What are the best marketing tools to generate new business as business or marketing consultant and how do you find the best opportunities?

I would like to name three social media venues that I use frequently as marketing tools. In order of importance: Twitter is a priceless marketing tool if you can resist the urge to try to sell. Engage with people in a friendly, helpful way and it will do so much more than spammy tweets ever could. Next, Facebook is great if you're trying to find new business. Again, the approach should be helpful/building community rather than sales-oriented. You can combine your Twitter and Facebook marketing efforts to even greater effect if you're careful about not spamming people. Finally, LinkedIn is a professional tool that you can use to find a range of business opportunities and to market yourself or your business. More importantly, if you have created a great profile, people will find you.

Mostly your next lead is going to be referral. Its funny how many B2B marketers do not completely understand how referrals work. Mostly it is seen as commission layering which it is not. So ask yourself - Does your network, your existing client have enough information about your product/service to recommend you? Do they trust you blindly? If yes, then - Find out people/businesses they know in your target market and if those businesses are looking for what you are trying to sell. As a case study - I was running an outsourcing company with one client. Most of new clients were introduced by existing clients. With out ever visiting prospects for demos/discussions I was able to close at least one deal every month. For a small outsourcing company, one deal every month which deal size going in multiples of 10K is good start. All this because I was able to keep an extremely close look on opportunities near me (direct network, extended network).