Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Daily Deal or E-commerce Website

Enjoy the replay from our Daily Deal Builder training webinar where we discuss the top 10 most effective strategies for driving traffic to your daily deal, coupon, or e-commerce websites.

  Click here to download the PDF slides from this presentation.

The 10 methods we discuss are:

 #10: The “In-Person” Sign-Up

• If possible, leave a physical document at businesses that use (& don’t use) your services. You could also use an iPad for this (great bonus gift idea).
• Walk (or hire people to walk) your area and tell folks why they should register & what’s in it for them.
• Give something of value in exchange for the sign up such as; coupons, site credits, or have it enter them into a contest where they can win a prize.  The primary question you must ask yourself is,” what’s in it for them?”
• Once you have built up a document with the user information, manually input the info into your website or email management system. You could take a picture of the document and have a lower waged virtual assistant do this task.Remember, included with your investment in Daily Deal Builder, you receive 1 month of a Virtual Assistant for free.

 #9: Piggyback and Leverage Merchants

• A core way to drive traffic to your daily deal site is to leverage the audience of your existing merchants.  Request that your merchants promote the deal they are offering directly on their Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest pages.  Remember to provide them with high converting & engaging swipe copy.*
• If merchant has an existing email database, provide them with email copy they can use to promote their deal. **
• *If your merchant does not have a social audience, offer to help them build, grow, and manage one. Value added services are critical to the success of deal and coupon businesses.
• ** If the business is not currently generating revenue through email marketing, offer to help them choose a service that fits their needs.
• Offer an incentive and reason for the merchant to promote to their audience.
• Ideas:  Give them a higher percentage; offer them discounted and guaranteed future promotions; offer up-front cash, prize, or service incentives.
  

  “If you promote your offering to your FB, Twitter, and email database, not only will we provide free photography services, we will give you an up-front cash bonus of $99 and an iTunes gift card.”We can even discuss offering you a 5% higher margin as well as give you commissions for any of your customers that you recommend…

 #8: Word of Mouth Advertising

• Word-of-mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected.  Go above and beyond the call of duty if you want your customers to talk about you.
• Build a street team and have them spread the word. Give them tee-shirts and swag to distribute. Incentivize them to help you grow your business and bring referrals.
• Encourage your users to tell their friends in all of your copy, emails, and communication. Use direct calls to action.
• Use Gamification techniques and spend a great deal of energy in your customer support department.

 #7: SEO & Content Creation

• Search engine optimization has many benefits: Low cost results, brand credibility, increased traffic, and permanent results.
• Do your keyword research. Create documents to track and analyze results. Remember to focus on your on-page and off-page SEO.
• Regularly create & submit remarkable content to high page ranked content submission websites. Blog often & write guest blog posts.
• Google Alerts – Use to monitor your successes, analyze your competition, and gain ideas and contacts for guest posts.
• Use our traffic software, HC Traffic Pro (included with your investment in Daily Deal Builder’s deal and coupon software).
• Submit a variety of types of content such as; videos, articles, podcasts, press releases, social bookmarking, blogs, PDF’s, presentations, etc.
• Regularly use Q&A sites such as; Quora.com, Answers.Yahoo.com, AskVille, or MahaloAnswers.com.  Answer at least 1 question a day. Link back to content you have created that discusses the question in more depth.
• Regularly provide thoughtful and knowledgeable comments on related blogs, groups, and forums. Include back-links only when it makes sense and never come across as spammy.

 #6: Guerilla Marketing

• What if you hired a couple of people from each city you represent from Craigslist, gave them a funny costume, and paid them to run around the busiest sections of your cities? You could hire 2 people per city and pay them ~$10 per hour.
• Give them free vouchers or some other incentive to give walker-by’s if they take a picture and tag it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram…
• Be outrageous, funny, and stand out. Turn people’s heads and think outside of the box.  Here are 20 guerrilla marketing examples to help get your ideas spinning.
• The “Naked Guitarist” in NYC has received more press than most every small business in America. That is sad (but interesting).

 #5: News & Publicity

• You are more likely to get a story about you if your business helps your community or stands for a greater cause.
• Email, call, or just get in touch with your local newspaper and radio stations. Ask what you need to do to get a story about your site.
• Pay for ads in Newspapers: newspaperadvertising.com, mediabids.com, advertisingresults.com, usnewspapers.com
• Your guerrilla marketing campaigns could land you in the news.  Be newsworthy.  A solid news story about your website could drive an enormous amount of traffic for you and dramaticall increase your brand awareness.

 #4: Pay for Traffic

• Magazines: Find a magazine that YOUR potential customers are reading.
• Radio: strategicmediainc.com, bid4spots.com, wholesaletvandradioads.com
• TV: sharktv.com, cheaptvspots.com, google.com/adwords/tvads/
• Direct Mail: You can buy targeted lists and send them unsolicited mail. Direct mail is a great way to deliver a sales letter, and often works best for medium to big ticket items. Use postcards to drive traffic to your lead capture page.
• Test your offers with online traffic before investing in offline media.
• “As seen in…” logos add credibility.
• In the Internet marketing world, “media buying” most often implies display advertising (banners, aka image ads). However, online media buying can include pop-ups, email, text links, video ads, widgets, and other new media.
• Banner Advertising: Banners have traditionally been the biggest source of paid traffic on the Internet. Usually sold using CPM pricing model (Cost per 1,000 impressions).
• Option 1) Deal directly with website owners. Find a high-traffic site in your niche, and negotiate to put a banner on it.
• Option 2) Use an ad network. (This is how to get millions of ad impressions).
• Test your ad using an ad network that has PPC or small CPM commitment: google.com/adwords/displaynetwork/ (Recommended place to start), adbrite.com.
• Take winning campaigns to high volume display ad networks: zedo.com, pulse360.com, burstmedia.com, cpxinteractive.com, traffiq.com, advertising.com (AOL), tribalfusion.com, valueclick.com
• Warning: Even the paid traffic experts lose a lot of money on most campaigns before making money. You have to have some liquidity to be able to play at this level, AND I do not recommend attempting it until you have studied it in more depth.
• Facebook Ads. This can be huge for you in the deal space.  Targeting your specific location is very easy with FB Ads.
• Also known as PPC (pay per view), CPV (cost per view) is another pricing model used in media buying. Most commonly used for pop-ups. Also for some video ads, toolbar ads, and ads that appear in software and computer games.
• CPV networks: trafficvance.com, directcpv.com, mediatraffic.com, clicksor.com, stumbleupon.com/ads/
• BE CAREFUL WHEN PAYING FOR TRAFFIC!

  #3: User Generated Recommendations

• Similar to word of mouth advertising, user generated recommendations are one of the most powerful forms of advertising available.
• 1 or 2 clicks should be all that your prospects and clients need to do in order to share your business, product, or services to their network of friends and fans.
• Actually ask people to share. Don’t beat around the bush about it. If you are proud of your business, products, or services, have a very blatant call to action encouraging users to help spread the word and share.
• Make it ‘hard not to share.’ Some things are just too good NOT to share with friends and family. Whether or not it is because it is hilarious or just an incredible deal, if the product or offer is good enough, folks feel inclined to tell the people they care about.

 #2: Run a Contest

• Follow the rules, use 3rd party apps, include specific calls to action, include a form to generate leads, carefully craft terms, conditions and rules, notify winner on your website, give away something incredible, keep your goals in mind, and measure your results.
• Regularly hold engaging contests to grow your audience. Have clear goals in mind. Subscribers? New Users? Sales? Branding? Etc.
• Use Google to find the right software for your needs. Use Software: ContestBurner, Wildfire Apps, wizehive.com/contest/
• Know your target market’s desirable items and offer incentives accordingly.
• Organic & Paid Traffic to jumpstart campaign (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, etc.). Issue press releases and gain as much exposure as possible.

 #1: Affiliates or Strategic Partners

• Easiest and most effective way to drive a mass amount of traffic is by utilizing Joint Venture partners and affiliates. LEVERAGE.
• Is there someone who has already built a database or audience that is filled with your target market? Could that database benefit from one of your deals you are offering?
• Can you formulate a mutually beneficial arrangement where they promote your website or a deal on your site in exchange for something of value, such as commissions, prizes, or some other incentives?
• Examples: Promote my deal to your list of subscribers and I will give you XX% commission per sale. Offer lifetime commissions? Promote my deal to your list of subscribers and I will pay you $XX up front. Promote my deal to your Facebook page and I will reciprocate and promote your business on mine. If you do a blog post about my business – I will do a blog post about yours. Do you want to do a reciprocal mailing?
• Offer high cash commissions and pay your affiliates and JV partners on time. Build a long-term, on-going, & profitable relationship.
• Email, call, send personal video, or meet people in person who have a targeted list of your prospects and work out a mutually beneficial arrangement. Cash is the easiest way to make a deal, but be creative and other incentives can do the trick.
• Find the influencers. Check to see if a website has an optin/subscription form. If they do, it tells you they are building their list. Provide copy and banners for the affiliate to use.

Two questions every deal site owner should be asking themselves daily are “What can I do to make my audience more responsive?” and “what can I do to grow my subscriber base?” Folks get tired of receiving too many daily deal emails and getting unsubscribes on every email you send is pretty much inevitable.

Here are some additional articles and videos where we discuss ways to grow your subscriber base:

• 11 Proven Things You Can Do to Grow a List of Raving Fans & Increase Revenue
• (Video) Business Building, Social Media, Contests, the Crowd, and Search Engine Optimization.
• (Video) 20 Sure-Proof Strategies to Grow Your Business, Generate More Revenue, & Help Your Community
• Search Engine Optimization and Raising Conversion Rates

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne
DailyDealBuilder.com