Traffic Hacking43 ways to get quality prospects to your site
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved
Lincoln Murphy presents...
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
This is from an 85-minute presentationI did in 2012... if you’d like to watch thevideo of that presentation, you can here:
http://sixteenventures.com/traffic-hacking
Five Rules Before We Get Started1. Know what your audience is looking for, what problems they
have or what opportunities they want to take advantage
2. Talk to your audience, not about your product... at least at first... WIIFT!
3. Know how your audience ‘consumes marketing’ and where they are on the awareness ladder
4. Know where your audience hangs out online, what publications/blogs they read, who they listen to and trust, etc.
5. Know the goal for the traffic you're getting! Traffic doesn't matter - customers matter. So get 'em to take action when they get to your site.
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
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4. Benefits of Your Solution
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Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
Traffic Hacking43 ways to get quality prospects to your site
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
Realistic Traffic Boost from These Tactics
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.
Do the Thing
http://sixteenventures.com
Potential Growth from these Tactics*
Do the Thing
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.
Do the Thing
Do the Thing
Do the Thing
Do the Thing
*if you do things right andthe stars align in your favor
http://sixteenventures.com
SNT = Super Ninja Tactic
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#1 - SEOIf they don't search for info, all the SEO in the world won't matter
SEO = Hope... Hope is a bad strategy!
Know your audience and what they're looking for/the terms they use (use Google AdWords Keyword Tool... at least) and build your marketing site around that
If you have an audience that is low on the awareness ladder, they aren't going to search you out... you need to go out to where they are and get them to come back to your site
Oh, yeah... and putting all of your eggs in the Google basket might be a bad idea... you never know how Google will change it's algorithms next and cause your site to be ranked lower... even if you aren't doing anything "black hat"...
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#2 - Content MarketingCreate compelling content that search engines like, but that your market likes (and shares) even more
Contrary to popular belief, you don't create content just to attract people to your site (see #1 above)... you create it to engage with people, to get them to stick around, to know, like, and trust you and eventually use it to convince them to sign-up for your stuff.
The higher-up on the awareness ladder people are, the less you have to do to convince them and the more actively they'll seek you out.
Buy Content here: http://www.textbroker.com/ https://www.elance.com/ https://www.odesk.com/
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
SEO & Content Marketing is where most people stop...and it's why most people wish they had more traffic!
Here are 41 other ways to generate traffic in no particular order... and this list is far from exhaustive!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#3 - Email ListYou should be building an email list before you launch and maintain lists of future/past and current customers; and market to them appropriately. If you aren't doing this, you're missing out. Period.
This is a traffic source that you build organically and from swaps, customers, etc.
Think about your mailing list like a bank account that you can reach into and pull traffic - and money - from on demand
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#4 - Alternative ProductsiPhone / Android Apps
Kindle e-Books
Installed Apps
Stand-alone MVP Web Apps
If it resonates with your audience and gets your name/link into their hands and doesn't cannibalize revenue streams... do it!
Not necessarily FREE... apply a price, discount it 100%, drive up ratings, take off discount for public, offer discounts to select groups
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#5 - Video MarketingGoogle ❤ Youtube (also #3 search engine itself)
Don’t have video ideas? Do a video overview for every blog post you write
Put your URL as the first part of the description
Use the keywords you want to rank for
You can use other video platforms for hosting quality video - like VSLs - Wistia is who I use - on marketing pages, but also put those on Youtube for SEM
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#6 - WebinarsHas that "live event" feel that people will work their schedule around to attend
People know that they have to register and are OK with that
You can even do automated ones - http://www.stealthseminar.com/, http://webinaragogo.com/
Market these independent of your product and use to convert to buyers/trials
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#7 - SwapsYou do something for someone, they do something for you... in this case you each send each other traffic
Get an industry pro to do a Webinar with you. They market the webinar to their list (another validation of their expertise) and you market to your list (you’re educating/indoctrinating/piggy-backing on their trust) and you each get a list of participants who you can send to your site.
Unbounce and KISSMetrics did a great swap in late 2012
Get someone to email out to their list about you; you do the same for them... share sign-up/opt-in lists with each other
On your Post-Signup/Thank You page send traffic to them; they do the same... Get an extra month FREE when you sign-up for XYZ product!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#8 - Write Guest Blog Posts/ArticlesWrite articles in the publications or on the blogs that your audience reads
Think about adjacent products that your customers already use and write for them
Including offline industry rags
Get a byline (with a CTA) and/or include links in your post and you’ll get traffic from their readers
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#9 - Host Guest Blogs/ArticlesGet people to guest blog for you
Everyone wants exposure
If they have an audience, you just tapped into it!
KISSMetrics has built a significant revenue stream using their blog - with tons of guest posts - to drive traffic into the top of the funnel
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/the-neil-patel-method/
SEOMoz touts “1,634 Community Written Blog Posts” in their latest funding deck... they tap their community for content (and those posts are super-deep and ultra-informative)... and those people go on Twitter, Facebook, their blogs, etc. and promote their work... and their community friends do, too! HUGE!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#10 - Industry Expert InterviewsDo interviews with industry experts and post on your blog/site
industry experts bring credibility and a built-in audience (an “expert” will waste no time in promoting their interview to their audience!)
make someone from your team (CEO/leader ideally) available to be interviewed AS an industry expert
leverage the idea in the second point above to promote your own expertise
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#11 - Interviews Outside your IndustryGet Andrew Warner of Mixergy to interview you
He'll write copy about you and give you a link to go along with the interview
Or maybe you look to “tech” industry outlets Software CEO, Sandhill.com, Softletter, Think Strategies, etc.
Extra-industry publicity can sometimes add to credibility
But don't spend too much time outside your industry... do a few of these
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#12 - Infiltrate Online CommunitiesForums, LinkedIn Groups, etc. that are specific to your industry
Get to know the moderator/owner so they'll help promote what you have to offer (but be prepared to play politics with some of the biggest egos online!)
Find people in your industry on LinkedIn, see what groups they belong to, and join those
http://www.postloop.com/ <== forum owners pay you to post content (either use that service or use as a guide)
http://rankings.big-boards.com/ <== huge list of top forums
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#13 - Create Online CommunitiesCreate a forum
Start a discussion list (put your URL in the sig)
Create a LinkedIn Group
SNT: Find people in your industry on LinkedIn, see what groups they belong to, join those, then create yours, and promote it to the other members of the group you’re in!
Facebook Group
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#14 - Get Quality BacklinksNot just to boost SE rank - which may or may not work at any given time - this is to get TRAFFIC
Go where your customers are and give them something to link to... don’t just ask random bloggers to link to your main page
Give them a blog post or whitepaper (reverse squeeze!) to link to
For SEM purposes, get some high-quality, contextual links by joining organizations - even locally - like the Chamber of Commerce
Google’s always changing, but context will always rule(?)
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#15 - ConferencesSpeaking gives you credibility, a link (usually), and a built-in audience that you should leverage to send traffic to your site
SNT: As you wrap up your speech, mention you had 3 other points you wanted to cover, but didn’t have time... go to mysite.com/confname to download those slides! (reverse squeeze)
Sponsoring conferences/events - you will often get emails of participants; use cold-outreach tactics to drive traffic.
SNT: Don’t expect too much traffic from a logo... so use a CTA instead if allowed!
Attend conferences/events - treat it like the marketing opportunity it is... no reason you couldn't boost traffic from being around 400 like-minded, industry folks (SNT: little informal meetups)
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#16 - PinterestIf you have a visual component to your product, integrating with Pinterest could drive massive traffic to your site
Know your audience and know where they hang out
This is the #3 social network - behind Facebook and Twitter - in the world right now and the demographics are very specific... but if it works, it works
This might make total sense for slidemotion.com either to use solely for marketing or - even better - to integrate with Pinterest and “pin” every photo (frame) in a video sequence... pull pics in from Facebook, pin them, then create a video from that and send all traffic from those pins to that video... MASSIVE TRAFFIC
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#17 - Be The BonusGive your main or alternative product to adjacent product companies to use as a bonus
Sort of like a swap, but you get a customer and not a trial or just an email address
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#18 - PPC AdsGoogle AdWords, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn
Contextual and Congruent
Not just text... some are graphical
SNT: buy an action-oriented domain name to use in the ads... getyourapp.com
Use Trada (http://www.trada.com/) or http://boostctr.com/ and tap into their massive network of micro-copywriters to create ads for you...
Google just updated Adwords rotation, taking away great testing and replacing it with more revenue for them (one basket + all eggs = fail)
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#19 - Display AdsPay Per Impression (generally; not always...)
Google AdSense / Ad Networks / http://buysellads.com/ http://www.yabuka.com
Disruptive and Incongruent (and Contextual... hopefully)
SNT: take a picture of a text ad that is killing it for you and use that as your display ad
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#20 - RetargetingServe ads to those that have already interacted with you
http://retargeter.com <== tell ’em I sent you and they’ll give you 50% off of banner ad creation
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#21 - Newsletter AdsClassified Ad: Get a mention in someone else's newsletter
Sponsor: The content is brought to them by you
Solo: The entire email is all about you <== best one
Use this to build your list, not to sell/try to get ’em to try your product
Find them on your own, DirectoryOfEzines.com, Smart Brief, FierceMarkets, if you use Mailchimp you can try Wavelength to find adjacent newsletters, NewsletterDirectory.Co, etc.
LaunchBit offers ads in 3rd party newsletters
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#22 - TwitterUse it to cultivate connections and spread your message w/ links back to your site
Very often tweets/RTs are cultivated outside of Twitter... send an email to people asking for a Tweet/RT
SNT: @'ing those in your industry = Cold Outreach via Twitter... and it works (if you follow the Cold Outreach rules)
You can also buy Promoted Tweets directly from Twitter or use a company like BuySell Ads, IZEA, sponsoredtweets.com or adly.com
You can even get Paris Hilton to Tweet for you... $4600 per tweet to her 7M+ followers through BuySellAds
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#23 - Web / App DirectoriesOld School
SaaS/App Listings
Industry Specific
There is simply no excuse for NOT being in every single directory out there
Part 1: 100 Places to Promote your SaaS or Web App
Part 2: 100 Places to Promote your SaaS or Web App
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#24 - Offline Direct MailUse Offline to drive them online
Snail mail volume is stupid low right now
Take advantage of cheap postage and a lack of noise
...but be creative!
Use pURLs in the copy, if possible/applicable
SNT: send in a DHL envelope
Use FedEx if you *really* want to make an impression - costs a lot, though!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#25 - IntermediariesIntermediaries = Channels
Distributors /Trusted Advisors /VARs / SIs
Xero uses Accounting Firms to promote their product
Make your product something the Intermediary can use, too! Something that makes their life/core business easier/better/faster and they’ll push it for you
There are people out there that already have your audience's trust... make one sale - to the Intermediary - and they'll make hundreds or thousands of sales for you!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#26 - Facebook PageDon't just have one to have one
Use this to drive traffic to your site and get people to opt-in to your mailing list, sign-up for webinars, download reports, etc.
Use it to “engage” with people on-page, of course, but know the goal is to get them to take an off-page action and add them to your list/database/etc.
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#27 - WhitelabelingThere might be people out there that could take your product into a whole new market better than you ever could... so let 'em!
I know a number of people on both sides of the whitelabel equation that do QUITE well
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#28 - AffiliatesDon't over-think this.... find someone that has the audience you want to reach and make a deal
Groobix teamed with IM’er for Latin American market
Profitably (now ActiveCell) hired a company to find affiliates
Loop11 created a program themselves and had people selling for them in other languages/markets and finding new/creative ways to sell their product.
Let Affiliates sell your AltProd for 100% commission
Do one-off Affiliate relationships... you might not have 1000's of affiliates, especially at first... have a couple that you trust and then scale it out
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#29 - Marketplaces / App StoresThese are just another Distribution / Sales Channel
From Traditional App Stores all the way to things like AppSumo
Part 1: 100 Places to Promote your SaaS or Web App
Part 2: 100 Places to Promote your SaaS or Web App
Let’s you reach audiences you might otherwise not reach
If you can reach those folks on your own, it might not be worth the cut app stores take... but if you couldn’t reach them, any cut is better than 100% of NOTHING!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#30 - IntegrationsMany companies do quite well piggybacking off of other companies that have an established audience
WORKetc works with Evernote & Google Apps
Freshdesk is in Google Apps Marketplace
iMeet is integrated with Evernote
FreeAgent is part of AppDirect and integrated with Basecamp
ClientSpot is a FreshBooks integration partner
Bidsketch is integrated with Highrise and Freshbooks
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#31 - ReferralsMany people say referrals are the backbone of their business
Few of those people actually have a system in place for getting referrals
Don't make that mistake
Leverage the audience/customer base you already have!
Viral Expansion Loop (Oddly, free products do this really well while paid products usually suck at this)
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#32 - Testimonials / Case StudiesDo full featured testimonials and case studies with companies known in your industry (SNT: Get them to write the case study for you!)
Piggy back off their credibility
They’ll often promote it to their audience (especially if it is done in a way that makes sense for them to do that) Oh... and it doesn’t hurt to ask them to promote it, too!
You can do PR against it
It will likely speak the language of your market so people will find it
People searching for those companies will find your site instead/as well! Piggyback on their fame!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#33 - Cold Email OutreachScraped/bought lists you treat as one-off emails that you use to drive traffic / opt-in
SNT: send people to a Wistia video w/ ?wemail or even better the ?wkey (http://files.wistia.com/tools/identity-tagging/index.html) url param so you automagically have know who clicked and who didn't without "tracking" the link and killing trust (awesome for swaps/solo ads/etc.)
you can also do this by having a script that tracks URL params... even GA can do this
AES used Hubspot and got zero leads... then they started doing CEO and are getting 150 leads/month...
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#34 - Cold LinkedIn OutreachLinkedIn = B2B Gold
Use the scraped/bought lists to import into LinkedIn and when they connect with you, they’ve “opted-in” and you can message them to drive traffic
Add them in bulk (this will send everyone the “I’d like to add you...” generic message. This can be good if you want to conceal your intentions
If you want or use Rapportive to do it one at a time and send a relevant message
SNT; use unsubscribes from your mailing list... I’ve had ~30% accept and now I haven't lost touch... they’ll see my updates and I can reach out directly
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#35 - Press ReleasesGets you out there, gets your link out there, lets Google know that you're doing something... good or bad, it works...
do a press release for everything, even your blog posts!
Make sure you include a link... oh, but you might also get picked up by the media
People that say press releases are dead just wish they were
http://www.prweb.com/
http://www.businesswire.com/
http://www.prlog.org/ (FREE)
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#36 - Win AwardsSign-up for, nominate yourself for, and otherwise try to win awards
Many cost money to “be nominated” but it gives you a "credible" reason to do a Press Release and gets your name out there (think Think Strategies’ BoSS awards) in front of the awarders(?) audience
Some are legit competitions which you should still enter because they give you links and exposure generally, even if you don’t win!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#37 - Target GMail Users w/ AdWordsUse AdWords to target GMail users
If your potential customers use GMail, they likely spend A LOT of time in GMail every day
if your customers are large enterprises that use Exchange or Lotus Notes... this might be a stupid idea.
Use “thought stringing” - put yourself in the middle of their conversation, hit on Book Titles, Names & Competitors, competitor Unsubscribe Info or specific subject lines.
If you get too granular or specific you could hit the "low search volume" response from Google and they won't run your ad. Expand out until they do.
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#38 - HAROHelp a Reporter Out (http://www.helpareporter.com/)
When you see a story that's relevant to your industry/niche/expertise... reach out and get your company mentioned (don't forget to explicitly ASK for a link to your site!)...
Oh, and you can place ads in HARO.... your industry experts waiting for a way to get mentioned by the media and then they see your ad? Use that power wisely!
75% open rate (is what they claim; and I’m sure that is legit) and ads start cheap; like $300.
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#39 - Cold CallingPick up the phone
Make 25 calls per day, 22 days per month (550/month total)
Get 25% to go to your site (maybe get a domain that’s easy to say and easy to understand over the phone)
You've got 138 new, targeted leads... send 'em to a webinar reg or other reverse squeeze.
You might have to do less-than-scalable things at first to figure out what you need to do to scale later
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#40 - Q&A SitesFind questions on Q&A sites like Quora, Focus, or LinkedIn and use that to write blog posts around, create videos about, or otherwise create content...
Have a VA or staff member scour the Q&A sites for questions then put them in a spreadsheet and then work off of that or set up something automated like http://ifttt.com/
SNT: Be sure to note how many followers a question has on Quora and answer them in the order of most followers to least... use your time wisely and go for leverage
Then "answer" the question with a link to your content
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#41 - Sponsored ContentBasically you just pay for an article on a site
If the place you do this has reach and you do it right, it can be REALLY worth it; think product reviews, etc.
You can buy promoted blog posts through http://izea.com/ or http://www.postsgenius.com/
Many industry magazines will publish an article from you only if you also buy an ad... sleazy on their part, yes... effective? very.
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#42 - Speak to Paid GroupsAre there membership sites, private paid communities, etc. where your target audience hangs out?
Make yourself available to be a presenter
These are powerful because the audience PAID to be there... they are customers of the group and have shown that they are willing to pay money to take action
There is also the rule of Commitment and Consistency at play here... they paid to be a part of the group and as a way of defending that decision are more likely to buy something the group is promoting
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
#43 - Offer Deals to GroupsIn the SaaS/Web App world, if I was selling a product to those folks I’d offer a deal to startup incubators, VC portfolios, Universities, Sponsored programs like Microsoft Bizspark, etc. ...
Bonus of offering something to Universities... do it right and get high-trust .edu domains linking to you!
You might offer free deals to these groups in exchange for links, buzz and a reason to do PR... plus, they’re young or young companies and they’ll grow up knowing, liking, and trusting you... not a bad way to guarantee some future business!
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
That was 43 ways to get quality prospects to your site...some will work for you, some won’t... and few are “easy,”
though most are simple...
If anything, take away the idea that SEO & Inbound Marketing are only 2 ways and that this list of 41 other
ways is FAR from comprehensive!
Think outside the box and use your imagination!
Oh yeah, you could also get traffic from... t-shirts, stickers, QR codes, Social Sharing widgets, email signatures, out of office notifications, transactional email,
invoices/receipts, commenting on blog posts, business cards...
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixteenventures.com
Copyright© 2012 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.
Things You’ll Never Say again:
Lincoln, I need more traffic! What do I do?
http://sixteenventures.com
But if you do say that, contact me ASAP:[email protected]
(972) 200-9317
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