To help you answer this question, if you haven't already done so, please read the information on Lead Generation and Conversion . This is the framework for building a marketing system for your business. Now let's look at how to build a marketing system...

To be successful your marketing system MUST continually do two things...

1. Generate leads
2. Convert leads into customers.

Most Internet based businesses spend most of their time telling you how easy it is. Selling you the dream of making your first Internet fortune. They give you a generic web site, some basic marketing information and perhaps a few marketing tools. What you don't get are leads for your business. Yet, contacting potential customers is the most important ingredient for your success!

For many people, success or failure relies on how many contacts you have in your address book. Once you have exhausted this resource, your business can come to an abrupt stop.

The reality is that you are working in a competitive market. If you're going to compete you need to get competitive. There may be 200 million people out there on the Internet BUT, there are around 20 billion web pages. To make a ripple in this sea of competition, you've got to build a database of leads and keep putting new people in front of your business proposition. When you do, the sky is the limit!

Before we explore a few of the ways you can start generating leads for your business opportunity, there is one thing that we need to get clear. If you want to get serious about making money on the Internet, it is going to cost you money. That's business. It takes money to make money. You have to invest in yourself and your business. For those of you that believe you can build a profitable business on the Internet without investing money, stop reading now! "Oh! but I already paid $ for my business opportunity" Forget it! "They didn't tell me that when I joined the affiliate/network program" Of course they didn't! If they did, you probably wouldn't have joined the program!

Your business is going nowhere and you're going nowhere unless you take the next step. You need to get professional. Accept the fact that there are companies out there that have spent a small fortune on developing products for doing business on the Internet. AND accept the fact that if you want the really good stuff, the stuff that works, you're going to have to pay for it. The good news is that if you choose wisely, it won't cost you more than a few dollars a month to generate thousands of dollars in profit.

One of the best ways of generating leads on the Internet is to offer something for free or very little. The most common way people achieve this is to bulk email using a bulk email program. To fill it up with email addresses, you can either purchase software that harvests addresses from the Internet, purchase a mailing list from a reputable supplier or use a system like Veretekk .

Veretekk is a complete on-line marketing system that we use and highly recommend. What we like about the program is that it produces a constant supply of leads.

Veretekk doesn't go out and hit people over the head with your offer. The way it works is by giving you as many as 20 web sites that offer a variety of free stuff. For example, free vacation coupons, free software, free web sites and free e-books.

These sites are uniquely yours. On each of the sites there is an opt- in box where visitors can opt to receive other great offers from you. Hence, you get addresses from people who have benefited from your free stuff and are interested in more free stuff .

If your business has something to sell outright, you need to tread a little more carefully. Nevertheless, Veretekk gives you the opportunity to communicate, build a relationship and position yourself to offer your product or business opportunity. One word of warning...

Although Veretekk is the fastest and most economical way that we know to generate safe leads on the Internet, it requires a considerable investment of your time in setting it up to work for you. There is a lot to learn! You will also need to invest USD$41.95 per month (full service). For this you get a guaranteed supply of leads as part of a comprehensive on-line marketing system. If you do decide to invest in this program, please let us know so that we can give you support.

There are other lead generating sites on the Web that claim to supply you with the addresses of people that are interested in your business. What we have found though, is that many of these sites use a 3rd party to generate the leads. They can be very expensive; USD$100 for 500 leads is not unusual. And very often, the leads you pay for are not genuine or what we call verified . Depending on your target market, buying leads may be right for you. By all means check out what's on offer and, if you decide to buy, make sure you get value by measuring your success.

Whatever your source of leads, emailing any of them is not for the faint-hearted . It's a steep learning curve. One mistake and you can be accused of Spam and lose your ISP in an instant. The moment you start bulk emailing you're a marked man or woman. The main service providers know what you're up to in terms of volume. They don't like you doing it. All's quiet until they receive a complaint. Depending on how naughty you've been, you can lose your ISP without warning; no questions asked. And, as has been our experience, you may never even find out who ruined your business! Ouch!

To minimise the risk of losing you're ISP, you need to verify all email addresses regardless of where you got them. The rule is, if it's not in your address book, verify! So, bulk emailing is a 2-stage process. You've got to get permission first (verify) before you send your business proposition or offer.

If this all sounds too hard or too risky for your liking, there is another way. Veretekk have a product called VereMail . This is one of the most exciting email marketing products that we've ever seen on the Net.

VereMail allows you to upload your mailing lists and do all your bulk emailing without fear or risk of losing your ISP. This program will verify the leads for you! It can send massive lists in seconds rather than hours and even manage your lists. Veretekk members get VereMail included in the full service. This program can save you thousands of dollars in time, software and materials. Most importantly, VereMail eliminates the risk of you losing your ISP. If you're serious about making it on the Internet, this program is worth checking out.

Once you have decided on a system for generating leads, you can start working on your conversion strategy. If you're not sure what I mean by 'conversion' click here for an explanation.

Getting people to look at what you've got to offer is the easy part. Getting them to buy from you on-line is a little trickier.

The people who are really successful in getting people to buy from them understand that conversion is a process . This is not unlike selling in the real world. To be successful in converting leads to customers you need to...

• Believe you have a great product or service

• Build rapport and trust

• Follow-up, follow-up and follow-up again!

So, how do you get these elements into your Marketing System?

Understand that you are fighting an uphill battle if your product or service is not outstanding. Recall that I mentioned earlier that the Internet is a very competitive market. If you have a product or service, check out the competition and believe you are selling the best. If you don't have a competitive advantage and don't believe in your product, you'll have a hard time convincing anyone to buy from you. When you have competitive advantage AND believe in your product, it will become obvious to your prospects. This will make the process of conversion a whole lot easier. It will also make it fun!

Building rapport and trust with your leads results from taking an interest in your prospects. Internet marketers do this in various ways. One of the most common is via a free newsletter. Trust and rapport is built by providing regular information that may be helpful to the prospect. When it comes time to sell, this is usually done by way of recommendation.

Newsletters have proven to be one of the most successful ways of building trust and rapport on the Internet. By nature, they target your market and follow-up your prospects. This is why they work so well as a conversion strategy. If you can put a monthly newsletter together, it is an excellent way of getting prospects to buy from you over time. If you'd like to find out more about putting newsletters together, I recommend you subscribe to the Internet Marketing Center . They have a great free newsletter on Internet Marketing issues, lots of hints and tips and some excellent DIY products for marketing on the Internet.

Newsletters are, of course, not everyone's cup of tea. Another very effective way of building rapport with your prospects is by communicating with them via email. For me, this approach is more personal, flexible and effective. To get this to work for you however, you need to spend some time creating your messages and invest in good software for mailing, following up and managing your lists.

In creating your messages, the principles are the same as the newsletter. I.e. your messages should be designed to build rapport. You don't go out and immediately start belting people over the head with your business proposition!

This is what a successful email conversion strategy might look like. Many successful people on the Internet use this strategy. You should be able to apply the same principles to your business with similar success.

The objective is to start building rapport. Typically, your first contact welcomes the person, lets them know who you are, where you're from and asks them a few questions about their business. Note that there is no attempt to sell anything! And the fact that you don't try to sell them anything will drive them nuts!

From the welcome letter or first contact email, you may or may not get a response. In reality you'll get few responses. To maximise your responses, and ultimately your conversion rate, you will need to send up to 7 additional emails letting your prospect know you're still around and willing to lend a hand. These messages may be a week or 2 apart. Following a quick "hello", they'll typically include marketing tips or other useful information like links to web pages like this one! Again, there is no attempt to sell anything.

When you use this strategy consistently, you'll make a lot of contacts. What will happen is that you build rapport and trust by taking an interest in what the other person is doing on the Internet. In your communication you simply look for ways of helping people get what they want. Now here's the secret...

When you help people to get what they want, you'll get what you want. By helping people get what they want, you develop the level of trust that's required for people to buy from you.

Using email to implement your conversion strategy requires good contact management. For this you're going to need software. If you decide to DIY then you'll find all the state of the art software you'll need at the Internet Marketing Center . Alternatively there are companies on the Internet that provide the software on-line such as auto responder management services.

Veretekk with VereMail offers extreme value for money. For a total of USD$41.95 per month, it's a one-stop lead generation and conversion centre. I'm probably a bit excited on the value side as we ran a wholesale business for 9 years with overheads of USD$4,500 a month! So to get a whole business system like Veretekk with VereMail for $41.95 a month is ' extreme'!!! Click here to check it out. When you get to the site, click one of the 'Learn more' buttons on each product.

Finally, let me say this... whatever business you're in, your success depends on generating leads and converting a percentage of these leads into customers. In this respect, the only difference between say a retail business and an Internet based business are the numbers. If you want success, invest in yourself and your business. Take a professional approach and build yourself a marketing system that leverages your time and money.