LY Podcast: Ep. 54: 4 Ways to Bring in Organic Leads for Your Course

Melissa Anzman (00:00): This is the Launch Yourself podcast, episode number 54, all about different ways for you to drive organic leads and traffic. For more information, show notes, go to launchyourself.co/54. Welcome to the launch yourself podcast. My name is Melissa Anzman. I'm a best-selling author and the CEO of two businesses and employee experience company and launch yourself where I help entrepreneurs diversify and scale their business by launching digital products each week, you'll hear mindblowing interviews where we peek behind the curtain of other people's launches, as well as actual tips and strategies that you can implement in your daily work life to create launches that actually make you money. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started.

Melissa Anzman (00:52): We're talking about the four ways that you can get organic lead growth right now. So here is the thing let's talk about why organic traffic is important. Organic traffic is the people who enter your ecosystem that you haven't had to pay for. And they are gold for your business because you don't have to spend any of your own money to acquire them. Meaning that if they ever purchased, they are going to be immediately more profitable than people that you have brought in with paid ads. But it's really important to note that your traffic, that you get in an organic way is a long tail approach, regardless of the approaches that you decide to do that I'm going to share with you today, they are going to be a long tail approach, meaning that it's going to take some time some long time in most cases for your efforts to actually pay off and convert into clients.

Melissa Anzman (01:53): But as soon as you put in the time, as soon as you put in the work for it, they are going to pay off in an ongoing way. And organic traffic is a lot more targeted because they're looking for the exact thing that you're selling. They found you it's a tighter net, so it's more profitable because you're bringing them in without a cost. And it's better because the people that come in are actually more targeted and all about what it is you are trying to sell. So with that, now that we know what organic traffic is, I am going to talk about these four ways that you can bring organic traffic into your audience at any time, which means start now. So the first way is social media involvement. Now what this really entails is building relationships online, through any social media outlet or channel.

Melissa Anzman (02:50): And to do this, we comment, we like we add new followers, we engage, we build actual relationships and then we invite them into our ecosystem. So let's just say, you're in a Facebook group, how you do this is first of all, we don't spam people ever. My friends that is not good when it comes to organic traffic, but what we can do is we can have conversations. We can ask questions, we can do a post, that's all about this thing. We can then ask them to dive deeper and so on and so forth, add significant value, be interested in that person. And then when it's appropriate, say, Hey, I have a resource for that. Can IDM you or, Hey, here's the link. Go sign up to my list or, Hey, you know, I think I can help you with that. Please DM me if you're, you know, into it.

Melissa Anzman (03:40): So that's how we do it. Social media, organic reach can be very, very, very, very, very helpful and profitable for you, particularly in places like Facebook groups and Instagram, DMS on Twitter. Twitter is like kind of no barrier. You can just ask questions and have conversations there. And on LinkedIn, you do that through commenting on posts, and then you can also get in the DMS. So this is really how you build it. Now, remember it as a long tail, we want to become known for something in certain groups. We want to add the answer for those things within those groups and so on and so forth. And then when appropriate we make the invite, or we ask them to come to us to get an invitation to our own ecosystem, whether that's our own group or our email list, or what have you. Social media involvement for organic leads is the shortest way, I guess I could say.

Melissa Anzman (04:35): And maybe even the most profitable way for an organic lead gen approach, but it is newer. And so what I mean by that is we don't really know what the long-term or the long tail effect is. Other than we're not going to get a hundred people into our Facebook group tomorrow. It takes time. We have to like build conversations, have relationships and all those things. However, it is one of those things you can easily flex up. So if you have 30 minutes commit those 30 minutes to being in your ideal Facebook groups or on those Instagram DMS of people who are your ideal client and start conversations. The whole thing here, the key to doing this successfully on social media is it has to be natural. We cannot do this well, if we're spammy, if we're just called DM-ing people without their permission, or then like the amino and trying to sell, like no, the point of organically gen is to build relationships and connections and our new network, basically with these people.

Melissa Anzman (05:41): So that's the first way. Number two is lead magnet. So a lead magnet is something that you create. It's like a short, shareable, helpful piece of resource that has a very specific, like you have this question, here's the answer. Um, right now quick short PDFs are working really well. Checklist always do well, which surprised me, swipe files do well. Things like that. The whole point here is this piece of collateral that we are creating is a shareable bikeable piece. It is very easy for us to ask people to share it with others. It is very easy for them to get a quick win with what they're using and doing because it's informational. So create a resource, be helpful, make it shareable and ask your current clients to and buyers an audience to share it as well, to grow your network and get more generation of leads in an organic way.

Melissa Anzman (06:43): The cool thing about a lead magnet is it's um, like shelf life is pretty dang long. If you make something great, that really solves a very specific questions. Like how do I plan my content calendar in five minutes? Or, you know, here's a checklist of how to get your diet on if you're a hockey player or here's five foods, I should say, Kimberly, here's five foods that you should add into your diet for better success on the, on the rink. That probably didn't make any sense. I'm trying though I'm trying for ya. So my whole point here, lead magnets are quick wins for our audience. Um, and they are very shareable, so they need to look great. They don't have to be over engineered by any sense of the imagination, but they do have to represent who you are as a brand. So that's number two, number three, these next two, by the way, are what I call old school, organically gen.

Melissa Anzman (07:36): And so when anyone says to me like, Oh, well, have you done organic? I always, they always mean social media conversations. And I always think these last two, because I'm that old. So number three is SEO on your website. Now SEO on your website is one of those things you've heard about. You probably were like, I have a no I don't. She's talking about, I saw it. It seems complicated. Google I'm done. I hear you. And I feel you. I can even get on board with that. However, SEO, basic basic level SEO for your website is super important. And I actually learned this new, this year, I talked to an SEO expert and he reminded me that we need to make sure that the SEO keywords that we choose are relevant. So what SEO is, it's search engine optimization and what this is, is Google and being in all the other search engines out there, look at our website for keywords, for content, for tags, for metadata.

Melissa Anzman (08:38): It all sounds kind of crazy. I know, but then what they do is they take that and then they'll know when to pop up your website in a search. And so you can absolutely spend money on this. You can do pay per click ads and all those things, but SEO is free unless you hire someone to help you with it. Now, when we think about SEO for our own website, what we really want to make sure of is that we're choosing the keywords that we want to be searched for and known for in like six months to a year to three years down the line, SEO is a very, very long tail approach for your website. But once you get that right, keyword, it keeps going and going, and you're just going to forever get traffic from that thing. So at a minimum, I want you to pay attention to your website description, um, in your SEO section, your title tags, your H one tags, your H two tags, your images and the image descriptors, your page descriptions.

Melissa Anzman (09:40): And more. If you have WordPress, you can use a plugin that helps you do this for each post. And there are a bunch of ways you can learn how very basic SEO for your website, unlike you Dami, or places like that for very inexpensive. The whole point here is we're leveraging the technology and search capabilities that are open and available to us versus just ignoring that they exist because Google is hard. So understand those keywords you want to be known for. You can do research on them in a lot of places. Google ad words has a keyword tool. There's buzz Sumo. You can look at Neil Patel's website has a really, really great way for you to search for new keywords and stuff. So anyway, do that get your CEO basic level stuff here, people at least on your website, the fourth one number four is Pinterest and YouTube.

Melissa Anzman (10:36): Pinterest. YouTube are things that we are all sleeping on. I know I am sleeping on. I'm going to wake up to it at some point I promise, but Pinterest and YouTube are huge search engines. The long tail capabilities for them can be just up there with Google, if not higher. In fact, since YouTube is owned by Google, YouTube helps. So use these things, stop sleeping on it. You want to start now, if you have a blog post, create a pin for each blog post and pin up, you can also find boards or collections, um, and have your pin be collected there. I don't really know what all the words that Pinterest are. I'm so sorry, but you can absolutely use it for your business for an organic reach because when people are in Pinterest and they're researching something or they're putting in a keyword and your thing pops up, you get traffic.

Melissa Anzman (11:26): And you're going to say, well, my business isn't really visual. Okay, well, listen, I get Pinterest traffic for things that are related to jobs. I'm not sure why. I don't know what that is searching on there. Actually I could figure out, cause I know it's pins, they're going from, but my point here is you. I need to leverage Pinterest and YouTube. It's one of those things. We use the right keywords. We do the work. It's going to feel like we are hollering virtually into a black hole because nothing is going to happen at all. And then all of a sudden you are going to get ranked and you are going to get traffic from it. These are things that will bring you continuous traffic over time. That's the whole point with organically gen is once you set it, you can kind of forget it like my reference there and just have those leads come in when they find a way to do that.

Melissa Anzman (12:19): And when they search for the thing that you have optimized for. So I'm going to remind you of these four things, social media involvement, which means building relationships in the groups, the DMS on Twitter and all the things like, but doing it in a very high standard, non shwarmy non-crazy goofy throw up a Grossi way. Okay? We're doing it. As we're building relationships, think of it, building your network. We're not going to be like, Hey, be my friend. We're going to be like, Hey, I think we're going to get along. Here's what I have to offer. What do you have to offer? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have those same kind of conversation. So social media involvement, lead magnets, creating collateral. That adds a ton of value SEO on your website. Be basic here, but make sure you check out the right keywords that you want to be known for.

Melissa Anzman (13:04): And then finally stopped sleeping on Pinterest and YouTube. Now I'm going to always have a bonus, right? So here's one bonus that you may forget about. And I could probably talk for hours on this. That being said, the bonus is directly asking your current customers, clients, and your network. This is an organic lead gen approach. It's making the ask to people. You already know these are also called referrals. And so what you want to do with those referrals and those direct asks is saying, you know, here is what I have. Here's what I'm looking for. Being very specific. Here's a new lead magnet I've created, Oh, clients, could you share it? Do you know if someone who's looking for acts that would benefit from it and so on. So we don't want to sleep on our current customers as the opportunity for them to bring in new organic lead gen. For us, all we have to do is to remember to ask, so this is great stuff, right? These are things that, again, you put in the work now and you're going to get the results later, but then once that spicket on, it's going to go and go and go

Melissa Anzman (14:15): Join the Launch Yourself workshop, where you'll learn why your digital products aren't selling nearly as much as you plan for and how to diversify and scale your income by launching the right way, go to launchyourself.co/join.