You’re excited to launch your new website, but petrified at the idea of getting little to no visitors. Well, you’re not alone…
This duality of emotion affects almost all budding young startups and digital entrepreneurs. Why? Because generating steady traffic to your business’ new website is no guarantee.
First, understand that marketing is a long-term game, often taking months before you see the fruits of your labour. Moreover, if you don’t nail the execution of these tactics right off the bat, you won’t ever see the results.
Establishing a successful website for your business means laying the foundation early and growing from a position of strength. This helps oversee meaningful short term growth while also helping build for the future.
In this article, we explore how you can easily draw customers to your business’ new site in the first few weeks, as well as establish a strong foundation for further growth. Read on.
Leverage the power of free trials
“Start your 30-day free trial”, said every online service, ever.
Whether we’re talking about a streaming service like Amazon Prime, cloud storage software like Dropbox or a data analysis tool like Ahrefs, almost all high-profile companies leverage some kind of free trial to draw new customers. Why? Because it works.
Free trials are one of the best ways to show off your service and help your website earn some much-needed early growth. Not only do free trials get people using your website (or product/service), they also lower the customer’s cost of acquisition. This means you can convert more leads by introducing customers to your service before charging full price.
Ecommerce businesses tend to leverage free trials when offering a monthly service. For example, BrewDog — the craft beer company — launched the BrewDog & Friends subscription box by advertising the first box as free. This has changed to the first three boxes being heavily discounted (50%, 30%, and 20% respectively). Either way, this trial period allows users to become acclimated with the product and continue payments.
Prize draws to invoke a sense of urgency
Prize draws are a powerful way to encourage a sense of urgency in potential customers.
Essentially a prize draw promises something in return for signing up to your website or service. You’ll often find these offerings are time-sensitive to influence a customer and create a feeling of missing out.
Some businesses have to choose a prize they feel connects with their target audience, be it a product giveaway or gift certificate; other businesses have prize draws built into their service. Take lottery platforms for example, whose entire business model is based around encouraging people to partake and be in with a chance of winning a life-changing jackpot.
Lotteries (and similar sites) leverage live jackpots to evoke urgency in the customer. For instance, the cash4life page on Lotto247 counts down in twenty-four-hour cycles, encouraging potential customers to register with their service and be in with a chance of winning $1,000 a day for life. The product is relatively inexpensive and draws a lot of attention given the potential winnings — so why wouldn’t you make the most of this offer?
Create well-optimised content to attract the right traffic
Content is king when it comes to digital marketing.
A consistent stream of well-optimised content is one of the most effective strategies for drawing customers to your new website. The caveat is that unlike free trials and prize draws, crafting quality content isn’t quick or easy, but it is the building block for long term success.
Articles, blog posts, and white papers crafted with SEO (search engine optimization) at their heart allows you to target relevant keywords and tackle subjects your audience want to know more about. This makes it easier to not only improve traffic to your website but also attract customers with high intent to purchase and engage with your service.
Creating content fueled by SEO bolsters the value of your website over time, allowing you to challenge competitors in the SERPs (search engine result pages) and rank above them for key search terms that likely impact sales and the growth of your business. For example, Hubspot — the popular marketing software developer — hosts an incredible array of content on their blog, helping them become trusted thought leaders in their industry.
Digital marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time to build trust in your niche and excitement around your service. But all successful businesses have to start somewhere. From leveraging free trials and prize draws to creating a bank of well-optimised content — this is how to draw customers to your new website.
