Are you planning to launch a new blog or website soon? If so, you may find the techniques to increase your traffic, e-mail list, and social media following all without a blog very useful.
That’s right. Without. Even. Having. A. Blog.
Jonathan Morrow is announcing his new blog over on Copyblogger to help guide folks in just these areas.
As marketers (or soon to be marketers) pay close attention to the first lesson Jonathan teaches us today. He’s building up a massive following and subscriber list without even showing us the new blog he’s working on.
You can use these same techniques to launch your new web property or effort especially if you’re just starting out.
Step One: Build Hype
Jonathan has a pretty big stage to stand on. He’s a long term writer for the popular Copyblogger website. This gives him access to 100k+ RSS subscribers and countless other visitor traffic.
What’s your stage?
- Is it your Facebook page?
- Your e-mail newsletter?
- A direct mailer piece?
Whatever it might be, find it (or them) and put your plan together to hype your new web property.
Let the audience know what you’re teaching them in your blog, what they can buy on your new website, or the services you may offer in the new business.
Just make sure it doesn’t suck.
Step Two: A Landing Page
Ok, you can’t do it all without some web presence.
You need a landing page.
A place to direct visitors to watch a video, read more information, and most importantly give you their e-mail address.
I’ll keep it short and sweet. If you plan to make your new web property with WordPress, check out Premise landing pages. It’s a plugin of sorts that makes it super easy and inexpensive to build custom landing pages with little HTML/CSS experience.
Want it? Go get it here.
Step Three: How About That Video?
Jonathan created a trailer for his upcoming blog. Video is hot right now and if you’re not producing video for your marketing efforts your missing out.
How do I know this? Because I’m not doing it yet. But I will be.
You can introduce yourself and talk in a human voice introducing your new effort. If you don’t like to record yourself, create a screencast or recording of your desktop demonstrating some action. Don’t want to do that either? Build a cool trailer effect like Jon filled with stats, testimonials and all that hype from the last section.
Bottom line is: video converts.
Visitors will be a lot more engaged with video than just a bunch of text. If you want to build the traffic before your site launches, you need to convert the audience to connect with you now.
What are you waiting for? Don’t be afraid.
Step Four: Call To Action
They came, they saw, and now they take action!
If you’re using your landing page effectively you’re clearly pushing the visitor to sign up to an e-mail list. A nice clear direction. Maybe some arrows pointing to the input box or make the field text really big so people can’t miss it.
When they sign up, you converted. This is how you measure the success of this campaign. Pretty easy, no? Don’t leave your visitors hanging with no action to take. You’re only short changing yourself.
Learn more about call to action here.
Step Five: Follow up
Set up your e-mail newsletter to follow up right when a user completes the registration. This is your second chance to convert.
What you can do with a follow up e-mail:
- Introduce your other talents
- Set the expectation of what’s to come
- Encourage users to connect with you via social media.
There are probably some other details I’ve missed, but these 3 are good enough for now. Plus, you don’t want to push too much information at once.
You should be following up regularly to your upcoming website launch. Plugging for ideas from your list and seeing what your visitors will really be interested in.
Recap: How It All Comes Together
You found your stage to stand on and promoted your new effort. You directed visitors to a landing page in order to track and convert these potential leads. You swooned them with a great video or message about the up and coming launch. This message encouraged them to take action in the form of subscribing to an e-mail list to be notified of the launch. You followed up to remind them what they should expect moving forward and to find you on other social media outlets.
If you’re doing all these steps effectively, chances are you’re building yourself a decent list before you launch. The day you open the doors, you will have a nice line waiting to come in and browse.
Makes your efforts for promoting the launch a lot easier.
What about you? What have you done to boost your blog or website traffic? I’d love to know what steps you take. Please share below!