Last Updated on April 14, 2024 by Jan Barley
Building a website is a major hassle. Maintaining a website is a pain in the butt, but we’ve all become primed to believe we need a website to “do business.”
Still, is this true? Can we genuinely build a thriving digital marketing business without a website?
When I started digital marketing in November 2023, my first thought was to buy a domain name and start a website for my new business.
My heart sank. I did NOT want a website.
Thankfully, the training I received convinced me a website isn’t necessary. After purchase, I received a sales page, funnel, and an email campaign hosted for free on Systeme, a marketing platform.
All I had to do was generate traffic; the course taught me that too.
This post gives you 5 top tips for generating traffic to your offers, most of which are free. Yay!
#1: Social Media Marketing
I heard you groan. Stop it!
Firstly, pick only three social media channels, for instance:
- TikTok
Pinterest – An SEO Dream
Pinterest is an incredible traffic source. I’ll do an in-depth article soon, but for now, here are a few tips:
- Claim your website
- Upgrade to a business account
- Have only six boards relevant to your business
- Delete or make irrelevant boards private
- Use vertical pins
- Create highly visual pins on Canva
- Use relevant tags
- Use keywords in descriptions to read as sentences.
- Add keywords to the board and pin descriptions
- Post at least 3 pins a day
- Create value – give people a genuine reason to click on your pin
- Apply for rich pins if you are an e-commerce business
- Use relevant keywords in your profile
- Create a banner (850 x450px)
- Create a logo – I use a portrait picture
If you’re starting a new Pinterest account, it helps to add other people’s pins to your boards as your account benefits from their SEO.
I started ten days ago and already have 1.4k monthly views from only twelve pins, and I took five days off to review and improve my Pinterest strategy.
TikTok Without Dancing
TikTok can be an incredible traffic source. However, most accounts get stuck, rarely getting above 300 views per video, no matter how many times they post daily.
There are four tiers to the TikTok algorithm:
- 50 – 5k
- 5k – 10k
- 25k – 100k
- 1M – 1B
I’ve just put together a short course (with resell rights) about going viral on TikTok.
Here are a few tips:
- Choose a specific niche
- Have a great hook – evoke curiosity in the first 3-5 seconds
- Complete the promise of the hook by storytelling
- Don’t give everything away in the first few shots
- Use 3-5 relevant tags for every video so TikTok understands your channel intent
- Use secondary hooks if possible
- Edit the fluff. Remove anything that could cause viewers to click off your video
- Give your audience a “payoff”
Forget about vanity metrics like likes and follows. The most critical factor in TikTok success is watch time. Your entire content strategy must be to keep eyes on your videos.
TikTok rolls out new content to a small test audience. If that fails to get traction, your video will remain at level one, and subsequent videos will unlikely break through that wall.
Getting stuck at 200 views is frustrating, and too many people believe submitting more content will resolve the situation.
It won’t.
Instagram audiences like to be wooed. They’re a fickle lot.
You can edit your TikTok content and share and create relevant posts on Insta
gram.
I’m not an expert on Instagram, but I understand that your content can go viral with the same guidelines as Pinterest and TikTok.
You can also curate your video content on YouTube and start building followers there.
#2: Email Marketing
Building an email list will be the most potent aspect of creating a 6-figure income from digital or affiliate marketing.
To get started, I’d advise joining a marketing platform. It’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers. I’ve had a free account for six months, and I’m just about to upgrade to the $27 a month, which enables me to have 5,000 subscribers, host up to five courses, build ten sales funnels and lots more.
It’s a brilliant platform with 100k people in the active Facebook group. Many people share their sales funnel templates for free, which are easy to edit within your dashboard.
The platform also has an affiliate marketplace where you can find fantastic offers to promote.
#3: Lead Magnets
Ask yourself how many emails you have subscribed to that offered something for free. If you’re anything like me, I rarely register unless there’s something I want for free.
While creating a lead magnet yourself is good, it isn’t necessary.
You can purchase a low-cost PLR book or course, edit it and use it as your lead magnet. Free PLR products are available online. However, I’ve rarely found one of any quality. Just because something is free, it should still be top quality.
Create an email campaign for your subscribers. Focus on providing value rather than the hard sell. You must build trust and loyalty with your audience before you ask them to get out their credit cards.
Personalise your email campaign to talk to one person. Use the words “you” and “your” so people feel connected. Use a storytelling format for each email, and avoid constantly telling your audience how much money you’re making.
Give your subscribers the best tips to help them solve problems, make money, grow their business, or whatever is appropriate for your business.
Don’t try and hide the fact that you’re selling. Be open when you’re promoting a product or course. Keep the content light-hearted and focus on the transformation.
What will people experience if they buy the course or product?
For instance, if people buy the TikTok course, they will learn how to go viral on TikTok, which is transferable to other platforms. After that, with hundreds of thousands of views, people will make money, find financial and lifestyle freedom, and have a bucket load of fun.
In time, consistently getting millions of views can lead to brand deals, and most companies pay at least $1,000 for one video promoting their business.
Share offers that you have used and are 100% happy to share. Take your focus off the money and ONLY promote courses and products that provide transformational results.
Sales Pages & Funnels
Once you have a lead magnet to offer, the next step is to create a landing page and a simple funnel. I use Systeme, which enables you to build three sales funnels, 2,000 subscribers, a blog, one course, a coupon code, a community, and much more.
The free version is incredible in helping you become familiar with marketing tools before you go all in on your marketing campaign.
One major bonus of using Systeme is that once you are happy with the platform, you can share it with others and make 60% recurring commissions. Some people in the Facebook group are making $20k monthly simply from promoting Systeme!
#4: Open A Free Substack Account
Substack is a unique channel. It’s one of the only social media platforms where you 100% own your audience.
Substack is web-based or via the free app. It’s easy to get started.
- Choose a name.
- Create a logo (256 x 256px)
- Create a cover photo (600 x 600px)
- Create a wordmark (1344 x 256). Use a text image with the name of your channel (see the purple heading on the top of my accounts)
- Start with a free account so subscribers can read your content for free
- Add subscribe buttons to your posts
- Enable pledges, which means subscribers can pledge to pay for your content once you implement that. They will automatically become a paid subscriber
- When you have 1,000 subscribers or more, you can add a paid version of your newsletter.
- Post at least twice a week.
Some people are making $10k monthly from their Substack accounts. You can choose how much to charge, starting at $6.95 monthly. It sounds like a small amount, but if you get a lot of paid subscribers, it starts to add up. You’ve got a hungry audience open to your offers, so there are multiple benefits.
Note: 14th April 2024: Substack have just taken my publications offline for supposedly “spamming and phishing” neither of which I have done. It’s the reason I bought my content over onto a website I own.
#5: Free Advertising
Free ad sites aren’t great, but you can quickly produce an advert and expand your reach.
- Create a title with a good hook
- Keep copy concise
- Focus on the transformation
- Discuss the problems your audience has
- Show you have the solutions
Here is a link for 75+ different free advertising sites. Experiment and see which ones work best for your business.
Conclusion
The most common question in Facebook groups is how to generate organic traffic. These top five ways to start a digital marketing business without a website are all you need to generate traffic.
Stay consistent. At times, it may feel like you’re talking to yourself. However, the more valuable content you curate, the more chance you have of driving traffic to your offers.
I’d advise you to start with the free marketing platform. Create a simple landing page and email campaign, and then off you go to produce and share your content.
Have fun!
Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this article. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.