Now that we’re clear on the objectives. Sales, right? Let’s creatively solve the problem using the Internet and marketing.

How Do I Get More Web Visitors?

I always like to start simple.

In this case, the most basic definition of a Web visitor is: a click from somewhere. We want as many clicks as we can get. These clicks can come from emails, blogs, websites, search engines, social media, or paid online ads. And roughly, our experience shows that this is the order in which these clicks perform the best at generating sales leads.

If you want to increase your Web traffic you need to get your website link(s) in one or more of these marketing medium.

The second step is to develop tactics that motivate people to click on those web links (generating traffic) to your website. I like to break this process down into three processes:

• Quality and relevant content hosting the link (i.e., the email message, blog post, social media message, or paid ad)
• Sense of urgency to drive the click
• Compelling offer or promise (i.e., Ad text, link text, or creative)

This is the process we are thinking through with the Web traffic strategy and tactics we develop for you.

What Do Web Visitors Want from Me?

Getting Web traffic is only half the equation. You need to get them to convert into leads (i.e., phone calls or Web form submits).

This is where most folks skip a step and run headfirst into optimizing landing pages. While important, there is a critical step that precedes the landing page.

When I get that click from the Web visitor…

• What are they expecting?
• What will they want from me?
• What will convince them they are in the right place?

Carefully review the sources of your Web clicks, the text in your referring links or ads, and build out a few personas reflecting the type of people that will be clicking. Then look at your current landing page(s) or begin designing them fresh with these people in mind. Make sure that the majority of clicks you get can find “themselves” on the landing pages you present.

Meeting your Web visitors expectations is a critical first step in converting Web traffic into sales leads.

How To Turn Web Visits into Sales Leads

You’ve driven their clicks. You’ve met their expectations. Don’t forget to ask and capture.

Turning more visitors into captured leads is one of the most complex parts of the lead generation equation. The challenge is designing influence and for this we turn to the six pillars Cialdini taught about in his seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

• Reciprocation – Hooking the visitor into some sense of obligation for the value you have given thus far.
• Commitment and Consistency – Hitting expectations and delivering consistently on the little promises you make in your copy
• Social Proof – Giving the visitor a sense that they are one of many making a good decision to engage with you
• Liking - Showing some personality that will draw that visitor into the most powerful conversion factor–they like you!
• Authority - Designing a professional and validated impression that points to you as the authority in solving their problem
• Scarcity – Probably the most important–convincing them that they must do this deal today or it’s gone.

Obviously, this doesn’t always fit into a single landing page package. However, this is the framework we are consistently processing through to yield results–sales leads.

You’ve seen some of the basic elements of our Internet Marketing process. Contact us to talk specifically about increasing your sales lead flow?

Masterful Execution

I witnessed a masterful execution of social media strategy at BlogWorld 08. Coordinated by at least two of panelist on the Making Money Online with a Blog session, Shoemoney instantly increased his Twitter followers by 200+ and piled in the links to his site.

Social Media Setup

This aptly named panel on making money online, was packed with the heavy-hitters in the affiliate marketing space: John Chow, Brian Clark, Zac Johnson, Jim Kukral, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker.

As the panel begins the social media campaign creative kicks in. Jim Kukral, the moderator, draws attention to his frustrated wait for the late panelist–Jeremy Schoemaker (aka Shoemoney). Despite his frustration he launches the session.

Call to Action

Now, as the session proceeds, Jim seems to again become agitated at the empty panelist seat. He turns to the audience of 200+ and tells them to use Twitter and tweet, “@shoemoney you suck #bwe08.” Of course everyone obliges. Instantly 100s of “@shoemoney you suck #bwe08″ tweets light up Twitter clients and Twitter search feeds for #bwe08.

This simple call to action instantly reached thousands both at and monitoring the BlogWorld conference. Bingo! Hundreds of follows and links.

The Social Media Play

Come to find out…it was all a staged social media campaign:

Brilliance! John Chow is infamous for clever social media and audacious social media campaigns. Anyone remember the “John Chow is Full of Shit” viral video test? That broad search returns 45,500 results–not a bad link building strategy.

Social Media Takeaway

So, what is my point to clients? Obviously, I am not advocating that you upstage your next conference panel opportunity or produce viral videos about your bowel movements. However, I am strongly suggesting you follow the key elements of these social media scoundrels:

• be creative
• think 3D (online and offline)
• be interesting
• take a few carefree risks

Have you witnessed any clever social media campaigns?
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Bill Rice is the founder of RICEinteractive. We help clients design, execute, and make money with content and social media. Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/billrice. I would love to help you succeed.

• Gmail
• LinkedIN
• Twitter
• MyBlogLog
• StumbleUpon
• eZineArticles

I will tell you how to use each in a moment. All you need to do now is sign-up and have your Web URL in each pointed at your home base.

Day 3: Brainstorm Your Brand

This is a critical step and where most stumble. I am going to break it into small concepts.

You are building a personal brand for a reason. Let’s write them down:

• Defining who you are and what you are good at
• Defining who you want to meet
• Defining who you want to meet you
• Make connecting as frictionless as possible

Turn each of these headings into 4-5 core brand concepts. Here are some examples:

• Writer: copywriting, ghostwriting, speech writing, web content
• Affiliate Marketer: ppc, seo, article marketing, affiliate programs
• Mortgage Broker: mortgage rates, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, loan modification

From each of these personal brand concepts craft 10 long tail topics. More examples:

• Writer: Copywriting-10 Secrets to Make Your Copy Sell
• Affiliate Marketer: Article Marketing-Driving Niche Traffic to Your eBay Affiliate Store
• Mortgage Broker: Reverse Mortgages-Helping Your Retired Parents Get the Right Mortgage

Day 4: Write–A Lot

A good personal brand only works if it has depth.

This 5 day process is going to immediately drive people to you. Make sure you look like you are open for business and it is clear who you are and why you are valuable.

So now it is time to open up the word processor. Write each of your list of articles. The list should have between 40-50 article topics. Yes, this is going to be a long day. Here are a few tips:

• Each article should only be 300-450 words
• Each should be informative or how-to oriented
• Create a standard format that is easy to read: italicized introduction, sub-headings, and lists
• Use keyword(s) in sub-headings and body of article, but no more than 2-3 times
• Include a consistent “resource box” at the end of each–brief who you are, what you do, and website link

Look at this post as an example.

Day 5: Start Promoting

Okay. I know you are tired, but we are to the fun part–self-promotion!

Expect another long day. Do the following steps. Since we are compressing this into 5 days it is important to do this in order:

1. Post 10 articles to your blog (website): This should simply be a cut and paste exercise. One important trick to add a little apparent depth. Post date each but the final article when posting. I recommend spacing the post dating to reflect 3 posts per week, or whatever frequency you intend to post in the future. This isn’t intended to be a deceptive trick, but rather helps set expectations for your readers for the frequency of future posts.
2. Post 10 more articles to your blog (website): These are going to be posted with future dates. This will help make you ongoing personal brand maintenance less intimidating. You now have a good queue–keep it full.
3. Post 10 articles to eZineArticles: There are others, but this is the best. They have good rules, reputation, and traffic.
4. Hold on to remaining 10-20 articles: Chances are you didn’t write 40-50 anyway–I know you got lazy, didn’t you? I am your coach– I am going to push you harder than you think you can go. If you met my goal you have some extra juice in the tank to deploy or reserve your call. If you didn’t make it you need to work harder–this is important. It is your personal brand. It will make you more money!
5. Gmail: Add a signature block. Make it much like your article resource box, but add telephone number, LinkedIN profile and Twitter URLs. Announce your new website and expertise to 10 friends. Ask them to promote and link to you.
6. Twitter: Go to http://search.twitter.com. Search for your keywords. Reply–intelligently–to 10 tweets on things of interest and relevant to you brand. Follow 10 other people in your brand area that you did not reply to tweets from.
7. LinkedIN: Connect with 10 people you already know (load in address book). Ask them to endorse you.
8. MyBlogLog: Add widget to blog (website). Search for your keywords. Join 10 communities of people in your brand area.
9. Stumbleupon: Search for your keywords. Connect with 10 people in your brand area. Stumble each of the websites of the people you connected with on Twitter, LinkedIN, MyBlogLog. Stumble your most recent blog (website) post.
10. eZineArticles: Add widget to blog (website).

Take the weekend off. Rest. Then…

Repeat Weekly.

Good luck! Happy personal brand building.

—

If you have any questions–contact me: http://twitter.com/billrice

• Increase the efficiency and frequency of your communication
• Facilitate you consistently adding value to your network
  
• Generate and/or spot business opportunity

Unfortunately, social networks often degenerate into ego arms races. Creating or growing your network in this fashion creates an overwhelming and useless mess. This approach simply creates a high noise to signal ratio, which destroys any hope of value.

What Services Do I Use?

New social networks and supporting applications pop up daily. Getting distracted by every venue for your network can be paralyzing. Organizing these solutions into categories, based on your objectives, quickly sorts them.

• Contact database: Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Mac Address Book
  
• Reputation and identity: LinkedIN, Plaxo, Personal Blog
  
• News and opportunity: FriendFeed, Twitter
  
• Communication and nurturing: Twitter, FriendFeed, Personal Blog
• Metrics: TweetBurner, Bit.ly

Each of these services allows for the simple importing and connecting to contacts in any of the major address book applications. I highly recommend you begin organizing your network there, import, and then continue to sync back to that as a master contact database.

How to Nurture a Social Network

Getting your network to generate leads and business opportunities is perfectly correlated to your lead nurturing strategy. Or, as Tim Sanderssays refresh your network for better performance.

Nurturing a social network is significantly different than nurturing a sales prospect database. You are not creating a drip email campaign. This type of activity will quickly erode your network. Lead nurturing and network building in social media should be focused on listening, discussing, and adding value–in that order.

Listening teaches you what people are interested in learning about, what they find valuable, and messages that call them to action.

Discussion allows you to build relationships and grow your audience. Again, you should be learning here too.

Adding value, this is what produces business opportunity leads. Directing people to and providing valuable, problem solving information drives them to you. This approach drives them to you in solving these problems and attracts others with similar problems.

How do you maximize the value you get back from your time spent on social media and social networking? What are the tools you use?

—

If you have any questions–contact me: http://twitter.com/billrice