I happen to be friends with a seven-figure internet marketer (that’s seven figures per year). Watching the way he does business has been extremely eye opening. See, I grew up dreaming of a six figure income. That was the dream, the holy grail.

During the last year, I have finally started to realize how deep the rabbit hole goes. I can now see that six figure internet marketing is not only possible, it’s likely for people who have the triple combination of passion, patience, and determination. Some of you could have what it takes to create seven figure incomes.

I’m not saying that any of this is going to happen overnight. I keep realizing again and again that a love affair with my current methods continually stunts my growth. Learning the correct mentality and method isn’t an easy process. You might be six months, a year, or five years away from reaching your goals; embracing this lesson will put you closer to them.

Today I’m going to present you with an introduction to lead blogging: how to capture, manage, and profit from a list of leads generated with a blog.

Blogging for Leads

There is an enormous gap between the traditional blogging community and the high six and seven figure internet marketers that most of us will never meet or even hear about. A large part of that gap is comprised of a single principle that bloggers rarely use.

Most bloggers are very content to get a few Adsense clicks every day. They get some traffic, produce a few clicks, and then try to build more traffic that can produce more and more clicks.

A seven figure guy would take that same traffic, generate leads, provide those leads with continual value, and sell to them 20 times over the next few years.

The concept: Making multiple commissions from people on your list.

An example:

I am almost obsessed with learning about fitness. I have read more about fitness than almost anything else, including internet marketing. I studied exercise science in school, certified as a personal trainer (although I don’t train anyone and my certification is expired), and work out 6+ times each week. I test different theories on diet, exercise, and nutrition on myself.

The honest truth is that I could make a pretty big difference for people when it comes to fitness. I’m not saying I’m the world’s best fitness expert because I’m not. I’m simply saying that I know more than most people and could therefore help a lot of people to learn.

Now if I was to start an online business related to fitness, I would have several options. The easy approach would be to start a blog and add some form of advertising. If I was like everyone else, this would probably be Adsense, at least in the beginning. This would lead to some traffic and inevitably some Adsense clicks.

The other approach I could take would be quite different. Instead of trying to get people to click on Adsense ads, I would do everything in my power to turn them into a lead. In other words, I would try to get their name and email address. Some of you may consider this invasive. To me, it all depends on what you’re going to do with the information.

I personally would capture that name and email and continue to provide them with solid information on fitness and nutrition for years. How would I make money? I would point them to legitimate products and information that I buy myself. If I buy a remarkable book or e-book about fitness, I will point them to it. If I start using a new supplement that is really working, I will point them to it. If I discover a new workout technique that works wonders, I will tell them about it.

Going back to the Adsense method, I would never be able to tell them anything new. I would be sending them away, one click at a time. If we confront the brutal facts, we have to accept that we could have sent them away to a crappy site created by a savvy internet marketer that knows absolutely nothing about fitness.

If you have a commitment to provide people with true value, they are better off in your hands than they would be in the hands of almost everyone else. If you can’t make that commitment, you are probably destined to become a true rip-off artist if you start down this path.

There’s no doubt that while the advertising model can provide a healthy amount of income, lead blogging provides an exponentially higher upside. Your ability to capture leads will provide you with growth potential much higher than your rate of traffic increase.

The Beginning of a Lead Generating Blog

First and foremost, in order for a blog to produce good leads, it must be built around an industry that is progressive, for example:

• MMO/Internet Marketing
• Weight Loss
• Finance
• Technology
• Parenting
• Health

In these and many other industries, new information will continue to become available. New studies will be released. New studies will be conducted. New technologies will be revealed. This means simply that you will be able to continually provide value and that new products and services will be continually released.

If you have a blog that’s built around a progressive industry, you are already sitting in a relatively good position to start generating leads and building your list. If you don’t have a blog like that, it’s never too late to get one started.

The Traffic

Building traffic to a lead-generating blog is exactly the same as building traffic to any other type of blog, except it affords you the opportunity to use a bigger advertising budget for traffic. Ever wonder how people can spend $3 per click for traffic an make a profit? It’s a totally different ball game if you’re turning your traffic into a list of people that will buy product or service again and again.

I couldn’t possibly go over everything you can do to build traffic here, so I’m going to refer to to some other stuff we’ve written on the subject:

• Introduction To Link Clusters
• How To Increase PageRank And Keyword Authority
• Building Authority With Blogroll/Sitewide Link Exchange
• Escaping The Search Engine Pipe Dream
• Creating Landing Pages Worthy Of Getting Ranked #1
• This Worst Post In The Universe
• 5 Reasons I Used To Suck At Social Media

Generating the Lead

There are a lot of different ways to capture leads for lead blogging. At the most basic level, RSS provides people with a basic way to ’sign up’ for your continual advice. While RSS has been increasing a lot in popularity, email is still the preferred method of communication by most people.

A simple way to get people to sign up by email is creating a basic form on your site. Feedburner will provide this form for RSS by email - you can copy the code for this form directly from your Feedburner account.

You could capture the same information without signing people up for RSS by using a form from Aweber, which would sign them up for a free email newsletter. Usually you can get some people to sign up simply by offering ‘free industry updates’.

The most efficient method, however, that people use to generate a lead is by giving away a free product. Aweber will be your best friend in this process. You would need to create something free that can be downloaded by your site’s visitors. Individuals will download your free report or product, and will be directed to opt-in for future communications. You will want to, of course, let people know that this is what they’re signing up for.

Aweber will walk them through the process of signing up for your communications, and will then provide them with the download information.

Managing Your List

The hardest part of this process is managing your list of leads. In order to do this with the most success, you need to consider yourself as a true mentor that is acting in their best interests. That means you will need to offer them advice, provide value, and point them towards products (even free products) that can help them. Steer them away from products that will waste their time. If you will always act in their best interest, you won’t have any trouble managing your list. Once you start to act solely on your own interest, you will ruin the profitability of your list.

Creating Income

Affiliate marketing is going to be the overwhelming income stream of this strategy. Since you will be blogging in a progressive industry, there will always be new ideas, products, and services. You will point your leads to the good ideas, products, and services and steer them away from the bad ones. You will, of course, receive affiliate commissions when people buy the products and/or services you tell them about.

Down the road, some individuals will inevitably need more specialized advice. Going back to the example of my fitness related, lead-generating blog, I could get re-certified as a personal trainer and offer more specialized help to people. This could be one-on-one fitness or diet coaching or possibly a future membership site on the topic. Once I had a more specialized product or service set up, I would use a concept called ‘double opt-in’ to find the people in my list that are interested in more personal help. To find out who’s interested, all you have to do is ask.

Conclusion

Many people are already blogging with the intention of capturing leads for their businesses. Hopefully this lesson has convinced others that this approach provides a remarkable upside. This lesson is nothing more than an introduction. The nuts and bolts will follow. Now would be a good time to sign up for our RSS feed if this concept interests you.