It’s all too familiar a story.You’ve created a beautiful online store
and you’re carrying products that you knowpeople will love but the only problem is,
no one is coming to your store.Why is that? There could be several reasons
but one of them is probably because you’renot doing a good enough job of actively driving
visitors to your site.In this video, we’ll show you 6 practical
and proven methods, that you can use, to drivetraffic to your online store today.Tip #1 Send free samples to Instagram influencers.
Instagram is quickly becoming one of the mosteffective marketing channels for ecommerce
merchants. In fact, a recent study found thatInstagram provides brands with 25% more engagement
than any other social platform.Additionally, using instagram is a great way
to drive traffic and awareness to your store– especially if you know how to target influencers.
So, how do you do that? Well, a great placeto start is by using the free online program
Websta.Let’s say we want to start a business selling
hair products online. We’ll do a quick searchfor “hairstylist”.As you can see we’re able to pull the following
list of popular related hashtags as well asusers who have the word “hairstylist”
in their usernames or bios. The idea hereis to search through the results and try to
uncover accounts with large followings – tryto aim for accounts with 20 000+ followers.Take a look at their profile pages, paying
special attention to ones that include anemail address. This will typically indicate
that they are open to product placements,partnerships and advertising opportunities.Additionally, if a web address is included,
you can easily navigate to their site andlook for a contact page to find an email or
mailing address.Keep in mind not every Instagram user with
a lot of followers is willing to feature productsfrom users. Take a look at their past activity
to see if it’s something they’re regularlydoing and if it is don’t hesitate to reach
out and see if they might be willing to acceptsamples.Tip #2 Reach out to Bloggers and Press. A
great way to drive traffic to your store isby getting featured on a blog or mentioned
in the press. Now, you don’t have to targetthe biggest and most successful people. In
fact, your chances of getting featured arebetter if you aim for people with small to
medium audiences, because they’re not constantlybombarded with pitches. Keep in mind that
the loyalty of the audience matters almostas much as size.To find bloggers and influencers in your industry,
simply head over to Google.As an example, we searched “Hairstyle Blog”
and as you can see there are several blogsdedicated to hairstyle. Take your time looking
through the results to see which blogs postregularly on hair products and feature product
reviews.Another great place to look for influential
bloggers is on youtube. Try searching fordifferent keywords like “hair advice”,
“hair tips” and “hair care”. Thensee whether the makers of these videos are
regularly posting hair product features orreviews. Just like with Instagram, you should
reach out to see if they are willing to accepta sample of your product.Another tried and true method for getting
traffic is landing your business in the press.A good starting point is to target local news
sites, community papers and smaller publicationsspecific to your industry. Pay particular
attention to journalists that have writtenabout products similar to yours or your competitors
in the past.A great online tool you can use to find local
journalists or writers who cover your areaof interest is followerwonk.Followerwonk allows your to search for keywords
in people’s twitter profiles. Let’s saywe’re trying to find a local journalist
in Toronto, we could do a quick search for“Toronto Journalist” and look through
the results. You can also narrow your resultsby adding keywords specific to your industry.Often times, you can find their email right
in their twitter bio, so you can easily sendthem an email. We suggest that you keep your
email short and compelling, and focus on tellinga unique story. Highlight what makes you different
and position yourself as a local success story.Tip #3 post your store on Reddit. The whole
internet hangs out on reddit and in additionto its front page which aggregates the most
popular content on the web, it also has thousandsof category specific subreddits. In fact,
you can find a subreddit on nearly any subject.To find relevant subreddits, use reddit’s
search feature and type in your keywords ofchoice. Let’s stick with the hair products
scenario and do a quick search for “hairadvice”. As you can see a number of different
subreddits have been found from our search.Let’s take a quick look at the “female
hair advice” subreddit.Within this subreddit , there is a lot of
discussion on all aspects of hair care. Youcan also take a look at the related subreddits
like “haircarescience”, “curlyhair”,or simply “hair”. As we said, there are
a lot of niche subreddits out there.Once you’ve located a subreddit or two specific
to your industry, look for ways to contributecontent without coming off as spammy or salesy.
That might mean submitting a blog post youjust wrote or a link to a video tutorial you’ve
just created.In other words, try and give and not just
take and the community will be much more accepting.Also, it’s important to note that each subreddit
has specific rules and are displayed in thesidebar on the right . Some subreddits don’t
allow promotional material – so posting what’sbasically an ad for your store is not allowed.Tip #4 get friends and family to share. Are
you at the age yet when all of your Facebookfriends are posting pictures of their babies?
Isn’t it annoying? Many people are sickof looking at baby photos, but you can probably
get away with sharing your online store. Peopledon’t launch businesses too frequently,
so it’ll probably be quite unique withinyour circle of friends.We suggest you reach out to your friends and
family in a targeted way with personalizedmessages. Don’t focus on getting them to
buy your products but instead ask them toshare your store with their networks. You’ll
have a higher success rate than reaching outto strangers, and if enough of them share,
you might get some sufficient momentum.Additionally, you can talk about your store
in a status update, but try not to post toofrequently to avoid irritating your friends.
A good rule of thumb is update your personalpage only once a day with a business related
post.Tip #5 Pro-Actively Engaging on Twitter. A
great way to get on people’s radars is byactively engaging with them on twitter. Here’s
what you can do:First, you can generate some follow-backs
by following select people on twitter whomyou determine may be interested in your store.
To do this, we’ll head back to Followerwonk.Simply log in through your twitter account,
and search for relevant keywords in people’stwitter bios and profiles. You can then follow
the users who you believe would be interestedin your store.Additionally, you may want to try searching
twitter for keywords related to your productofferings and then look for chances to help
people or add value in a way that doesn’tsound like a sales pitch. Remember to remind
your followers every so often about your productofferings, and you’ll be well on your way
to building an audience of interested peoplewho will be curious to check out your store.Tip #6 Write a Blog Post featuring people
with audiences and send it to them. Our finalsuggested tactic for getting traffic goes
back to reaching out and connecting to peoplewith audiences – bloggers in particular.But instead of targeting them by sending a
sample of your product, – you do it by writinga blog post about them, and sending it to
them in an email or on twitter.You’re going to be looking for the influencers
in your industry anyway. So write up the toppeople you find and turn that into an easy
blog post featuring the most popular instagramusers, bloggers, vloggers and twitter accounts.For example, You could write a top 10 list
of the most important hairstyle bloggers youshould be following or top 15 twitter accounts
you should be following to discover new hairstyles.In the blog post, list them and come up with
a short blurb describing what they’re allabout. Next, tweet the post to them or send
them an email . Try not to be too obviousthat you’re just trying to get their attention.
As long as your post is thoughtful, they’llbe flattered and if they send it out to their
network, all the better.Try putting these 6 traffic driving methods
into practice with your business and be sureto keep us posted with your progress. If you’re
looking for more information on starting andrunning your own business, be sure to subscribe
to our Youtube channel and join the ecommerceuniversity email list. Thanks for watching
and if you found this video helpful let usknow by clicking like or leaving a comment
below.
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