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The Naked Marketing Guide to Getting Dramatically More Traffic and Subscribers

Posted By Guest Blogger 29th of May 2012 Blog Promotion 0 Comments

This guest post is by Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing.

Let’s be real for a second.

There’s a lot of information out there about traffic. Tons of it. Entire blogs. Some good, some bad, and some just in between. And tons of posts about it, too—including right here on this blog.

So with all this information out there, let me ask you something:

Do you have all the traffic you want?

Hmmm, I thought not.

Okay, then just what the heck is going on? Why isn’t any of this working?!

Maybe your traffic problem … isn’t a traffic problem!

Considering all of the great information that’s out there about getting traffic, if you haven’t been able to use any of it to actually get some then odds are that your problem isn’t a traffic problem at all.

It’s not about how you’re using Facebook or YouTube, or your Twitter strategy, or even your SEO activities. None of it.

What you probably have is a marketing problem.

You see, all of the traffic generating tools and tips generally work if they’re used correctly within a larger marketing framework. Without having that kind of framework, there’s no way to even know if you’re using Facebook, Twitter, or anything else in the right way.

It’s really, really tempting to look at your problem as a tactic gone wrong. It would be so much easier to fix, wouldn’t it?

If you found out your Twitter headlines weren’t captivating enough, then you could fix them and the problem would disappear. Of course, that’s usually not the issue, and you’re much more likely to spend weeks, months, or longer tweaking and testing things that won’t make a bit of difference.

Take it from me—save yourself the frustration and look at the bigger picture!

The naked marketing guide to traffic that converts

One of the biggest problems with marketing is that anyone who reads a book or a blog post thinks they’ve got it. They’re suddenly an expert.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “everyone’s a writer?”, generally said with a wince and an eye role. Well it’s the same with marketing. Feel free to wince and roll your eyes.

The truth is that most people aren’t expert marketers. They might know some terms and basic concepts, like maybe the Four Ps of Marketing—but very few actually know what those concepts really mean, or how to use them in their business.

That’s where naked marketing comes into the picture—it will make you a dramatically better marketer by helping you understand why you’re going to be doing certain things, and how they all fit into the larger plan for your business.

Without, I might add, any of the jargon, cheap theory, or techno-babble that usually passes for marketing instruction.

We don’t have time to waste, so let’s get started. The first thing you need to do to start using naked marketing is to figure out who turns you on. Yep. This is going to be fun!

So, who’s your type, really?

Don’t worry—we’re not actually talking about fishing for singles! That would be another post entirely.

But in all honesty, the very first step in getting more, better traffic—traffic that converts—is to figure out the one person you should be writing for. I’m talking about that holy grail of readers: the single individual who was made for you, your business and, of course, your blog.

Spend some significant time creating a customer profile that includes everything from their age, gender, location, and income, all the way to their hopes and dreams, favorite books, and frequency of eating tofu for dinner.

If you put in the time doing this, it’s a short leap to imagine where they hang out—both online and offline.

Are they likely a Twitter user? Maybe they spend more time on Facebook? Maybe they use LinkedIn, or even MySpace. Wherever they spend their time online is going to be the best source of traffic for you.

It’s not rocket science—get to know them so you can figure out where they’ll be. And then? Be there!

How to be sexy to them

Okay, all that work you just did, finding out who your one best person is and where they’re going to be? It doesn’t matter unless you’re giving them the right message.

Getting naked is always a two-way street, and you can’t just show up at the party, strip down and demand the same. (Not at most parties, anyway.)

It’s time to bring out your A game. You know what your best traffic source is likely to be, so you’ve got to pull out all the stops and create content and messaging that will be downright irresistible to your one person. So irresistible that they stop and look.

The good news is that this isn’t even all that hard, really.

Think back to the last headline you read that got your attention. How did it do that? What grabbed your interest? I’m willing to bet that it offered you something you wanted in a place that you happened to be. So do the same, and you’ll have your audience’s attention.

But of course, attention isn’t enough. Attention has to turn into desire before their attention is grabbed by something or someone else!

How to evoke desire that prompts action

Getting attention isn’t enough, of course. You want your new reader and potential customer to do something—to engage with you a little. You want them to be interested enough to take action.

Messages (a tweet, a forum post, a status update—whatever) are sexy enough to prompt action when they speak to a problem that your ideal customer has, and promise a solution. Or when they tickle their funny bones and promise more laughs. Or offer a taste of information that they want more of.

Get the idea?

You know who you’re talking to, and you know what turns them on, too—now give them what they want!

This is very powerful, because you’ll be starting a cycle in which you promise something good in exchange for a little effort on their part. At first, it’s going to be a deliciously scintillating headline that promises a fantastic bit of information if they click on it. Once that happens, the ball is back in your court, and you make another offer in exchange for another action.

You never ask for something that is unreasonable given the strength of the current relationship, and with each step in the process you reward them past their expectations, and their commitment to you deepens further and further.

In plain English, that means that they’ll start by reading your headline, then make it back to your website, then subscribe, and then buy everything that you’re selling.

Do you look great naked?

So, are you doing this already? Are you irresistible to your target market, and are they happily consuming the content that you give them? Are you getting the traffic you want from the sources you’re using?

If you are, then congratulations!

But if you’re not, then it might be time to give your marketing a thorough review—strip it bare, see what’s working, and toss out what isn’t. You won’t believe the difference a little “nudity” will make in your marketing!

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is the co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the “Freddy Krueger of Blogging”, and the co-author (with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, and many others) of Engagement from Scratch! (available on Amazon, or as a free download). The latest and greatest thing you can get from him (for free, of course) is his Naked Marketing Manifesto, about marketing that really works!

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Comments
  1. It’s also a matter of time. You need to invest a significan amount of time into your marketing efforts. Even doing all the right things won’t guarantee instant results.

    • Hey Max, *nothing* guarantees instant results – that’s not how things work in the real world, unless you’re taking advantage of some Google loophole that’s about to close. I’m only ever interested in things that work for real.

  2. Well said Danny. I have to admit I’ve fallen victim to trying to fix all my marketing, without really knowing what is working and what isn’t. Right now I’m envisioning the person who would read my real estate blog, and they much different than the profiles I’ve been targeting. I think I need to push LinkedIn a bit more :) Thanks for the advice!

  3. This article is so well-written in common language explaining exactly what is needed to increase the traffic on websites. It asks and answers typical questions that users might have, and it plays its part in informing the public about how to get quality traffic, not just traffic. It gives some tips about marketing as well. Creating a profile of your target customer is something obvious which should be done, but which many does is not done. The other suggestions of attracting attention, evoking desire and analysing whether the marketing efforts are having the effect wished for were very helpful. Thanks!

  4. Mike Parnelly says: 05/29/2012 at 2:00 am

    You know, this article was really just a stretch of the imagination of someone looking to do a guest post on ProBlogger in my opinion. Total nonsense.

    Listen. You can’t cater to readers and expect traffic. You have to bring your own personality and knowledge to the table or you have absolutely nothing to offer that anyone will want to read or “share” with others. All of these pie-in-the-sky ideas about how to generate traffic are just pure bunk for any long term success.

    • I agree with the general notion of this as per my comment, but there’s a nice (or at least polite) way to say what you wanted to say.

    • I concur. The post has no real meaning or good insights. In the recent past, a lot of guest articles on Problogger have been of a similar nature. If what the author means to say is that create a “niche” website, then that idea has been done to death billion times over by better bloggers. Apologies if I sound too harsh or negative.

    • Hi Mike, we’ll have to agree to disagree, because in my opinion and experience, you couldn’t be more wrong; there are a handful of people who get a lot of traffic without thinking about the reader, and it’s because they got lucky and happened to be writing about stuff that their audience was interested in, even if they weren’t doing it on purpose. Everyone else who does that is stuck in “starving artist” land. What can I say – best of luck to you, Mike, you’re gonna need it.

  5. I love this post and can’t wait to give it a try. thanks!

  6. *exhalessharply* Finally someone coming out with the mind blowing truth!
    You won’t believe that’s just what I’m learning after wasting precious blog spaces. I also thought and believe in that theory of Anyone can Blog. Now I know better.
    I just implemented an idea to create a fan page for students and prospective students of my University, you won’t believe that it attracted more likes in 3 days than all my former pages’ likes added together. I’m so happy it’s working- I helping!! Thanks fa!

  7. Hmmm, the idea of creating a typical visitor profile is appealing, but I really couldn’t understand what you want us to do next – engage, appeal, get naked, catchy headline, ok. But how?

  8. It’s a combination of hard work and commitment to a good/great marketing plan that will allow you to succeed. Everything you said makes sense Danny, but most people don’t grasp exactly what to do, and since there is no one formula for marketing success it will be hard to make them succeed without actually doing one on one work with them.

  9. Danny – this is exactly what I needed today. I believe that I’m found a good job with my site
    But I know that I can do better. I will be launching a new ad campaign soon and your tips are going to be crazy helpful.

    Thanks,
    Kimberly

  10. Great article with good advice…funny too! Well written. Kept me engaged the whole time.

  11. nice post and its to attractive for the young readers because of the word “NAKED” O_o cant wait to try it i love it so much..

  12. got me there. so this headline could have been for me.

  13. Awesome post! Here’s an idea I ran across just a few days ago: rather than define your target market by demographics, why not try their Interests, passions, skills, beliefs and values? When I read that, I thought it made more sense than trying to profile them by the more traditional measure of demographics. Just a thought :)

  14. Enjoyed the post. It makes sense that if you want to get targeted traffic, you need to target your traffic. You can still be yourself as well. You just need to write with the right audience in mind.

  15. I hope I can really found out how to be able to get more traffic sexily as you mention it. I really enjoy reading your blog.

  16. I like your article title. When I happen to read your article title on Google Reader, your article arouse my curiosity. A great idea to start a blog post with an interesting note on the title. You should know I read the entire content. This is an example on how writers/bloggers should be more creative on their articles. Keep it up!

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