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  • Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

  • and life you love. And this is Q&A Tuesday, but it’s a very special Q&A Tuesday. You

  • know why? BAM! I’ve got a guest here, and my guest is one of my very close friends and

  • someone who is just so smarty pants. Youre gonna love him, Mr. Derek Halpern.

  • Hey, thanks for having me.

  • Youre welcome! So Derek is the founder of an incredible site, SocialTriggers.com,

  • and he is known for his insanely practical advice that’s also backed up by psychological

  • research. In addition to his blog, which is read by tens of thousands of people every

  • month, he’s also got an incredible podcast on iTunes and his own show called Social Triggers

  • TV. So he is a busy guy. So, once again, I’m so pumped for you to be here because were

  • gonna do a question that we get asked a lot and I’m gonna read it out loud right now

  • and then Derek is gonna tap that A to that Q, which is kinda naughty but y’all know

  • what I mean. Alright, so here’s the question. Today’s question comes from Nirvana and

  • she writes: “Hi Marie. First of all, you rock. Your upbeat attitude is contagious and

  • you actually make me excited about marketing.” Woo hoo! “Here’s my question, for someone

  • who is just starting an online business, in my case health coaching for young busy women,

  • what are some key action steps I should take to generate traffic to my website? I’m not

  • a fan of blogging, but if you tell me I have to do it, I will oblige. Thank you so much

  • Marie.” So that’s Nirvana’s question and, again, Nirvana is asking, and I know

  • youre gonna answer that, but we get so many people that write in about how do I generate

  • more traffic to my website. So what do you think? You got some A’s for us?

  • So I would imagine a lot of those people also don’t wanna blog that much. So good news

  • is, a lot of people when they start thinking about a blog, they think they have to work

  • for their blog as opposed to letting their blog work for them and they think they have

  • to slave over writing content day in and day out. But when youre first getting started

  • building traffic, you don’t really have to do that.

  • Really?

  • Yeah, all you have to do is maybe write one or two articles a month and then promote the

  • heck out of those articles. That’s all youve gotta do. And then people will start thinking

  • like, “What do you mean promote the heck out of these articles? Wouldn’t people get

  • sick of those same articles?”

  • Right.

  • But when youre first getting started, you publish an article, itll get, let’s say,

  • 100 readers. And what if that article is applicable to one million readers?

  • Right.

  • Why should those other 999... I’m bad at math...

  • Yeah. No, I get you.

  • ...people miss out on that article?

  • Right.

  • So that’s the first tip is to just write less, promote more, and then you won’t get

  • stressed out about blogging.

  • I think that’s so interesting and I really, really appreciate you saying that because

  • I know, for me, when I first started out I certainly fell into that trap. I wanted to

  • write a lot and even though I consider myself a writer, it was a really kind of heavy thing

  • to do. And I love that framework of thinking about you created this amazing piece of content,

  • let’s get it out to as big of an audience as possible. So it’s more about quality

  • rather than quantity is what I hear you saying.

  • Yeah, and a lot of people will think, “Well, is it too late to do that? Because there’s

  • too many blogs out there.” And I just launched my site, Social Triggers, and in about 13

  • months using that same exact strategy, I was able to attract 27,000 subscribers by updating

  • an average of 2.5 times a month.

  • That’s why I love you, because youre smarty pants and you get it done. Ok, so that

  • was an awesome tip. What else can we do to generate traffic when were first starting

  • out?

  • So, the next tip is before you build an audience, you need to know who you want sitting in the

  • chairs.

  • Ooh! That was a good one!

  • And a lot of people don’t really understand that, and to really nail that home I wanna

  • just share a quick story.

  • Yeah.

  • So a few months ago I decided I wanted more massage therapists to read my site, Social

  • Triggers. I figured they needed tips about email marketing. So, what did I do? I wrote

  • a story about a massage therapist, hooked it into email marketing, and then I decided

  • that I wanted to find more massage therapists to read my site. What did I do? I found massage

  • business communities, I reached out to the people who were in control of those communities,

  • and I said, “Hey, I’ve got this great article that I believe your people would love.

  • What do you think?” Turns out that I went viral in the massage business communities.

  • I got a ton of traffic, I had an email from the editor in chief of a huge massage magazine,

  • and I actually got offered a free massage in, like, 42 states.

  • That’s amazing!

  • Yeah.

  • So youre gonna be a very relaxed guy in addition to having lots of business.

  • Unfortunately I didn’t bookmark those, so... but when it takes it back... let’s take

  • this back to health coaching.

  • Yeah.

  • So a lot of people when they wanna build their blog, theyll think, “Alright, I’m a

  • health coach. Let me find other health coaches that blog also and I’ll try to get featured

  • on their site.”

  • Right.

  • But that’s kinda lazy and a little bit dumb because that health coach is competition.

  • Right.

  • Why would they wanna feature someone who’s competing with them? So instead, you wanna

  • reach out to people who you want sitting in your chairs. Right? So in the health coach

  • example, you’d wanna reach out to mommy bloggers or daddy bloggers or maybe even a

  • fashion blogger. And what do you wanna tell them? You wanna say, “Hey...” let’s

  • say youre reaching out to a fashion blogger. You could say, “Well, I love that dress.

  • Here’s how to fit into that dress before the summer.”

  • Awesome.

  • Now youve connected health to fashion. Fashion people will love it, theyre gonna

  • wanna feature you because it’s not competition. Youre helping their readers buy that dress

  • that they just promoted and youre gonna be able to benefit.

  • Another extra smart tip, you are just full of them Derek. I love that one. Do we have

  • anything else? Because you gave people... I mean, if they follow these two tips alone,

  • their traffic would skyrocket. But I know you, you always got something else.

  • This is my favorite tip and I tell everyone to do this tip and it’s so simple. People

  • are always shocked that it works. When I give a presentation at a conference, I had people

  • come up to me after the presentation and were like, “Derek, I can’t believe I never

  • thought of that before.”

  • Love stuff like that.

  • So this tip is what I call The Drafting Technique. Now, before I tell you what that is, let me

  • just give you a little back story. In racing, like NASCAR racing or bicycle racing, youll

  • find that the person in first place is often trailed by the person in second place. Theyre

  • right on top of each other, you think, “Oh my God, what if he hits a bump. He’s gonna

  • crash.”

  • Right.

  • And so theyre so close. Why do they do that? Well, turns out the person in first

  • place is breaking air friction and that air friction creates a slip stream, which means

  • the person in second place can slip in behind that person and maintain the same speed while

  • expending less energy and less fuel. Right? Now what does this have to do with getting

  • traffic? Right? So what you do is, instead of finding someone who has never talked about

  • what you’d like to be featured for, find a blogger that has never talked about that

  • before, what you wanna do is you wanna reach out to someone who has a history of covering

  • what you want to be known for. So let’s say youre a health coach again.

  • Right.

  • And let’s say you wanna be featured on a fashion blog. Find a fashion blog that has

  • given weight loss advice in the past and reach out to them again with a follow up. And what

  • youre doing is youre taking advantage of what I call the link slip stream. They

  • already have a history of linking it, there’s no friction, linking to weight loss advice.

  • Right.

  • And now you have the ability to get featured for the same thing.

  • So incredibly smart and I remember watching a particular presentation about PR and it

  • was similar advice and I thought it was, again, so, so wise. If someone covers a particular

  • kind of story, it doesn’t mean that, oh, theyre done with that. It actually means,

  • oh, theyre more likely to cover that again, which is good news for people like you and

  • I.

  • Yes. Exactly.

  • Really, really smart.

  • And I’ve got a bonus tip, actually. About 8 years ago John Stone went on his journey

  • from flab to fit and he documented every step of the way on his website. John Stone Fitness

  • actually. And he took a picture of himself without his shirt on when he was a really

  • flabby guy and he documented what he ate, his workouts, and he took a daily picture.

  • And after about 3 months, as he started losing weight, as he started getting fit, he started

  • to blow up in the bodybuilding community. Why? Well, because people like to watch and

  • join in on other people who are going on journeys. And the reason why they like to do that is

  • because it makes them feel like theyre going on their own journey. So even though

  • John Stone was getting fit, they felt like they wanted to get fit. It was inspirational

  • for them, so they wanted to also join in and also get fit just like him.

  • Right.

  • And to really think about that, you could think back to Forrest Gump when he started

  • running across America and as he started running, as he started going and made it halfway or

  • whatever, and then people started joining in with that trail that he was running on,

  • then more people joined in, and more people joined in. Before he knew it, he’s got an

  • army of people following him as he’s running across America.

  • Right.

  • The same can be done online. Now, you might think, “Well, aren’t these weight loss

  • stories a little bit overdone?” Not really, because people always need that inspiration

  • to keep losing weight. So, in the health coach situation, let’s say youre already extremely

  • fit so you can’t go on that journey yourself. You could take one of your clients on that

  • journey, you could even offer one of your clients free health coaching in exchange for

  • ongoing feedback and progress that you can then publish on your site. So it’s a way

  • to reenact that in today’s times.

  • Love it. Derek, you are so incredibly smart. I just wanna say this, Derek has given me

  • advice on my business and every time you give me a little piece of feedback and we implement

  • it, it always works and we always make more money and we always reach more people. So

  • I really, really appreciate your insight and thank you for A’ing the heck out of Nirvana’s

  • Q.

  • Thank you for having me. It was fun.

  • Now Derek and I would love to hear from you. So youve got a little choice on this one,

  • there’s two challenges. Pick whichever one you want. The first one: if you want more

  • traffic to your website, youve gotta go out there, take a look at a blogger who has

  • an audience that you wanna reach, and send a simple email. Itll take you two seconds,

  • go send an email to that blogger right now, then come back and let us know that you did

  • it by leaving a comment below. The other option is this: you might have some ideas that you

  • wanna share with us about traffic generation. Ideas, tips, strategies that you use that

  • have worked. As always, all the action is happening back at MarieForleo.com, so go there

  • and leave a comment now. If you like this video, subscribe and share it with your friends.

  • And if you want even more great resources to have a business and life you love plus

  • some personal insights from me that I only share in email, get your butt over to MarieForleo.com

  • and sign up for email updates. Youre gonna love them. Stay on your game and keep going

  • for your dreams. The world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much

  • for watching and I’ll see you next time on MarieTV.

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

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