Many business owners think that if they put up a website, post their hours of operation and some contact information they are set! Unfortunately, that is not the case. Just because you can open your doors for business in the offline world and get customers walking in, doesn't mean it will work that way on the internet.

It's not enough to just have an online web presence. If you are a business owner and you aren’t taking advantage of different web strategies to grow and maintain your customer base, you are missing out. Lead generation is vital to the growth and stability of your business once you hang your virtual "Open for Business" sign.

Many business owners fail to incorporate the internet into their business in more ways than one. What are you doing with your website? How are you getting people to come back? How are you keeping your name in front of your customers throughout the year?

You only get one chance to make a first impression. With the internet, you may only get one opportunity to capture information from your visitors and keep them coming back. If you are a florist, you can provide a “Free 5 Page Gardening Guide” as an incentive for a visitor leaving a name and valid email address in other words generating a lead. If you are a restaurant owner you can provide a “Free 5 Minute Desserts” video and a recipe your patrons can print in exchange for a couple lines of information. To learn how to effectively create and place lead capture forms on your website watch the video below.

Once you capture the visitor information, you have now generated a lead that you can stay in touch with for as long as you own your business. You can send them quarterly newsletters with coupons they can use at your location. You can send emails providing information on monthly specials, giveaways and guest speakers. Lead generation and auto-response is a form of advertising that is continuous and practically free after initial expenses.

How do I stay in touch with my visitors? How much work is involved? With the right tools, this process is easy and painless. You will not have to write and send an email every month or every quarter. A little upfront work is required but an auto-responder like SendFree (which is free), iContact or AWebber (many more below) will make it seem like you slave at your keyboard every week, month or quarter.

When an email address is captured, it will automatically be sent to a database and your auto-responder software will add your new lead to the list. Your new lead will automatically get a welcome message and any subsequent newsletters when the time comes.

Once you get your account set up with one of the auto-responder companies, you will write your monthly letters in January and set up the software so that when you get a new client in May they will get a welcome letter and any remaining letters for the rest of the year. If you need to modify your newsletter later on, this can easily be accomplished.

Once you are set up to generate leads, you can focus on marketing to drive traffic to your site by putting your landing page on all of your marketing material. No matter how many leads come in, your work is already done and you will be in front of potential customers throughout the year.

Take a look at some real life examples. These are clients who needed a way to capture potential customer leads. As discussed above, they provided an incentive to the visitor in exchange for some information. They will stay in touch throughout the year and eventually convert that lead into a customer.

This company uses Lead Generation to capture potential buyers. They specifically focus on Real Estate investors looking for distressed properties. When you put in your zip code, email address and name ... you get a free report on finding your next rehab project.

When a potential rehabitation project becomes available in your area they contact the visitor via email. If it takes a month or a year to get a property in your area, you get a reminder that you visited their site for rehab properties and there is one available near you.

This is a group of musicians who wanted to capture leads for their upcoming album. They gave away an unreleased track in exchange for your name and email address. Their auto-response automatically sent a thank you letter immediately which included a download link to their giveaway track.

A week later the visitor got another email thanking them again and asking the visitor for feedback and a link to another free track if they filled out a short survey. The survey was filled out by people who would most likely become fans and consumers.

Throughout the year, up until the groups release date, everyone received periodic updates and links to listening sessions, virtual listening sessions (where one can provide real-time feedback via chat), release parties and private concerts when the group was in their city. They even offered a "Day-Before-Release-Date" release for the members of their list at a 10% discount.

If they didn't generate leads, they would not be able to build their fanbase as large as it is today.

In exchange for your name and email address, this company will send you a free report on how to stop foreclosures.  StopForeclosureDutchess.com will also send you emails every 3 - 4 weeks with the intent of purchasing your home if you are facing foreclosure.

Although there are many options to stopping foreclosures, there are a lot of people who would rather get rid of the house.  The bigger your list, the better chance you have in finding these people.