Sally Owen, bookseller

In order for your business to thrive you need a fresh supply of leads on a regular basis. The problem is that obtaining these leads can be expensive so it is a challenging task when you are first starting out and don't have much in your budget to spare. Here are some things to consider that might lower the cost of getting business leads.

When many people start their business, they simply put up a sales page and sell an item. While this might be profitable, it does nothing to encourage the growth of the business. Although an email address is probably obtained with each sale, no follow up is made to it.

To get more for your money, you need to turn those customers into leads so you can make multiple sales from them over time rather than selling a single item to one person one time and that's it. If you go for the single sale, you have less profit to cover your expenses. Getting people to hit the "Buy" button is a skill in itself that most people lack and to get results, you need to hire someone to write your copy for you.

Copywriters do not come cheap, especially if they are good and have a proven track record. That is the major cost of sales letter pages. In essence, you are relying on a set number of sales to offset that cost and lead into profit. This is known as overhead or initial outlay and we all have been there at one time or another.

The site itself has to be designed so that anyone can navigate through it. I have seen a lot of expensive, flashy sites that basically generate no income for the owner other than the sales that come from it. Add in the costs of hosting, domain registration and upkeep and you may never recover the entire cost of the business as it will always be creeping up and biting you on the butt!

A site that is set up to generate leads on an ongoing basis on the other hand is more profitable in the long run and can pay for itself many times over. The site doesn't even have to be anything fancy or expensive. You can simply offer a free report in exchange for an email address and name. As long as this person stays on your list, you can market to him multiple times and hopefully he will buy from you multiple times over the years.

Because people agree to receive email from you in exchange for your free report, you don't have to worry about spamming. Set up your list to be double opt-in because when you do this, the person must confirm their email address by clicking on a link before they get your free report. This stops anyone from putting in someone else's email address. You know that the people on your list want what you are offering and have signed up for it willingly.

This is why lead generation is so important. You add new people to your list every day and have an ever growing list of people to market to. It only takes a few minutes to implement and compared to hiring someone to craft a sales page and design a fancy website, the cost is minimal. Treat the people on your list well in order to build trust and you will have customers for life.