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Marketing Plan 1/4 – How to Drive Traffic to Your Site

Welcome to video #1 in my Marketing Plan series. This will be a 4 part series  covering how to drive traffic to your site; how to keep that traffic from immediately bouncing off your site; calls to action to include on your site; and nurturing relationships once you’ve established them.

Your website should be seen as your marketing hub – the nerve center for your marketing efforts. Everything you do to attract leads, prospects, and customers is done off-site with the intention of getting them on-site. There is no “get rich quick” scheme in marketing. Many people try, and that’s called spam. It doesn’t work.

So let’s see what actually does work…

You are an expert. And your knowledge is highly valuable to the people who make up your core audience. It’s time to release the fear of “giving away the farm”, and embrace the idea of giving your knowledge away freely.

Get active in Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, and expert sites like quora.com. There are conversations going on everyday – people who have posted opinions, or asked questions. When you see an opportunity to share your knowledge, do it. Write a comment, answer somebody’s question, share a resource you know about.

Marketing in this sense is about sharing your knowledge and expertise freely, with no expectation of receiving anything in return. The more value you provide to the group, the more people in that group will take notice of you. More people will come to your website because of your generous sharing of knowledge than you may ever realize.

Yes, there will be those who take your knowledge and never hire you. But those people would have never hired you anyway. They may share your posts, and refer you to someone who will. But if you’re absent, then nobody will ever know you exist.

Sometimes it’s perfectly fine to ask people to visit your site. When answering questions, sometimes it’s called for to punctuate your answer with a link to one of your blog posts to expand on that topic.

But this leads to a word of warning: don’t spam. Nobody likes spam. If you join a group and the first thing you do is post an offer to buy your product, that’s spam. If you “answer” someone’s question by telling them “I can help with that, just message me and set up a call,” – spam. If you approach marketing with an attitude of “I need leads for myself” instead of “I have valuable knowledge to share and help people”, then I would bet that just about anything you post is going to seem spammy to one degree or another.

Marketing is about understanding and empathizing with your audience and being in front of them at the right time. Marketing is reading the minds of your prospects and presenting them with the information they need before they realize they need it. Marketing is knowing when to say hello and keep in touch, and when to give them space. Marketing is about being everywhere without being overbearing. Marketing is about being present and of service, even when there is no sale to be made. Marketing is about listening, and speaking up when you have value to add. Marketing is about giving.

In the next video, we’re going to talk about how to set up your site for success. You’re providing value now, and people are clicking through to your site.

Your free sharing of knowledge and value provides the sizzle, but does the site itself make them want the steak?  Or will they click away in a matter of seconds?

 

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