7 Avenues for Driving Traffic

List building is an important part of growing your business. If you have a good list, you have people who will fill your events, teleseminars and webinars. You have people to build relationships with (assuming that you regularly follow-up with them). However, you also want to make sure you build a quality list – people who are interested in and relevant to your market. You want people that when they’re ready to buy, you’re the first and only person they think of!

Here are four steps you should take to get ready to build your list:

• Identify who your target market is and what challenges they face. Where do they hang out? Where are they more likely to spend money? If necessary, survey a select few who are your target market–like existing clients.
• Create a compelling, valuable free offer, such as a special report, a 3-part video series, a chapter from your book, or a cheat sheet. You need to have something exciting besides “sign up for my newsletter”. Make sure your copy shows the reader the benefits of getting your free offer.
• Have an opt-in box on your website where your target audience can give you their name and email address in exchange for your freebie. You’ll want to have the sign-up box where it’s visible when someone comes to your site, but you also should have a squeeze page specific just to your free offer.
• Your opt-in box and follow up emails should be done through an automated system like Infusionsoft, Aweber, or Mailchimp. If you don’t already have an account with one of them, get one. If you’d like to talk about Infusionsoft (my personal favorite), send me an email.

So you’ve got the basics and you’re ready to go, now what? Do you use the Field of Dreams philosophy: Build it and they will come? Nah, you don’t want to do that! Here are 7 simple avenues you can take to drive traffic to your page and build your email list:

1. Facebook. There are a variety of things you can do with Facebook.

• Have a sign-up on your Facebook Fan Page.
• Run a Facebook contest. Make sure your prize is relevant and won’t attract those people just looking for a freebie.
• Use indirect posts. These are posts where you become the leading authority in your field by sharing your knowledge and answering questions.
• Use direct posts that specifically drive traffic to your squeeze page. By sending them to a squeeze page that only has your freebie opt-in on it, the reader will not get distracted by other things on your site.
• Use promoted posts and page post ads to reach an even wider array of people.

2. Blogging. Having a blog on your website is important for your search engine results. The search engines like websites that are updated frequently and, therefore, posting a blog to your site on a regular basis is a great way to get traffic. Make sure your blog posts are appropriate for your target audience and you use keywords that they will Google.

3. Article Marketing. Writing articles and posting them to article marketing sites is a great boost to your reputation. But more importantly, the resource box is where you can highlight your freebie and point people to your squeeze page.

4. Blog commenting. Make it a habit to comment on other top blogs in your market. This could include competitor’s blogs, as well as target market blogs. You can use Technorati to search for blogs. When commenting, make sure you’re delivering added value and information related to the post and not just blatantly promoting your freebie.

5. Joint ventures. This is when you work with someone else to sponsor or participate in an event to help build your list. It could be an interview-type call, teleseminar, telesummit, or several individuals offering a giveaway. Every person who is participating advertises the event to their list, thereby cross-promoting each other.

6. Business cards. If you attend a lot of live networking events, be sure to put a call to action on your card to drive people to your site to get your awesome freebie!

7. Email signature. This one is often overlooked. Create an eye-catching call to action on your email signature to encourage people to visit your squeeze page. You’re sending a ton of emails out every day anyway, capitalize on their visibility.

There are many more ways you can build your list, but these are my top seven. You might feel a bit overwhelmed by writing for your blog, article marketing, and Facebook, but don’t be — repurpose items.  Write your blog post and repurpose it for the article marketing sites. Use that same blog post to create both direct and indirect Facebook posts. You don’t have to create everything from scratch.

What other ways do you use to build your list? Share them with me below.