Loss-Leaders

Loss-Leaders

I use Loss-Leaders in my blog.

Take note.  I have found this a very effective way of attracting traffic into my blog.

A loss leader is a technique most often used in marketing to attract business.  An item may be offered at below cost in order to get customers into the market and once there purchase other items in addition to the loss-leader that offset the loss.

Gasoline is sometimes considered a loss-leader for convenience stores.  People stop to get cut-rate gas and then while in the store buy food items that are overpriced.  Razors are loss leaders.  They are very cheap even though the material and workmanship quality may be high.  This is because once you have the razor, you then need blades, and razor blades are RIDICULOUSLY expensive.  Cell phones are loss-leaders.  Get a cell phone for free or next to nothing and then you need the “plan” which will cost you an arm and a leg over a two-year contract period.

Get what I mean?

Sometimes a retailer will place the loss-leaders at the back of the store, so that you have to walk past everything else twice to get to it and get out of the store.  Thus, inspiring you to purchase other things.

So, how do you use this strategy in attracting traffic to a blog.  Simple.

I stumbled upon it quite by accident when I first started here.  I was offering what I thought was some high quality posts and nobody, I mean NOBODY, was coming in to read them.  For all intents and purposes my blog was non-existent.  Then I decided to go for “cheap.”  I started posting what I thought would appeal to the lowest common denominator to attract traffic.  At first it was sexual references to body parts.

That worked very well, but I was stung by my perceived loss of dignity in stooping to that level.  That was the “loss” part.  Yet I started getting traffic that wasn’t coming just for that stuff.  I started getting traffic and making connections and friends that appreciated the “quality” stuff.  In my case, I really didn’t like myself for doing the sex stuff, so I “privated” them and moved on.

By that time, I had made some connection with other bloggers, they began to give me other “marketing” tips, and I increased traffic some that way.  I was pleased because some of my better quality stuff was now being read.  I had established a foothold and a minimal presence here in wordpress and on the web in general.

But I still use loss-leaders and now I am just fine with it.  My most recent one is BOOGER!  I have done a couple or three “joke” posts.  I can’t keep BOOGER! On the shelf!    It’s in the top five with a bullet.  And when people come in for the silly and juvenile, then perhaps they will hang around for Alcohol and Alcoholism, The End of History and the Last Man, and etc.

One bad thing about this site is that people can grab the loss-leader without seeing any of the rest of the merchandise.  You come in on a tag and go out without seeing the other stuff.  But enough are curious to look at the Front Page that it makes a difference

Thanks for stopping by for my thoughts on this.  See you at Taking a Page.

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c.e.s.