It’s funny to me how companies spend thousands of dollars to develop a brand only to wreck it when they create their advertising campaigns. They pour over colors, fonts, logo designs, Web site creation, USPs, and target audience analyses. But then, when it’s time to bring their message to public, it all falls apart.

Case in point: a local technical college in my town has recently begun to run a television campaign. This institution previously had an image of providing cutting-edge training on technically based vocations. They have spent last several years touting how high-tech their facilities are, and how leading edge their curriculums are. That’s why I can’t image what happened during production of this ad.

The background music is slow and rather classical. The pictures are of smiling students carrying books, and of one of oldest buildings on campus. The copy did do its job. The copy mentioned how workplace was changing and becoming more advanced day-by-day. It talked about how even simplest of jobs now require at least some technological “know-how.” But clash between copy and imagery was painfully obvious.

Marnie Pehrson may not be well known for driving traffic to Web sites, but she should be! Her ability to get literally hundreds of thousands of page views a month is simple astounding! (NOTE: I said “page views,” not “hits.” BIG difference!) I had to ask her to reveal her secrets so that we all could learn how to create a Web site that simply demands high traffic.

KARON: Hi Marnie. I really appreciate you taking time to give us your insights on traffic building. You seem to have Midas touch in this area : )

MARNIE: Oh sure, Karon. Anything for a friend.

KARON: I know from our email conversations that most of your Web sites get anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 page views a month. How do you do it? Search engines? Ezine ads? What?

MARNIE: Well, those things do help, but normally site itself drives visitors to return over and over. It also encourages viral marketing with lots of referrals.

KARON: So tell me about your two biggest sites (in terms of traffic). Those would be http://www.ideamarketers.com and http://www.shelovesgod.com, right?

MARNIE: Right. Both of these sites give visitor a chance to shine - to contribute and be in spotlight. They both accept article contributions, they both allow profiles of visitors, and they both have a place for me to give extra attention to visitors (the masthead).

KARON: So, because visitors are in spotlight on these two sights, they recommend them to others, return repeatedly, and link back to you. Excellent!

MARNIE: Yes, I’ve built in automatic ways for visitors to forward pages to friends which brings even more traffic. Basically, rather than having focus on selling, I put it on visitor. They are primary focus with products/services I sell taking a back seat (so to speak).

KARON: But you still make sales, right?