5 Inexpensive Ways to Get Leads In Your Local Market

Today we’re going to talk about inexpensive ways to get leads in your local market. Before you start implementing any of these marketing strategies, it’s crucial that you set up a free Google Voice number to use strictly for voicemail purposes. You will be getting calls all throughout the day and night, so it’s best that all calls are directed to voicemail. This way you can designate a block of time to call your leads one after another and remain in control of your time. The whole purpose of the voicemail is for your leads to leave their name, phone number, and email. It is a lead collection tool only. The voicemail is not used to sell, presell, or give any information about your business or your products. The more you reveal, the more you will satisfy their curiosity, and the less likely it is they will leave their info. Remember, curiosity causes people to take action. A voicemail message that works well for me is:

“Thank you for responding to our advertising campaign. Please leave your name, your address, your telephone number, and your email address, and one of our representatives will contact you just as soon as possible. Thank you and have a great day”

That’s it. Say any more and you risk your conversion rate going down. Instead of having a phone number in your advertising, you can also direct them to a squeeze page. I hope you have a squeeze page by now, and are not sending people to your company-replicated website. With that said, let’s get into the 5 cheapskate ways to get leads in your local market:

5 Ways to Get Leads in Your Local Market

1.) Drop Cards – These little gems get quite a response. Do you want to see some people falling over themselves to get to your marketing message? Keep 1000 of these in the glove compartment of your car at all times. Grab a handful to take with you every time you get out the car. Also keep some in your bookbag, purse, wallet, pocket. These work especially well when you go to the store, the park, the mall, the beach, the airport, or anywhere there is high foot traffic from people. Discreetly drop these on the ground as you go about your day. Place them in books that are relevant to your niche at the book store, on store shelves, in magazines, anywhere they will get high visibility. These cards are so realistic looking, people have no choice but to pick them up. And when they unfold them, they’ll be greeted with your sales message. The great thing about these drop cards, besides them being people magnets, is that you don’t have to alter your daily routine to distribute them. Just place them strategically as you go about your day. They’re also viral. If someone picks one up and is disappointed that it’s not real money, they’ll usually just drop it back on the ground for you, so it’s waiting for someone else to pick up. One great place to put them is the credit card slot of the gas station pump every time you stop to get gas. They fit perfectly! You can get 1000 dropcards for $100, or just 10 cents per dropcard.

2.) Post-It Notes with Rubber Stamp – These also don’t require you to alter your daily routine, so there’s not much effort involved. For this you only need two supplies. You need 3″ x 3″ post-it notes and a rubber stamp. Make sure you get the fluorescent, neon-colored post-its, as they just scream for someone to look at them. Get them in the multi-colored neon pack with hot pink, bright orange, lime green and white. For the rubber stamp, I use the Brother 2260, which you can get from Office Max, Office Depot, or Staples. They will print your ad on it right in the store and it will be ready for pickup in a few hours. It will cost you about 22 bucks for the stamp and about $7.29 for 450 post-its. Aside from the one-time cost of the rubber stamp, you’re looking at 1.6 cents per post-it, and that’s a heck of a deal for a very effective marketing strategy. You stick these on objects that have human interaction, like gas station pumps, bus stop benches, newspaper dispensers, vending machines, ATM’s, waste receptacles, clothing donation boxes, redbox dvd machines, etc. DO NOT place them on personal property like vehicles; that will annoy people because of the adhesive.

3.) Flyers on Cars with Craigslist Distribution – Placing flyers on cars is a strategy that’s not really new, but there’s a better way to do this. It takes forever to go out and about putting flyers on cars, and your time is better spent connecting with people on the phone or online or creating new content. However, there are many people who advertise on Craigslist that will do this for you. Just do a search for ‘flyer’ or ‘flyer distribution’ in the ‘services offered’ section. The folks I use in Houston will distribute 1000 flyers for $75 and will distribute to any area I tell them to target. So that’s 7.5 cents per handbill. They’ll even pick up your flyers from your house! I use 1/4 sheet handbills like this one, and get them cut to get 4 handbills from one sheet. With the right message, you can get a great response for cheap. You can make them at home with your printer, some paper, and a paper cutter. You can also get them printed at Kinkos for about 10 cents per sheet and get 4 handbills per sheet for a cost of 2.5 cents per handbill. I’ve found you don’t save enough money by doing it at home once you’ve factor in the cost of the paper, ink and your time to cut them into fourths, so it’s best to just drop the original off at Kinkos, let Kinkos print and cut them and you just pick them up when they’re ready. You can even upload your original to the Kinkos website for even more convenience. I’ve found the paper color that works best for me is fluorescent hot neon pink, as shown in the photo. So the total cost, when adding the cost per handbill to the cost to distribute, is about 10 cents per handbill.

4.) Newspaper Classified Ad – These still work. And with the decline of the newspaper industry in this internet age, rates are great! Your ad does not have to be fancy or need any graphics. Just a 3 line ad with 2 lines of your ad message and your Google Voicemail number on the third is enough to get leads to call you for more information. Don’t only use your main city newspaper, also go for the smaller circulars like the Penny Saver, or the neighborhood / community papers found in the trendy restaurants like Chipotle and Starbucks. You can usually get better rates from the smaller papers. Just shop around.

5.) Bulletin Board Flyers – We’ve all seen the bulletin board flyers with the tear-off strips for your phone number and contact info. You can get 10 tear-off strips or more from one sheet of paper, so at 10 cents per sheet, you’re looking at a penny per strip. Put your sales message in the main part of the flyer, and just put “make money — your voicemail number — 24 hr message” on the tear-off strips. Post them on any bulletin boards that get lots of traffic. College campuses, post offices, libraries and laundromats are a few good places to start. One last tip. Whenever you post a flyer, always tear off one or two strips. No one wants to be the first to tear a strip.

Well that’s it. 5 cheapskate ways to get leads in your local market. Notice I didn’t say anything about friends and family? Pretty cool huh? Now you’re doing some real marketing.

To Your Success,

Nate Jackson
Email: Email Me
Phone: 281-815-4229
Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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