How to Generate Mass Traffic to an Online Event in Record Time
If you want to kick off a new online holiday or event, you’ll
need to do it with a Big Bang. Make your entrance, and then keep
the momentum going by cattle-driving traffic and human interest
to the source. Yes, cattle-driving! You need to climb on that
imaginary horse and start corralling people in. Everyone on the
web is highly distracted, even your best buddies. Help them
notice you, remember you, and get your name out into mass
circulation. Make it fun, and don’t forget to have fun yourself.
People are attracted to others who seem to be having fun. 
In online event planning, your two best friends are your social
network of humans and the search engines. You can’t possibly
pull this thing off unless both are wound into the plan – and it
should be pretty clear why. If you stick with search engine
tricks alone, you’ll find that your website begins to pull some
rank on Google because you’ve driven those search words via the
major marketing generation methods… but there’s an absence of
life at the point of contact. That’s no good.
If you concentrate solely on your human network but fail to tap
the engine power, you’ll get a small group of excited parties
all sitting in a closed circle and blinking at each other. I
guess small and intimate isn’t terrible, but we’re talking about
an online event here and that phrase connotes BIG. So, use
search engine optimization AND word of mouth to spread it far
and wide.
Let’s talk about the ways you can viral-market your internet
promotion and blast it out there in a short period of
time.
1. Article marketing. Article marketing is at the heart
of every great marketing effort. Don’t get me wrong – blogging
is instant entertainment, but if you want credibility, then
write potent, info-rich articles or have someone write them for
you. Your articles are going to get picked up and added to other
people’s websites, so you’ll want to mention the event name and
the URL to the event website in each one that you write for your
promotional effort. Submit your article to as many article
directories as possible but beware the No Advertising Rule! If
these guys catch you being too promotional your article will get
the shaft and there goes your big article marketing Event Master
Blaster Plan. Email me if you need a jumping point for your
article marketing campaign: Dina/AT/Wordfeeder.com.
2. Networking. Don’t even attempt online event planning
unless you already have a solid online network of marketing
colleagues in place. Your friends are the ones who already love
you, admire you, will listen to what you say and join in for the
group project. Very few “random finds” on the web will just
catch wind of your Pied Piper event promotion tune and start
following along (but when they do, it’s really cool). You’ll
want your network topic to be themed around your event. So, if
yours is a Kids’ Artwork Show with a portion of the proceeds
going to a children’s hospital, then your network should ideally
be for work-at-home moms and parents. DON’T promote your event
on a network of unrelated subjectmatter. That’s a great way to
drive people away completely!
3. Landing page and email drip campaign. Your landing
page should be accessible from your articles and other
“outreaching” content vehicles. When your reader clicks the
link, he should be “hard sold” on why this is going to be
fantastic, what’s in it for him, and compelled to drop his name
in the box. Your email subscriber base should continue to grow
throughout the event’s developments. Use it as a megaphone to
‘rally the team’, send updates, and guide others to help spread
the word and click the links to your blog, articles, ebooks and
other web traffic helpers. Frequently tell the team what they’ll
get out of this. Offer them gifts. Without an incentive, nobody
will want to be your groupie and I for one wouldn’t blame them
in the least.
4. Blogging. Blogs get indexed quickly! If you want your
mass event to power up the Google ladder, then choose a blog
hosting company that will “help you along.” TypePad has been
working well for me. Fill your blog with categorized keywords
and turn your “major search term” (the name of your holiday)
into something that will ring a bell and prompt folks to start
typing into the Google box out of sheer curiosity. Your blog
should contain plenty of links that “point” to your hot pages;
for example, any fun contests or activity pages you plan to run,
your articles. Include your landing page at the end of every
post. This will lend clarification for the confused who just
landed from outer space and also “grab” them for the email list.
Your blog should be highly interactive. Initiate discussions;
blast out participants and supporters by linking to their
websites. Make your blog sticky, and offer plenty of reciprocal
links as incentive to keep watching your show.
5. Web PR. Web PR is needed so those RSS feeds can sound
off your news to the mass communication circuit online. Just
like article marketing and blogs, you’ll want to include the
name of your event frequently (about three times per press
release) so that the search term will get carried along on those
content feeds and bring you higher up on Google. Think of that
web surfer, glazing over your press release and reading a term
like “Web Content Awareness Day” multiple times. It sinks in
somehow. Later, when he stumbles across you again, suddenly he’s
compelled to hunt for more info and he types those words into
the search box. That’s how the momentum keeps building and it’s
a great reason to submit to free PR sites. If you email me, I
can help you out: Dina/AT/Wordfeeder.com
6. E-Books. E-books are super-vitamins for your website’s
page rank. When people open up your info-laden PDF file, that
counts as a page view. Page views give you a push in the search
engine hierarchy. So DO give away free information. Link to your
free downloadable e-book from your blog, from your group emails,
from your network posts and from your “main holiday website”
after you launch it. Encourage friends to pass your e-book along
to keep the page views coming. Links in your e-book should point
back to… guess where? Your blog and your landing page. Are you
getting a feel for how all this content is connected?
7. Your Big Yap. Huh? I’m talking about word of mouth.
Don’t forget to USE YOUR VOICE in all of your event promotion
materials. So many people forget to “speak to their audience” in
their marketing, and every time I see it I want to slap myself
silly. Don’t just plunk a link or a photo down and think people
will click it. There’s so much going on out there, you need to
be heard. I’m not just saying that because I’m a copywriter and
I love words. Clear, simple, compelling communication is
crucial. Don’t be afraid to tell your reader what to do. And
ALWAYS tell him what he gets out of it, always! If you have any
questions about this EMAIL ME: Dina/at/Wordfeeder.com.
As you can see, it takes some knowledge of cohesive internet
marketing to be able to manipulate the search engines while
getting folks excited about your big jamboree.
Want to witness event planning live in action? Please join me
and my marketing friends for the First Annual Web Content
Awareness Day, scheduled to launch on February 9, 2006 at
http://WebContentAwarenessDay.com.
Sneak Peek: Visit the Countdown to Web Content Awareness Day
Blog and learn how you can ride our wave of high web
traffic!
Paste in this link:
http://wordfeeder.typepad.com/web_content_awareness_day/
Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.
