Growing your internal database should be at the top of every marketer’s list. Why? When done correctly, it will house your most qualified and receptive prospects. Although organic list growth may take time and effort, you will definitely see a high return on your investment.

Consider the following techniques to acquire new leads and successfully grow your list.

1. Who is your ideal potential customer and how do you reach them? Create a profile for your best customers. This should include things like age, gender, hobbies, job function, how they shop (online or in stores), where they shop, what they read, the website they visit, etc.

2. Analyze your competition. Take some time to find out what your competitors are doing to generate leads. If they have an email newsletter, be sure to sign up for it. This will help you find out what kind of promotions they are running, the marketing alliances they have formed, and how they are positioning your product or service. Then take some time to find out what websites and/or magazines they are advertising on, if they are running PPC campaigns, and if so, what keywords they are using, etc. Most of this can be accomplished with simple web searches.

3. Reach your best customer. Once you’ve created your customer profile(s) and completed your competitive analysis, you’re ready to develop your lead generation strategy. Your strategy may include initiatives such as: banner ads on websites visited by your target audience, PPC campaign with relevant keywords, direct mail or email campaigns for magazine subscriber lists, etc. You may also approach other product or service providers for co-promotions or mutually beneficial partners. If you have time to spend creating editorial content, two other great lead generation and PR strategies are to start a blog or an ezine.

4. Your offer is everything! You need to create an intriguing offer that entices recipients to willingly give you their information in exchange for something they want. Your offer must be something of great interest to your target audience. For example, you can send an email introducing your business to a list of subscribers to a magazine you think your target audience reads. By including a free downloadable document, such as an industry salary guide, a list of the hottest bars in town, or a best practices white paper, you’ll be able to capture contact and demographic information for many of your recipients. Another approach is to ask them to answer a few short questions in exchange for movie tickets or some other bonus. Once you’ve captured their information and they’ve opted into their database, you’ll be able to continue to communicate with that potential customer on an ongoing basis.

5. Create a landing page. It is extremely important to guide the campaign recipient through the entire process. By creating a landing page on your website that reflects your campaign message/offer from both a design and text standpoint, you will encourage the recipient to go ahead and complete the form. Additionally, you should give prospects the option to call you, in case they don’t feel comfortable filling out the form.

6. Use a lead capture form. Your landing page can link to a lead capture form, or you can embed the form on the landing page itself.

has. Since your prospects will be more likely to fill out a shorter form than a long, drawn-out questionnaire, limit the amount of information you ask them to provide in exchange for your premium. In addition to the basic name and email address, consider including one or two more demographic questions. These questions should be well thought out to provide you with information that you can leverage for future campaigns.

b. In addition to demographic questions, your form should include a checkbox that gives people the option to opt in to receive information about your company and future promotions. Under the CAN-SPAM Act, if people don’t explicitly say they’d like to receive future emails from you, it’s illegal to send them commercial marketing emails.

Cons If you don’t currently have a way to capture leads, an easy way to do so is to sign up for a web-based email marketing software. All of them will provide you with both the lead capture form and a database to host the acquired leads. They all give you the ability to download your list as well, so you can upload the new leads to your main database. Some are quite inexpensive with a monthly cost as low as $19.99.

7. Track your efforts. By tracking your lead generation efforts, you’ll be able to identify which initiatives are working best and focus more of your energy on them. You may decide that others are not worth your time. Easy ways to track your initiatives are:

has. Web Analytics – Sign up for a free Google Analytics account. This will allow you to track how many people visit each page on your site and which campaign they came from.

b. In your lead capture form, include a question that asks people how they found out about you with a dropdown where customers can select from a list of your current marketing efforts.

vs. Landing Pages: Make sure you have a separate landing page for each marketing initiative. Every email, banner, and PPC ad should have its own landing page so you can track visits to these dedicated pages with your Analytics account. d. Dedicated 800 numbers: There are services that will provide you with a range of 800 numbers that will redirect to your main phone number. Including a dedicated 800 number on each landing page will allow you to associate each call with a specific campaign.

Remember, even if you accurately target your best customer, your campaign will only be a success if they get them to act on your offer and opt in to your database. Make sure you spend enough time tailoring your message and offer to the people who will receive your campaign.