It can appear to be difficult to get clients for businesses. The key factor in obtaining these clients is to think outside of the box.

Encourage your friends, family members and current clients to give referrals. You could give a bonus for every lead that converts.

A contest to reward the top referring person or persons. Word-of-mouth referring is one of the most effective lead generators as it is the least expensive and most difficult to implement.

Make sure your signature lines include all the contact information you need to connect with, such as Facebook, Twitter, and other social media profiles.

A link to your website or blog should include a description of the current or upcoming promotion of new products and services. Attach your marketing materials to invoices, payment reminders and other correspondence.

The advantage of free advertising sites is that they can score offline clients. It is free to post an ad in the general or small business sections of the local Craigslist page. Many people forget to use eBay’s free classified ads.

Make your ad more visually appealing by using images. You don’t have to know a lot about software to do that. If you’re not looking to hire a freelancer to design your ad but you know Microsoft PowerPoint or Publisher, you can simply use Photo bucket to create your own ad and generate an image with an appropriate code.

Consistency and creativity are required to get clients offline. Re-strategizing when one strategy seems useless is when to research ways that have proven effective. Make sure you have a marketing plan that includes current marketing trends.

Paint your own picture of financial freedom?