As business owners, there will inevitably be a time when something unexpected comes up and we have to figure out a solution. The problem is that when we are coming up with solutions from a fear-based or scarcity-based mindset, our ideas aren’t going to be very good.

We have to take a step back and try to get some perspective on things. If one of your primary marketing channels gets shut down, what’s your plan B? Diversifying your marketing channels is always a good decision.

In this episode of Art of Online Business, I’m sharing 14 fresh traffic ideas for when things hit the fan and you need registrations immediately.

We have all been there at some point. Being prepared for whatever comes with these ideas will help you get through it when times get hard.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why you always need a plan B
• How to think outside the box for ideas
• Traffic options that you may not have thought of
• How to utilize them in your business

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

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Hey, my friend, real quick, just to remind you that I’ve made some big changes to our accelerated coaching program. So if you’re looking for personalized coaching and mentorship to help guide you to the next level of your business, whatever that next level looks like for you through help with optimizing your sales and marketing, ethical marketing leadership and being the CEO of your business team, building systems and processes, etc.. Go over to Rick Mull, Radio.com forward slash accelerator and fill out the form right there to see if we potentially could work together. All right. Rick Ford slash accelerator. Now let’s get into today’s episode. As we run our businesses and inevitably times come up where shit hits the fan, where we need to figure a solution out because we’ve got to make something happen, right? Something unexpected happens. We’re faced with it and we got to figure out a solution or multiple solutions. Now. If we are trying to come up with solutions from a fear based mindset or a scarcity based mindset, the solutions that if we’re even able to come up with anything likely usually are not very good. And so we kind of have to take a step back and try, right? It’s not easy, but try and get some perspective on things to try to come up with ideas on how to solve whatever you are faced with. And one of the best things that you can do is sort of crowdsource ideas from people. And we did a live event, a library treat for my accelerator program here in San Diego back in October.

And that’s one thing that we do in the program, is we crowdsource ideas from from other people. And so I want you to imagine this scenario. You wake up one day. You run Facebook or Instagram ads or meta ads consistently in your business, let’s just say, and you do regular promotions or live launches in your business. And for the past several years, you’ve relied on ads to get registrations to register for your challenge or for your launch or whatever it is that you’re that you’re doing. And you’ve primarily built a really great lead flow from your paid ads. It’s become a really important strategy for you. So you wake up one day and you go to log in to your business manager and you are locked out. Essentially, your account has been has been shut down, not suspended. It’s been shut down. It’s been deactivated. And you’re like, what is going on now? You might be listening right now. You’re like, Yeah, that’s happened to me. And if that has happened, I’m sorry. That is just that’s the worst. And so you reach out to reach out to add support. You appeal what’s going on, and nothing’s moving for you. Right? And you’ve been trying this for weeks and still no movement. Now all of a sudden you are three weeks out from your next launch. And again, you’ve historically relied on ads as a major traffic source for registrations for your launch.

So you’re like, now what do I do? I can’t rely on that traffic source anymore. I need organic ideas or other paid traffic channels that are outside of Facebook or Instagram. And so this was the exact scenario that one of our accelerator members brought to when we do live events, we I break the group out into multiple small groups and they do small group hot seats. It’s it’s one of their favorite and also one of my favorite things that we do. And so this person brought this exact scenario to the group and said, I need ideas. I need ideas to drive traffic to sign up for my launch. And as I make everybody do, they’ve got to come with their own ideas first and then we build upon them. And so I want you to think about this, like, if you’re in this situation, what would you do? I think this is a great exercise, whether you do Facebook ads or not. If one of your marketing channels, your primary marketing channels were to be turned off or disappear, what would you do? What’s your plan B? What is your backup? I think this is a great exercise for everybody listening right now to do. And so anyway, so this person said, well, they have you know, they have a YouTube channel, a successful YouTube channel, so they could run YouTube ads. Okay, cool. They could create some more videos for their YouTube channel.

They could create some blog posts on their site. They could be posting organically on Instagram, on LinkedIn, because LinkedIn is a platform that this person’s target audience does use. Another thing that they came to the group with, they said, I could email current students of my program to see if they would be affiliates for the program, right? So they could start wrangling that, if you will, kind of grassroots efforts. They were also speaking at two events, live events prior to the launch, so they could be promoting this training series that they were going to do at these events. So there’s six things, six really solid things, YouTube ads, organic videos, whether it’s. Instagram reels, other YouTube videos. They could do a blog post on their site. They could post on Instagram, post on on LinkedIn. They could email their current students to be affiliates. And they’re also speaking at a couple of live events with their exact target customers. So they could be mentioning the live training that they’re going to be doing to try to get people. And so those are all great things and I would recommend trying all of those things. Right. Again, three weeks out from your launch, you’ve got it you really want and you’ve got big goals for the launch. You really want to get people signed up. You don’t have the normal traffic channel in terms of paid ads anyway, with Facebook and Instagram. Cool. Six things right there.

Another idea. So now I want to share with you seven different ideas that actually six different ideas that the group brought to this person. One of them was Pinterest ads. This they hadn’t run Pinterest ads before, but this person is in a niche that it would make sense. To. Have a presence on Pinterest and ads could be a really quick way to get in front of an audience there. No guarantees, of course, but it’s an option. Another one, and I will I will preface this one by saying I don’t recommend doing this, but another option was using another colleague in the same space, their Facebook business page, to run ads to that, to the launch, to the registration, and then they just pay for the ads that are run on through the other person’s account. And you would use UTMB tracking codes to be able to do that rather than like a referral link. Don’t love this idea. I’m pretty sure it’s not even within ad policy, but I also at the same time, I know people who do this not within my group, I know people who do this. And for some people it does work. Don’t love that strategy. But again, when we’re brainstorming ideas, it doesn’t mean you have to use everything. It’s just coming up with different ideas. Another one that I gave this person, and this is coming up a lot in my calls recently with some of our members and I’m suggesting people do.

This is be a sponsor of other podcasts that have your target audience. So I said to this person, I said, There are tons of podcasts out there for your specific people, like your audience is listening to other podcasts. Why don’t you go to the people who host those podcasts and ask them if they’d be willing to say, Hey, I would love to be a sponsor of your podcast for like the next couple of episodes, would you be open to that? And they might say yes. They might say no, but like at least you’re asking. And the opportunity that exists to get in front of your exact target audience by asking hosts of podcasts to if they’d be willing for you to be a to accept a sponsorship on there. And that could be one episode, it could be four episodes, it could be an entire quarter. There’s all different types of options. But talk about getting in front of your exact audience. That is an amazing way. And I’ll tell you this, not a lot of podcast hosts understand how to price sponsorships and so forth. And so it’s it’s absolutely worth an ask. And to if they say yes, like start figuring out something that is a win win for both of you. This is another opportunity, by the way, that if you have a podcast and you have some sort of promotion coming up or whatever it might be, and you have the opportunity to do dynamic ad insertion, which means like you can insert an ad at the beginning of an episode, a pre-roll ad, for example, and then the promotion is done.

Well, you just change out that ad and dynamically meaning like, All right, I want to insert a new ad and it’s going to go across my entire catalog of episodes. Well, dynamic ads can be a great option for you. This person wasn’t doing podcast. They had the YouTube channel. So anyway, they could go to other podcasts and see if they’d be willing to accept a sponsor. By the way, on this one here, later that day, after this, after I gave this person this idea to go do, they reported back and said, I already know I already nailed this. I already have a sponsorship of two upcoming episodes on this podcast. It’s a big podcast and has my exact target audience, and they secured a sponsorship for two shows for two episodes at a very reasonable price. So I thought that was amazing. The next one, influencer marketing, Influencer marketing. So if there are other people in your space who are not direct competitors to you that maybe what you’re teaching is complementary to what they’re teaching and can still serve their audience well, why not reach out to them and offer to pay them to promote or to mention your training that you have coming up? Right. So for example, if they have a large email list or maybe even large like a very engaged email list, you could purchase an ad in that email list.

So if you send a weekly newsletter out to your email list and you have a 50% open rate of a list of 5000 people, it’s pretty darn good, right? How cool would it be to have an ad in that email that is going out to that very targeted audience of. Your target audience. So influencer marketing, you could also another way of influencer marketing is you could get other people in your space again, complementary to you to talk about your training series that you’ve got coming up, you know, on social media, for example. So there’s different ways of influencer marketing. So those are two ideas that we also gave this person another idea not feasible within three weeks. But I think this is a really interesting idea, especially for this person’s niche, is direct mail is to it’s kind of like what I talked about a few episodes a goal ago. What’s what’s old is new, right? Direct mail has come full circle. There’s a lot of people seeing success with direct mail actually sending out something physical card or what have you in the mail. And, you know, you could have like kind of a catchy saying on there or what have you. But anyway, you could be sending them to a free offer, a free guide or free whatever it might be. You could do it for a free training series. But again, you’d want to that’s it’s longer planning and all that takes longer than three weeks to in order for that to happen.

But I think it’s a great idea. Another one would be that we suggested to her was reaching out to other companies in the space that have their that have this person, our members target audience and offer to speak to a training for them or something like that as a big company that can only benefit. Their members, because if the members are succeeding, the larger company is succeeding. Right. So that was another option. And then finally, the eight thing that we’re that we’re talking about here was just simply an email list. This person has a good sized email list. And this is really number one actually is just to be emailing the list and letting them know about the promotion. I mean, they could do like a mini training, for example, for their email list that is sort of step one leading into the live training series, for example. There’s all different types of things that you could do and ideas that you could come up with for for that. And so there’s 14 different ideas to outside of the box, if you will, to come up with help. I need registrations, right? I’m three weeks out. I don’t have access to my ads account. This has been my primary channel. I need some ideas. So let me recap them for you real quick. Youtube ads, organic videos, whether it’s on their YouTube channel or on social media blog post on the site.

Don’t love that one unless you’re getting a ton of traffic to your site posting on Instagram and LinkedIn. I would also add ticktalk for sure to this. Again, three weeks. The in order to get quick traction there, I’d be running tick tock ads. Another option that we talked about or that they brought was emailing current students of their program to be affiliates for them for the launch. Right. So offering

making it super easy for current or past students to promote the training and pay them an affiliate commission. This person was speaking at a couple of events live events prior to the event, prior to the launch, I should say. And then the other idea is that members of Accelerator came up with is Pinterest ads. Again, tick tock ads. One person suggested using another person’s Facebook business page to run ads to the launch using UTM codes to to track that. Don’t love that idea. But again, I certainly know a lot of people who do that sort of thing, and it works. You know, more power to them. That’s awesome. Be a sponsor on other podcasts that have your target audience. And when you reach out, just just go to the host and say, Hey, would you be I’d love to sponsor your your podcast. Would you be open to discussing what that could look like? And this person literally went out and did that at break at the retreat, came back and nailed a sponsorship for a very reasonable amount and getting in front of their exact audience.

The other other couple of options here, influencer marketing, right Getting other people in your space, non competitors, quote unquote, to talk about your launch, paying them of course do so mentioning it in social media. You can do an ad in their email list like they send the email out to their list. You can have ad in their direct mail. We talked about reaching out to other companies in the space who have members who are your target audience and being, you know, offering to do trainings for them or what have you. And then again, first and foremost, last but certainly not least, and that should be actually number one is your email list, leveraging your email list, the relationship that you’ve built with your list, creative things that you can do there. You can do many trainings for them, even leading up to the training series, all different types of things that you can do. So 14 sort of outside of the box ideas for you to get people to your launch, your evergreen, whatever it might you might be doing to get registrations when your primary lead source, your primary traffic channel is not available for any reason. Hopefully these these were helpful for you.