31 Goofy Ways (That Work!) to Get Traffic To Your Online Offer
To get seen, you sometimes need to get creative.
You can have the most beautiful web site on the face of the Earth.
You can have the highest converting funnel ever created.
You can have the most titillating offer ever made in sales copy.
But without eyeballs, nobody will ever take that offer.
Getting traffic to your funnel, landing page, tripwire, lead magnet, free trial, or whatever else you’re using as your hook is no different than any other marketing challenge. Many an Internet marketing guru will yell and scream that Internet marketing is a unique beast, but it's not. The Internet is just another medium, and your web site or online offer is just another vehicle for delivering information about your products and services to prospective customers or clients.
Generating traffic to your offer is a critical for success. Traditional methods of offline and online advertising, SEO, social media posting, and the like are all well and good. But sometimes it pays to get creative.
So, here are 31 off-the-beaten path ways to generate traffic to your online offer page. Notice that half of them are actually offline methods. Yep, here in 2024 I’m still writing about offline marketing, and I guarantee that it will still be working, in some way, shape or form, in 2054.
Press releases to newspapers, trade journals, radio, and TV stations.
Offer to start writing a column for a local print publication.
Actively participate in niche forums and sub-Reddits. Don’t spam, engage.
Leave comments on relevant blogs. Don’t spam, engage.
Change your inbound voicemail greeting to mention the offer and URL (short domain).
Cold call telemarketing to a targeted list to invite prospects to a webinar or to watch a video at your website. Yes, telephone. In 2024, and beyond. Yes, even if you’re a startup. Telephone. Just use it. It works.
Same as above, except via direct mail. As in, postal mail. Snail variety. Like, stamps ‘n’ stuff. Yes, it still works, tremendously well.
Post flyers on bulletin boards around your local community, and taped inside store windows of coffee shops and other businesses that will give you permission to do so.
Find the local chapter of a trade association, a user group, MeetUp group, etc. that meets locally, comprised of prospects in your target market. Reach out and offer to be a guest speaker for free.
Attend leads groups, such as BNI or your local Chamber of Commerce.
Rent billboard space along major highways.
Order yard signs and place them with permission in friend’s yards, business’s yards, public right of way if legal in your area.
Hire a street sign spinner.
Publish a book. Include the offer on the cover, first page, last page, and sprinkled around in chapters where appropriate.
Take your book to a trade show, give away free copies at your booth. Copies in swag bags. Copies left on attendee chairs.
Magnetic signs on your cars, friend’s cars, employee’s cars, etc.
Adopt-A-Highway litter patrol signs.
Taxi toppers.
Bus benches. Sides of the bus.
Pizza box ads.
Home Owners Association (HOA) newsletter ads.
Endorsement letter for your offer sent via postal mail by another business to their customers at your expense
Email newsletter joint ventures. Find non-competing businesses with similar target market, and swap guest posts.
Post eBay or Amazon listings for items your ideal customer would buy, and include a flyer with your main offer inside the shipment.
Post Craigslist ads for your service. Craigslist still exists, and is still one of the top 100 most visited websites in the US.
Your local community newspaper probably has an online classified section. Use it.
Offline classified ads. Probably that same newspaper. Probably one price for both a print and online classified ad.
Display ad in your local Tidbits or Coffee News.
Display ads in specific trade publications that are read by your target customer.
Rent trade association email lists. Yes, you have to be extremely careful in how you setup and run such campaigns, from both legal and technical perspectives. But they are incredibly effective.
If you have a broad B2B offering, obtain lists of new business entity formations from your Secretary of State. Call, mail, email — whichever contact info is available in the list.
In reality, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to get web traffic. Some will get a lot of traffic, others will get very little. What matters, however, is having as many entry points for people to enter your sales funnel as possible. Not only does this increase lead flow overall, it also prevents the loss of any one lead source from destroying your business.