How Can I Get Traffic Through My Doors?
How to get free, targeted traffic to their websites and through their front doors is one of the questions I’m asked the most by those starting out in their small businesses. After all, if customers aren’t coming through your door, whether you have a small business or a multinational corporation, you’re not making any money.
As a small business owner, fewer things are more frustrating than knowing your company provides a great product or service, but being unable to get enough customers through the door to prove it. Try this technique. It will bring your business increased visibility, and increased customer traffic at the same time.
Be The Authority Customers Turn To
Another common question small business owners ask is “How can I increase my credibility?” Although there are now thousands of small businesses in every major city in the country, gaining credibility is still something that many owners are worried about.
What if I could show you how to supercharge your small business marketing, get more free traffic and increase your business’ credibility all at the same time? What if I also told you that none of this, not the increased traffic, the boost in cred, or the new customers banging down your door, would cost you a penny?
Would you be interested? I bet you would be, because once you master this skill, the question of how to make money from your small business will be answered once and for all. Did you know that there are thousands of hard working people whose job it is to help people find your business and learn more about it? Really! That’s their job. They come to work, (or work from their home office) every day with the goal of helping you to grow your business.
Well actually that’s not what their stated goal is, but it’s the effect of what they do. Who is this army of professionals that are standing by, at the ready, waiting to help you succeed in your small or small business?
They are publishers, reporters, bloggers, and anchors. One thing they need, unfailingly, each and every day, is fresh, new content. They will willingly write about you, your employees, your products, your industry, and your business if you give them a reason to do so. That’s right, these people’s job is to write about things, and in many cases your business, or something related to it, can be the object of their efforts.
Think of the momentous job it is to produce fresh, new content for your newspaper, magazine, blog, e-zine, or TV program. It’s not easy, and if you can help make their job easier by giving them good stories, than you’ll be rewarded; well rewarded. The skill you must master to help these people, and by extension your business, is the skill of publicity.
“Better Than Free” Advertising?
Publicity is like free advertising, but better, far better. Why? Publicity is seen by the public (your customers) as coming from an unbiased source, the news and media. In other words, publicity has credibility. It has credibility that advertising can never match, not in a million years. With advertising, no matter how compelling the headline, or how good the ad copy, people are well aware they’re being sold something.
The beauty of publicity is that the sales pitch can be just as strong, yet far fewer people ever raise their “ad blocker” defenses against it. They know that it’s news or valuable information, after all, and they should soak it up like a sponge. They do, and your message right along with it.
The other huge advantage of publicity is that, as I alluded to earlier, it’s free. That’s right you don’t have to pay for this wonderous marketing tool. In fact sometimes you can even get paid for it! Really! I’ve made thousands of dollars over the last few years writing feature articles for consumer magazines about products and services that some of my business offered.
Marketing Gold
Not only does it increase awareness, interest and understanding of the products and services, but in most cases you get a nice little blurb explaining why you’re so qualified to be spouting off about the item in question. You get to put the name and location of your company, the contact information and something about your background. Talk about pure marketing gold!!
Now you’re positioned as The authority figure in the minds of the publication’s readers. Who do you think they’re going to turn to when they have a question, need advice, the services you offer or want to buy the type of products your company offers?
That’s right, they’re going to go to the person who’s article they just read. You provided value to them, they will return the favor. It works so well that I’ve had many people ask “How much did you have to pay for that?” They were amazed to discover that not only did I not have to pay the magazine for featuring the story, the magazine actually paid me to write it (and very nicely, too).
Whether you’re spreading the news about a new product, service, opening a new office, hiring a key employee, unveiling your new website, or explaining a new process, there is a magazine, news outlet, special interest publication, or trade journal that is only too happy to help you do it. That is their job, remember? Your job as a business owner is to take advantage of that to help grow your business.
How can you do that? You need to discover the wonders of press releases, articles, and interviews. A well worded and timed press release can be worth far more than a picture or a thousand words, although either of those is nice, too.
Why do think the book tour was invented? Have you noticed the staple of the afternoon news magazine show in major TV markets is someone who just wrote a book? There’s a great reason for that.
From the TV station’s perspective, people are interested in what they have to say, so it it helps ratings. From the author’s perspective, well you don’t have to be no missile scientist to figure out how being on live TV in all the major markets helps the book’s author, do you. Almost anything can be a newsworthy event if it’s presented correctly.
More Ways to Get Great, Free Publicity to Help Your Business Grow
Did you just promote someone from the community into a management role? Well, you can get that in the business section of your local paper. Are you introducing a new product? Depending upon the type of product, it’s uniqueness and your market, that screams magazine article, or at should at least rate a paragraph or two.
Are you holding or sponsoring a charity event, supporting local law enforcement, or helping out neighborhood schools? Properly structured, it can be a newsworthy event to someone, somewhere.
The point is that almost anything your business is involved in can be a news event or publicity worthy in some respect. If it’s not, you can always create a publicity event around some aspect of your business.
One skill you’ll need to master is the press release. After all, you need to trumpet the fact to those that can help you the most, and the press release is one of the preferred formats to do just that.
I’ll go more into this in a future post, including how to write press releases that will get read, and acted upon, rather than tossed, and who to send them to. Send your press release to the wrong person, at the wrong place, and you just wasted your time.
Stay tuned for more on how you can use this amazing power to increase your traffic, boost your credibility and supercharge your small business marketing. Until next time…..
