT of value. For most people, it’s always worth taking the time to fill out a few lines on an opt-in form.”

Richard Lorenzen, Fifth Avenue Brands

A Customized Training Quiz

“I rolled out a fully customized training based on a quiz for my email opt-in early in 2012, and it has been really well-received. The idea is that you can get a little extra information about your prospects, even as you are delivering a ton of value to them. You can see my example at http://Websitecheckuptool.com.”

Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media Inc.

Gift Cards

“Webinars and eBooks are attractive, but most potential customers are more motivated by cold, hard cash. But that’s not to say that your giveaways need to be expensive. Keep it at $5 and you’ll still get solid responses.”

Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

Presentations on SlideShare

“Post a valuable presentation to SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net). Doing so will help your SEO, establish you in the industry, tease your business, tap into the existing SlideShare network and optimize your presentation for social media. You’ll be surprised by the number of views you get soon after posting. Secret tip: Load your presentation up with an SEO-rich script and use images over the top as the slides.”

Benjamin Leis, Sweat EquiTees

An Ultimate Industry Guide

“A while back, we created an “Ultimate Guide” eBook for our industry. Coupons and vouchers are good, but if you really want people to purchase your product or service, give them your expertise. eBooks offer great value to the clients and, in turn, make them more likely to view you as the authority in your industry.”

Nick Friedman, College Hunks Hauling Junk

One Product Each Day

“In March 2013, we created the “Mod-a-Day Giveaway.” The idea was to give away a different product each day for a month. By committing to doing this daily, we created a reason for people to continue to engage. Of course, we’re having other conversations on social media, too, which allows these prospects to learn more about what we stand for. Stand by your own product and offer that for leads!”

Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

The Right eBook

“I have four eBooks that I wrote as a set several years ago that are still driving traffic to my website on a regular basis, as well as converting traffic to leads — despite having no gateway (such as a requirement to subscribe to a newsletter for access). These aren’t any old eBooks, though: They were written to specifically address the four questions I get most often from prospects.”

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Discount Coupons

“Discount coupons are the clear winner for our e-commerce business to drive leads/sales. Once we added a coupon sign-up icon on our website, sales revenue increased by 30 percent. When the online shopper perceives he is getting a good deal in the form of a discount, he is far more likely to convert to a sale. Make sure you set an expiration date to create a sense of urgency to purchase. “

Anthony Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings

A Hardbound Book

“I wrote a book, and we offer delivery to your door for free! It really helps us stand out and has done a great job with lead gen. “60 Seconds: How to Tell Your Company’s Story and the Brain Science to Make It Stick” has useful info for people to make their own videos, hire and work with our competitors or work with us to produce a great video. “

Andrew Angus, Switch Video

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

12 Must Have Tools for Managing Leads & Contacts

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6165Question: What do you use to share leads and contacts seamlessly among virtual team members?

WORKetc

“I use an SaaS software product entitled WORKetc. This software is customizable so all team members, or only a select portion of your staff, can have access to leads.”

Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

rsz_incontentad2Act!

“I love Act!; it stands the test of time. It is a very easy interface; the search functions are great, and the ability to convert the customer data to Excel to do direct mail or constant contact campaigns is very attractive. Most of our customer data is from organizations looking to book our CEO clients for events, and Act! allows us to keep organizations updated on our clients and activities.”

Raoul Davis, Ascendant Group

Streak

“We live in our email inboxes at work, so it makes sense to have a CRM system that seamlessly integrates with our email. Since we use Google Apps for Business on the Poshly team and Gmail is our preferred email provider, Streak is a phenomenal resource for us to share leads and contacts with ease among all of our virtual team members. Our correspondence and contacts are in one place. “

Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com seems like one of the “big guys” now, but it’s still a nimble tool that allows companies large and small to organize leads. The product forces your team to be disciplined in tracking, and following up with, sales opportunities. We now have a much clearer idea of the sales funnel, and we don’t let opportunities fall through the cracks, which is pretty critical to any startup!”

Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

Highrise

“We use the 37signals software program called Highrise. It’s great because everyone on our team can collaborate from wherever we are. We share a database of contacts and can constantly see an up-to-date snapshot of each team member’s outreach, share notes, and assign tasks. The mobile app is especially helpful for on-the-go access. It has helped streamline our CRM efforts in a big way.”

Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

Zoho

Zoho is a fully customizable CRM solution that allows our team to organize and track leads to convert them into clients. The full functionality of Zoho allows our team to effectively optimize sales through customized reports on the success of leads by source, industry and other indicators. Best of all, it’s free for up to three users, and you can integrate/sync it with Outlook. “

Fehzan Ali, Adscend Media LLC

Close.io

Close is a new tool that makes it very easy for our sales and accounts teams to seamlessly share info. The beauty of Close.io is they’ve integrated literally every key feature you can think of to make sure other team members know exactly what’s happened with any given contact. Close.io has been a complete game changer for us, and it has increased our efficiency substantially. “

Sunil Rajaraman, Scripted.com

Google Docs

“It’s old school but it works. We don’t claim to have a fancy CRM, and I expect a salesperson to call me after this article gets published, but we’re perfectly happy sharing an Excel spreadsheet and taking copious notes. We can also download segmented email lists from Mailchimp and import customer data from PayPal, Google Checkout, and Eventbrite. All the information is there for us. “

Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

ConnectWise

ConnectWise is a customizable system that allows us to manage all of our resources in one location, facilitate collaboration, and ensure streamlined operations. It serves as a database for sales leads, opportunities, and contacts and is an efficient tool to track status and time on tickets and projects. Most recently we are integrating ConnectWise into a new quoting system for seamless end-to-end workflow. “

Dave Smith, TekScape

Salesforce and MailChimp

“We use MailChimp for all our email campaigns directed at new community members, and we use Salesforce as a CRM for potential ad sponsors. Both solutions work well with our virtual team members.”

Patrick Curtis, WallStreetOasis.com

Dropbox

“I’m a big fan of Dropbox. Being able to access documents, spreadsheets, contacts and more without having to email back and forth has made our business more efficient. We share certain folders in Dropbox. The documents and files within the shared folder are updated whenever a user makes changes to the original. Also, access to the folders is easy to obtain and can even be done off Dropbox’s mobile app.”

George Mavromaras, Mavro Inc. | Praetor Global LLC.

Ruby on Rails

“We’ve created a built-from-scratch CRM in Ruby on Rails over the last five years that allows us to seamlessly allocate leads among virtual employees. We have 35 full-time and 35 part-time employees and 1,800 tutors — all operating from home. Building a system for our own very specific needs was far more expensive, but has been far more powerful than any CRM we’ve ever tested, such as Salesforce.com. “

Chuck Cohn, Varsity Tutor