A few days ago I was speaking to friend of mine who is a DJ and makes a fair living playing at parties and other occassions. The topic fell to how he could generate more traffic to his web site, thereby improving business for himself.

What I said to him is nothing original - it’s been done numerous times but it hadn’t been done by him yet. He told me that he was getting some promotional t-shirts printed that would have his company logo emblazoned across the front. The obvious first step to advertise his web site would be to add the web site address under the logo. But what else could be done?

My idea is for him to give as many t-shirts away as possible at gigs and then create a buzz around a competition where people would send in photos of them wearing the t-shirt. These would be displayed on his web site and so traffic would increase as those photographed, and their friends, would visit. Every week or month he would pick the best photos and send them a one of a kind CD or MP3 compilation that he would have created. Even better, he could create a system allowing site visitors to vote for their favourite photos. This would get otherwise passive visitors to the site involved and keep them coming back again and again to check how their favourite was doing. Each visit would be an opportunity to sell his service and/or capture email addresses so he could begin cultivating a relationship with them for future business.

This in a way is what buzz marketing is all about; creating a must-have or must-see situation and allowing your very own potential customers to create the content that attracts them to your site in the first place.  Everyone’s happy!