One thing Ive learnt this week about traffic

As the title reads, I wanted to share something with anyone just starting out in internet marketing, who may be struggling with generating traffic. For established marketers this is no doubt, a no brainer - but something Ive overlooked - up until just recently. I should point out that Im by no means an expert on generating traffic - I just wanted to share this in the hope that someone may get something from it.

Ive always had the mindset, research a potential niche, develop a product, build a site and make sales. I didnt care about messing about too much with lists or offering additional sales, or any of that. Just gimmie the CASH! Terrible I know!

I just wanted the thrill of hearing that cash register go DING - when the sale notification email from CB hit my inbox.

I always figured - just make the sale and get the hell outta there!

That was up until recently when I really started to think through what I was actually doing.

Now traffic isnt a strength for me - but Im working on it, and tirelessly. This last week or so, I decided to hammer the backlinks, shoot videos and post a dozen articles, all of which Ive done. Ive posted articles on site as well as within article directories such as EZA.

Now, in addition to this, Ive started really ramping up my interaction with my list. Having listened again to Adam Shorts videos, and having spoken recently with Brad Gosse, and infact, looking through my inbox at what other experienced marketers were doing (Jim Edwards etc) - I came to what should have been pretty obvious realization. And this was.....

THE EASIEST VISITORS TO ATTRACT ARE RETURN VISITORS!!!!

Id always fought with trying desperately to get hundreds of visitors a day to my sites, and up until recently have been getting VERY lousy results. So as a means to change this, I started hammering my list, sending an email every second day - and by hammering, I dont mean PUSHING THE SALE - I mean, offering HIGH QUALITY RELEVANT CONTENT!!

This has seen the overall traffic on my site increase steadily just after a week and a half of doing so! And the return visits is confirmed by referring to Google's Analytics.

So basically what Im now doing is this....

1. Initial follow up email
2. What did you think of the product email?
3. GIVE GIVE GIVE (in the form of providing almost educational content about my niche)
4. GIVE GIVE GIVE (again great content, perhaps even something free!)
5. GIVE some more
6. Push the sale! Try pushing the actual sale.....
7. GIVE GIVE GIVE (in the form of providing almost educational content about my niche)
8. GIVE GIVE GIVE (again great content, perhaps even something free!)
9. GIVE some more
10. Push the sale! Try pushing the actual sale.....

Then repeat repeat repeat!

This *seems* to work, and the way I see it is that if you get say, 100 visitors a day, and 10 join your list, then after a week, that should be 100 visitors a day PLUS your return visitors over the period of that week which *should* be another 70.

Dont make me do that maths - Im tired, but you get the point right? Its like a snowball effect

Anyway, just my $0.02 worth. I hope someone out there gets something out of this post.

John