Picture yourself logging into your analytics tracking software to find that you had a huge and unexpected surge in traffic over the past day.
What do you do? Do you celebrate? Hope another surge in traffic comes tomorrow?
Hopefully, you quickly grab a pen and pad of paper and begin scribbling ideas down. Not only do you want to think about why you have attracted this huge amount of traffic, but you want to think about how you will capitalize on this publicity before it goes away.
Your First Taste of Publicity
Your first taste of publicity may equate to only a twinge of visibility, or it could be a huge surge in popularity. Your first experience in the limelight can take many forms and manifest itself in a range of magnitudes.
Websites, blog posts or internet apps might go viral, you might get listed in your local newspaper or you might be featured on a national news channel.
While this surge in visibility is difficult to prepare for, it is much more important to keep yourself in the spotlight. This initial glimpse of popularity isn’t your 15 seconds of fame or the culmination of your success, but an opportunity for you to work hard to remain visible.
Promote Yourself So You Remain Visible
You have gotten your first encounter with publicity, now it is your job to keep it. You can do this by:
- Continuing to aggressively promote yourself
- Hiring a PR firm
- Drastically improving your product or service
- Offering new products or services
You want to make sure you continually work to maintain a positive image while also growing your visibility.
Your first encounter with popularity has allowed you to enter into the conscious minds of your customers and prospects. Now you must fight to stay there and not be forgotten.
Allowing this moment of visibility to slip away without capitalizing on it will make it very difficult for you to get this opportunity again.
Success has compounding effects, so by remaining in the minds of your customers and prospects, your message will continue to spread and will spread more and more quickly every day.
Enjoy the Perks
Enjoy the resulting publicity from your continued hard work. Make certain you deliver exceptional customer service and outstanding products or services to your customers so they will continually return to you.
This ensures your existing customer base will return for repeat buys, and will hopefully recommend you to others.
Take this opportunity to adjust to any growth, so growing does not become too difficult. Make any structural and incentive changes as necessary and issue training to your staff when applicable.
Remain Persistent
You should absolutely enjoy the growth you have earned and take time to make adjustments. However, you should never stop and rest during a time of increased popularity and visibility.
Visibility can die off very quickly, so it is crucial that you are persistent in maintaining good public relations and continuing to work towards greater visibility after EVERY single success you encounter.
This guarantees that your message and brand will spread exponentially, and that your initial spike in traffic will turn into an upward trend.
What are some other techniques to garner publicity? What are some reasons you may have initially attracted this spike in traffic?