I’ve spoken with a lot of frustrated business owners over the years—who have spent tonnes on their website but then can’t get enough visitors (traffic) on to it to actually generate any sales or enquiries.
Ironically there are more than two hundred specific tactics you can employ to drive traffic to your website.
All you have to do is test them. Find out which specific tactics work best for you and your industry.
However, I can already tell you which tactic will be the clear winner. Not only in terms of sending huge streams of traffic to your website, in a very short time, but also making the traffic more ‘pre-qualified’ and likely to respond to your sales message.
Strategic Alliances
Also called Joint Ventures (or JVs for short), strategic alliances are where you look for other businesses which sell products and services that complement your own, and ask them to send emails to their customers, recommending your products, services or treatments.
This is usually done in return for commission on each sale that results.
Let me give you some quick examples.
To start with, my own strategic alliance partners include other business and marketing consultants who I don’t directly compete with.
I also have accountants and finance companies recommending my products to their clients.
I also have alliances with professional organisations and business institutions who recommend my products to their members.
And in the latter case that’s not for commission, it’s a reciprocal arrangement where I’ve spoken at their conferences for free in return for promotion.
(See how alliances can be customised to suit the individual?)
The emails your strategic alliance partners send out to recommend your products and services—which I strongly suggest you write for them, or at least help them write—contain a link back to your web site, where their referred customer is able to either buy whatever was recommended.
Or, in the case of sales-leads generation, the other company could recommend their customers grab a copy of your new free report for example.
Now every person who does that—who responds to the offer—will then be added to your database.
You then start communicating with them by e-mail and other means, giving them additional information and sooner or later encouraging them to make their next purchase from you.
And when they do, as aforementioned, the referring company usually gets a percentage commission on those sales.
What this means is that unlike most other ways of getting traffic to a website, if you successfully form alliances with people with big email lists, you can get huge streams of traffic very quickly, and at no up-front cost.
It’s a zero risk tactic.
You only pay when you sell something.
Or, you can agree to do a ‘list swap’ where no commission changes hands. You simply agree to email your list recommending the alliance partners products in return for them recommending you.
Start Forming Alliances
Start with friends, colleagues and suppliers.
Use software like to track which alliance partners send you referrals.
Then make sure you follow-up and sell to as many of those referrals as possible so you can pay great commissions, earn good money yourself, and of course provide those new customers with good quality products and services.
It’s Win/Win/Win.
Strategic alliances are a powerful, fast and no-risk way to get web site traffic and streams of new business.
So, who would make your ideal strategic alliance partner?
And if you’re thinking *I* would then by all means get in touch—as long as you’re in a similar niche to me and you have an active email subscriber list then I’d love to talk.