4 Effective Ways To Bring Traffic To Your Newly Launched Store
Utilise the power of influencers
Most people will suggest following influencers and start slowly building a relationship with them before pitching a request. Let’s be honest who has got time to manage these finicky online relationships when really most influencers will be more than happy with cold hard cash or a free sample as a way to ‘build’ that relationship.
Start small
If you have a small budget (who doesn’t reading this) then I would suggest reaching out to micro influencers. This is a loose term but it generally applies to people with less than 30,000 followers. Instagram and Youtube are the biggest social marketplaces for finding possible relationships but you can also find influencers on most of the other social networks.
Free samples and/or cash will likely give you the best response rates when outreaching micro influencers. Don’t waste everyones time by not offering something in exchange for that review or mention.
One simple way to find an influencer is just to search for the keyword on the social network. Lets pretend we have a new skin care product about to launch and its made from coconuts.
Step 1
Search for your keyword and see who’s talking about it. I searched for posts containing #coconutskincare. Find a post that has good engagement (100+ likes).
The first post in the search results looks ideal. Click it and open the user profile to find out a little more about them.
Step 2
Take a look at their follower count, description and engagement numbers on their posts. Ideally we are looking for an influencer that has a strong following with most of their posts getting good interaction levels and comments.
This user even labels themselves as an influencer which will probably make the process easier but do not be put off if they do not have this. More often than not a user will not even know what the term influencer means and therefore will probably accept lower rates.
Step 3
A lot of influencers will include contact details in their description like ladyxoxo. It’s usually a sign that they are open to partnerships/product placements. If you do not see any contact details you can direct message the user from the mobile app and ask if they would be interested in receiving a free sample or be paid to feature your product. Sometimes a combination of the 2 might get a better response rate, its really depends on the price/quality of your product.
See who’s talking on Twitter (this is probably the most time consuming one)
Twitter (and all social media platforms for that matter) can be a great way of attracting attention to your newly launched store, if used correctly. The problem that I often see is people using follow back services or paying for followers and then expecting targeted leads to start pouring into their site. It doesn’t work like that so please stop wasting your money on these type of services.
What you want to do is actively engage with other users conversations that are relevant to your business. You might not see results from day one, it takes a lot of hard work to build a substantial social following. The quicker you start and more consistent you are, the sooner you will start seeing some returns on your efforts. Lets see how we do it.
Step 1
On twitter type in the search box a keyword that is relevant to your business. Lets stick with the skin cream and see what we find. Ideally we are looking for users who are posting questions, so it’s a good idea to end with a question mark in your search query.
Step 2
Answer their questions. Don’t be too pushy with your own products. If you have a product that is very relevant to the users question then by all means share it but all you want to do here is try to connect with a relevant audience in the hope they will follow you.
This is the ugly side of marketing that many blogs (usually offering a marketing services) won’t show you. It’s arduous and time consuming but it’s how you get started on a very limited budget. It just takes hard work. Gary Vaynerchuk spent 12 hours a day answering users questions about wine to start building his following on Twitter. Check the video below where Gary talks about this (watch the whole thing if you have time, it’s a great watch).
Remember: You don’t need to wait to launch your store to start building your following. Pro-actively build your audience BEFORE you launch.
Connect with bloggers
This is the same principle as the first influencer tip but instead of searching on social media you want to use Google. Offering free samples and/or a monetary payment will often be enough to get them to agree. Lets start:
Step 1
Search for your keyword in Google and add ‘blog’ at the end of the search query. If you are in a very popular niche then I recommend skipping the first 5-10 search results and focus on lower ranking blogs (pages 2-4). I say that because if you are on a budget then the top ranking blogs will probably be charging $xxx for sponsored content.
Here we can see a few possible blogs we could reach out to. Go to their blog, scope out a few blog posts to make sure it is relevant and targeting your audience. If it looks like the right fit then find the contact page and send them a proposal.
And a few more pages on I came across Kimberly’s Blog. She had a page dedicated to partnerships which looked very promising.
You will have more opportunities if you explore more search queries. Don’t just stop at “Product Name” + Blog. Look at Google’s related searches section for more keyword ideas that you can use to find more blogs. The longer the search query the more targeted and niche your results will become. Smaller, more niche sites are ideal because you can get product placements for next to nothing!
Find blogs that are reviewing your competitors products
Chances are, if they reviewed your competitors product, they will also be happy to review yours.
If you don’t know who your competitors are (you really should this far into the product launch,) you can quickly find out by searching for your product description in Google and see who is ranking top. Lets pretend we have an organic coconut skin cream for the UK market. This is who my competitors would be:
Now lets see what blogs are talking about my competitor. To do this I search “Competitor Product name” + review. This will show me all of the websites that have reviewed the product.
Open the blogs and look for any signs that they accept partnerships/advertising opportunities. You can usually find this information on their contact page.
Now get in touch with them and wait for a response. It really is that easy.
There you have it, 4 easy ways to start getting those first visitors into your newly launched store. There are many other tactics we can use to build traffic but I find product reviews/endorsements ideal because not only do you get brand exposure and quality referral traffic but you also hopefully gain some all important backlinks in the process if you manage to land a review on a blog.
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