One of the hardest things a small business faces when they are just getting started online is getting noticed and getting traffic. It isn’t enough to just have a website; you have to get your website seen. Here is a tip to get a kick start by having an authority site promote your business.
Any site that has been around for any length of time will have an email list of subscribers. Chances are, if they are an authority site, they will have been building their list for a long while and will have a fairly substantial customer base. They will also know the value of treating their subscribers well.
The key is to find a complimentary site that is not in direct competition with your business, but has a customer base that has the same demographics as yours. For example, if you sell womens shoes, you may look for an authority site that sells womens clothing. If you sell car accessories, you may want to find a business that sells auto graphics. These businesses are not in direct competition but they do sell to the same niche markets.
Once you find a business that is well established online you can approach them to strike up a deal. The mistake most people make is asking for a joint venture. Most large sites will not give you the time of day if you approach them with a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kind of deal. They know that you are the new kid on the block and that you stand to gain more from the association than they do.
Instead, you should be taking a different angle and they will respond. Because they like to treat their customer list well, they would be more receptive to you giving their customers a gift. Everyone loves to give free gift to their customers. It makes them look very good.
What you do then is offer to give a free gift to their customers. This freebie could be an eBook you have created especially for their customers or a free sample of your product. You should figure out what your cost of acquisition is. If it normally costs you $20 to obtain a new customer, you can afford to give a free gift worth up to $20 and still break even, or better yet, a $10 gift and you have saved 50% of your cost of acquisition.
This is the most important part. If at all possible, pick up the phone and call them. Don’t send an email for this unless you have no way of finding their phone number. Most successful businesses online get a ton of spam emails every day. You want to make a connection with this company on a personal level. So give them a call. Explain to them that you are new online but that you are an established company and you would like to offer a gift to their customers. Offer to send them a free sample of the gift first so they can evaluate the product for themselves.
Whatever you do, make sure you can deliver. If they have a list of 100,000 emails and they send the offer out to the list and 1% respond, it will mean you will have to give 1,000 gifts so make sure you can follow through. If you are concerned, tell them you will give it to the first 100 who respond or whatever limit you are comfortable with. Be sure you are set up to capture the emails from every customer they send you.
By doing this, you now not only have kick started your business, but you have now formed a good connection with this successful business that you will be able to approach for other promotions in the future. If you do this a few times with other businesses within your market, it will not take long to build your customer base and be making regular sales online.