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A Unique and Effective Strategy for Getting Exposure Online
By Jim Daniels
©2004 All Rights Reserved
So you want to grow a business on the web. You have a great product or service and your website is ready to make sales. But you're having trouble getting website visitors.
Well let me assure you, you are not alone in your problem. Getting traffic is one of the biggest hurdles facing new cyber-business owners. What you need is a unique way to get big exposure...
And this article will teach you a strategy for doing just that. In this piece I'll be showing you a new site that was in that very predicament. The webmaster went out on a limb and performed a few simple, yet generous feats and bingo... lots of exposure, website visitors, and yes, sales!
Now this strategy will not work for EVERY website, but if you sell specialized products or services, it can be a real winner. Let's jump right in, shall we...
Here's the three-step strategy in a nutshell:
1. Decide what your best product or service is and package up a dozen or so.
2. Identify a dozen email newsletters or websites who reach large numbers of your target audience.
3. Offer the product or perform the service free of charge for those 12 companies, with no strings attached.
Does this sounds like a bribe in exchange for exposure? Well, call it what you want, it works. If you give a free, no-strings attached, sample of your work to the right people you can get literally thousands of website visitors within days...
Here's the real example I mentioned at the top of this article:
This week I received a message from a web business owner named Heather Colman. She wrote...
Jim,
Heather Colman here...
I was browsing around your
site yesterday and noticed that the image you display on your site for your "Insider Internet Marketing" book is only 2 dimensional. I've taken the liberty of converting it to a 3D format which I've attached to this email.
If you find it suitable, you may have it and use it where ever you feel it's appropriate. My hope is that you'll provide me with some feedback that I may use in my promotional material for the eBook Cover Services I offer at
http://ebooksearchengine.com/covers.html
Thanks for your consideration Jim. I hope your holidays are extraordinary
all good things...
Heather
Well, to make a long story short, Heather's strategy worked like a charm. I took a quick look at the image and was immediately impressed. Her "3D" version of my Insider Internet Marketing cover was really snazzy! So snazzy I had her "3D" (if that can be used as a verb) my other covers too. (You can see the covers now prominently displayed at my main page: http://www.bizweb2000.com )
Heather's unsolicited generosity paid off for her in lots of traffic to her site. And sure, she knew it might or she never would have gone out of her way to help someone who didn't asked for help. But that's the whole idea of this strategy. You "surprise" someone with your generosity and show off your excellent product or service at the same time. Maybe it took Heather a half-hour to convert my images into 3D. Maybe more, maybe less. That's not the point.
The point is, she contacted me offering the service with no strings attached. It was a refreshing take as opposed to the myriad of messages I get like this... "Jim, here's a free copy of my eBook. If you like it I'll give you 15% on any sales you can make."
Sure, that can work too, but it isn't nearly as creative. And let's face it, 15% of anything does not add up to much. But 85% sure adds up to a lot! And that's how those attempts are usually construed.
The key that Heather is showing us is that not only do you need to be creative in your marketing efforts, you need to be generous and original! Go out of your way to impress if that's what you are trying to do.
Now, will Heather's unique strategy work for any webmaster? Probably not. I mean if you retail say, videos tapes, you can't go sending your best tapes to a bunch of webmasters and email newsletter publishers. Well you could, but you may not get much exposure and it may look more like a blatant bribe than a unique attempt at exposure.
But what if you perform services like say, search engine ranking. Maybe you could design a few pages that get a top ranking at a major engine for a particular keyword, say "web promotion". At the page you could direct traffic through links to a dozen or so web promotion ezines you personally recommend.
Then, you could email the beneficiaries of all that fresh traffic and tell them how you obtained that number one ranking. This adaptation of Heather's strategy would work great to get exposure through your favorite ezine publishers or marketing experts. (And no, we're not looking for favors, that's just the first example that came to mind.) The point is, how could ANY webmaster or publisher ignore an unsolicited service which generated a ton of traffic to their site? Do you think the recipients of your service might mention its effectiveness to their large audience of small business owners? Getting the picture...?
Of course, it's a good idea to have some form of relationship already in place with the party you plan to help. If you know them and their style of writing and doing business, you'll have a better feel for how they might respond to something along these lines.
And it's also a good idea not to spend too much time on a service. But if you have something you can do in a few hours that might impress a few influential people, well you get the idea. Just search the web and find a dozen webmasters who might be able to help you along. Subscribe to their opt-in list and get to know them a little. They may be the best ally you never knew you had!
JIM DANIELS
Jim's site is packed with free help for anyone trying to start or grow a business online. And Jim's year-end sale is causing a "flurry" of activity! Come see for yourself... BizWeb2000.com
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