Lead generation marketing is the most powerful form of marketing you'll ever do, with the exception of marketing to your existing customers and clients.
But how is it different from the way almost all business owners are marketing themselves now? Lead Generation Marketing Is where your call to action is not to make a sale but is rather to get your prospective customer's or client's contact details so you can then begin to develop a relationship with them.
This is dramatically different to the vast majority out there at the moment which is at best an attempt at an immediate sale and is at worst a lacklustre "hey, why don't you drop in some time and see if we can help?" If you doubt me on this, I suggest you open up any Yellow Pages, local newspaper or magazine and look for yourself.
It's shocking, really.
But, the obvious question is why would anyone want to give you their contact details so you can start to sell them stuff? Well, that's where the magic of lead generation marketing starts.
You see, what you should be doing as a marketer is not trying to make a sale, but, rather you should be trying to acquire a customer or client, The difference is, a sale is a short-term on-the-spot profit, whereas a customer or client is a long-term source of income.
And the way to acquire a client or customer is for you, first, to demonstrate your value to them.
And in terms of lead generation marketing, that means giving them something of value in exchange for their details so you can start the relationship-building process.
It's all actually very simple and works very well.
In fact, it works fabulously well.
Here are some real statistics from my good lady wife's own blog:

• Visitors to the sales page convert at about 1%.
  Yes, this is a sales page I wrote, Mr Big Shot Copywriter.
  I could work to improve this, of course but why would I, because...
  
• If she can get their email address, then the conversion rate shoots up to 11.
  34%.
  That's more than an order of magnitude increase just by making a simple change to the way the site operates.
  And it means instead of making about $264 a month, it makes more like $3,000,

When you look at it in those terms, the extra bit of work involved in lead generation marketing is worth it, don't you think? Of course, the "gurus" don't want you to ask them about this because it exposes a nasty little deception on their part.
See, what they often crow about is their amazing marketing and copywriting skills and their million dollar launches.
On the back of that, they'll get you to buy their 'how to' products.
But what they are NOT telling you is they are marketing these launches to LEADS (and they all do the round-robin with their promotions selling to each other's lists).
They are NOT making these huge profits with COLD traffic.
And believe me, getting a good response and conversion rate from a hot list is the easiest thing in the world.