Last week I spoke at the Blogville Conference in Charlottesville on the subject of Monetization. This video is a short except from that presentation specifically discussing the front end process of capturing leads.

• Description: Capturing leads on your blog is the process of allowing visitors to share their email or contact information with you in order to communicate with them in the future.
• Benefits: Capturing lead information provides the opportunity to develop deeper relationships with your readers, facilitate knowledge transfer, offer specials deals and build out your network.
• Tools & Resources: Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact, MailChimp, Facebook Like, Twitter
• Implementation: Embed a lead capture form. Don’t ask for a lot of information. Consider offering something of immediate value in return.
• Reality Check: Readers will only opt-in to your list if they trust you can offer value specific to their needs. Consider a 3% opt-in rate excellent for a simple, non-targeted opt-in form.  A highly targeted opt-in form on a landing page could expect something more in the range of 20-40%.