The key to business growth is to take consistent steps that will help you get more traffic, grow your list, and generate more sales.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these three components…

Get More Traffic

For best results, follow these steps:

Select traffic sources that produce high-quality, targeted traffic. It’s the quality of the traffic that should be the most important factor, not the quantity. In other words, if the traffic isn’t converting – no matter how much traffic you’re getting – then it’s essentially worthless to you.

For example, a lot of business owners get very excited about getting a lot of Facebook fans. They may even use a service to purchase these fans. Unfortunately, these services may be giving them bots as fans. Obviously, this sort of fake traffic isn’t going to convert, so it’s worthless.

Another example: using pay per click marketing lets you select a narrow, highly targeted audience. 

And for an offline example, invest in ads or marketing activities that are highly targeted to your ideal audience. This means you should avoid general interest publications for ads or participating in events that draw broad ranges of people. Instead, focus on industry or interest-specific publications and targeted events.

Focus on one traffic source at a time. If you try to get too many traffic methods going all at once, your efforts will be diluted. The end result is that you won’t get very good results with any of them.

Instead, a better idea is to focus on getting one traffic source up and running at a time. Once you get one method delivering results for you, then you can add another traffic method.

Choose traffic sources that produce quick results. Don’t spend months investing in a traffic method that may or may not work. If you’re just getting started, then choose methods that will allow you to quickly see results.

For example: paid traffic is a quick way to get targeted traffic, especially if you use a platform like AdWords or the Facebook ad platform. Design your traffic strategy based on some of the most reliable, proven traffic sources available.

This includes:

• Social media marketing. Don’t spread yourself too thin here. Instead, focus on the two or three platforms where your audience already congregates. You can also use an app like HootSuite.com to make it easier to manage your social media activities.
  
  
• Blogging. You can get set up quickly and easily by using the free WordPress platform (get the files at WordPress.org). Be sure to blog regularly, and consider optimizing your content to attract search engine traffic.
  
  
• Guest blogging. You can find guest blogging opportunities in your niche by searching Google for your niche keywords (such as “organic gardening”) alongside words that indicate a blog may accept guest submissions. These words include: 
  
  
  • Guest articles.
  • Guest blogging.
  • Guest article submissions.
  • Article guidelines.
  • Submit article.
    
    
• Doing joint ventures. Ideas of JVs you can do include co-endorsing each other on your respective platforms, doing webinars together, swapping links inside your lead magnets, and similar activities.
  
  
• Email marketing. Try to get as many of your visitors on an email list by offering them an enticing lead magnet. Then follow up regularly to build a relationship and sell products and services. (More on this below.)
  
  
• Video marketing. One way to attract a targeted audience is to create demonstration and how to videos, load them up to YouTube and other social media, and encourage viewers to share them. Be sure the end of the video includes a call to action and link pointing to your site.
  
  
• Distributing press releases. You can distribute them locally as well as on sites such as PRWeb.com.
  
  
• Doing webinars. This not only attracts an audience if you choose a popular topic, it also helps establish your expertise.
  
  
• Paid advertising on niche sites. Start small and scale up once you’ve determined that a particular site provides high quality traffic.
  
  
• Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Pinterest advertising. Be sure to use the ad editor tool to select a narrow, targeted market.
  
  
• Pay per click advertising. For best results, test and track your campaigns until you’ve selected the right keywords, ad and landing page for producing great results. 

Next…

Grow Your List

A great way to grow your business is by growing your list. That way, you can follow up repeatedly to build relationships and generate sales. Follow these steps:

• Create an in-demand lead magnet. Do your market research to find out what your audience really wants. This could be an ebook, video, access to a membership site, app, or even tools such as worksheets, templates or checklists.
  
  
• Set up an enticing, benefit-driven lead page. If you’re not a skilled copywriter, then you may want to hire a pro for this step.
  
  
• Create an evergreen autoresponder series to build relationships and close sales. Your initial autoresponder series should be at least five emails, although over time you can add additional emails (with different offers) to create a hands-free selling machine.
  
  
• Test and tweak your email campaigns for best results. Many big email service providers (such as Keap) have built-in testing tools to make this process easy.

As you develop emails for your autoresponder series, keep these best practices in mind:

Sell products that are in-demand, which will boost your conversions. Do your market research to find out what’s already selling well on platforms such as ClickBank.com and Amazon.com. Then create products with your own spin that are similar, yet better than the bestsellers.

Offer emails that are part good content (~80%) and part pitch (~20%). The content builds relationships, builds trust, and gets people opening your emails. The pitch helps you generate sales through every email you send.

Send some of your best tips, tricks and strategies to your list to start building good relationships. People will see that you offer extremely high-quality content for free, so they’ll be assured that your paid products are even better. Keep in regular contact with your subscribers (at least weekly). You can’t build good relationships if your subscribers only hear from you sporadically, so be sure to send weekly emails to develop top of mind awareness.

Segment your list to further boost conversions. That way, you can send content and product pitches that are highly targeted. For example, if someone has purchased a copywriting product from you, then you can confidently pitch them additional similar offers (e.g., “Since you like learning about good copywriting techniques, you’re going to LOVE this offer…”).  

 

Generate More Sales

You can make more money and grow your business by working to create more sales. Here’s how:

Optimize your sales pages, email campaigns, and ads using testing and tracking. Be sure to test just one variable at a time when doing a/b split testing.

Produce higher conversions by sending a before-turning point-after email series to promote a product. Each email in the series is designed to appeal to a different type of buyer, as well as appealing to different facets of an individual buyer. Many people buy based on the desire for change and justify with logic, which is why this series is so popular.

Utilize affiliate marketing and joint ventures, both of which produce high-converting leads. If a marketing partner has an audience that trusts them, then they’ll send warm, pre-sold traffic your way.

Use an exit traffic script to redirect traffic to your lead page. If someone leaves your site without joining your list, you’re unlikely to see them again. That’s why you’ll want to redirect exiting traffic to your lead page, which will include an enticing lead magnet.

TIP: For best results, create a variety of lead magnets. That way, you can send exit traffic to the lead magnet that is most highly related to the page the visitor was just viewing.

For example, if a prospect is looking at a sales page, then an exit offer might be a “lite” version of an excerpt of the paid product. For instance, if the paid product is a multi-module video course, then you might offer one video module as a lead magnet.

Create a sales funnel so that you always have something else to promote to your existing traffic. Your funnel should include a lead magnet, low-cost tripwire offer, your core offer, and backend offers. Then cross-promote these offers all throughout your sales funnel, including:

• Via email. This includes sending offers to both your prospects and your existing customers.
  
  
• On your download pages. This includes both your lead magnet download pages as well as download pages for paid products.
  
  
• Within your lead magnet. Indeed, your lead magnet should be created in a way to naturally lead to a promotion for the tripwire.
  
  
• Inside your products. Your tripwire, core offer, backend offers, bonus products and other products should all include a promo for a related product.
  
  
• Inside members only areas. This includes promoting inside private groups as well as inside membership areas.

Growing your business means growing your list, growing your traffic, and growing your sales. Be sure to use this three-pronged approach for best results!