Invest in lead capture software or programming. You can either hire a company to provide you with a lead capture landing page or program it into your website. With lead capture, your website users are required to sign up for an account or submit their name and email address in order to get valuable content.

• This lead capture software ranges from simple to complex. You can have a landing page that captures the data, or you can sign up for a system that tracks your user’s accounts once they sign in. You can see what products they looked at, what pages they read and, judging from their account activity, you can see how likely they are to become customers.
  

  Small business online marketing

Define your lead gathering strategy. You should choose 5 to 10 ways to get the attention of your target demographic(s). Some common Internet lead capture strategies are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, guest blogs, search engine optimization (SEO)/search engines, article directories, online ads, affiliate marketers and more.

Define the valuable product or service you can offer to get the client to sign up. You may need to brainstorm with your marketing team about what you can provide. Ideas include a free trial, free services, a coupon, a video, educational content, a free account, or access to a number of such services.

Define your end goal. This is the end relationship you want to have with the information you gather, and it differs greatly for online businesses. In some cases, the contact details of a person is your Internet-based goal, because it may funnel leads into a service-based business that calls its customers by phone, and in other cases, it is developing repeat clientele.

Small business online marketing

Begin using all 5 to 10 lead gathering strategies at once. With an employee heading up each strategy, make sure employees coordinate new offers, posting consistently and timely as you add more value to your website with free content.

• Use website links that have embedded web analytic codes. You can do this through your website provider or with a free Google Analytics account. Make sure each strategy uses a different link, so you can track your most successful lead gathering strategies. Most web analytics programs will automatically mark down leads that come from major search engines.

Have someone examine the ratio of visitors to your page, versus how many people enter their contact information to get access to content. A high percentage means you are targeting your demographic well, and should continue to offer similar content. A low percentage means you need to invest more in adding value to the free content or service you are offering.

Small business online marketing