Here’s a clever idea I heard recently to encourage more people to go to your website. In March I gave a presentation at an FSB event that was all about using the Internet to grow your business. One of the other presentations was given by Chris Jones from Glooo, who specialises in helping people measure the success of their website through Google Analytics. He asked the audience to visit his website, saying that the fifth person to visit the site would win a prize of some free consultancy. Chris knows how to tell who has visited his website, so he would know who the fifth visitor was. There were 20 people in the room, all of whom were interested in the prize, so why would they not visit his site? While there, they might take a look around, to see what Chris does and how he might be able to help them. That way, even if they don’t win the prize, they might still decide they need Chris’s help. They might sign up to his blog or starting following him on Twitter. Once they know more about what Chris does, they might refer him to a potential client. And eventually, they might even become a client themselves.

If you’ve been asked to give a presentation and you don’t know who will be in the room, or you can’t get hold of the delegate list, think about using a similar ‘Golden Ticket’ to encourage people to visit your website. What can you give away? Some of your time for a free consultation? A report or white paper that you’ve written? A review of their staff contracts, if you happen to be an HR specialist? Make sure that it?s something that people want enough to encourage them to visit your site.

Once they’re there, think about how to get them to interact with you. You might not know how to tell who has visited your site, so you could give the prize to the fifth person to sign up to your newsletter, or to follow you on Twitter. How can you persuade them to interact in a way that will let you give away your prize?

Thanks again to Chris for all the ideas he shared in his talk and for the inspiration behind this blog!