How to drive traffic with a crazy challenge or outlandish stunt

One way to build up a great following fast is to do something just a little crazy.

If you’ve ever watched a reality TV show such as Amazing Race or Survivor, then you know what a draw it can be to attempt something just a little crazy. Millions of people tune in each and every week to see which team will survive (or not) in Amazing Race and what new catastrophes will befall the cast of Survivor.

Now imagine if you could generate that kind of traffic to your blog or website, just by attempting something off the wall.

In fact, this is a tried and true marketing technique that companies have been using for more than a century and you can easily do something similar in your business.

There are many examples, but consider this stunt in 1954.  A.W. Fawcett, Guinness’ Managing Director, came up with the idea of dropping 50,000 sealed Guinness bottles into the ocean, each one of them sealed with a message which asked the finder to tear off a part of the message and return it to Guinness. Many did so and each received a personal reply and memento of the event. While today, environmentalists would protest, at the time, it was a big success.

Write a Book…Or 20

A few years ago, I attended a conference and met Kristen Joy of TheBookNinja.com. She was something of a sensation because she had recently written and published 20 Kindle books in 20 weeks. She did this because she needed a boost in traffic and accepted a challenge from her business coach.

She completed the challenge and it gave her instant credibility to teach others how to write and publish Kindle books quickly. And her traffic grew and grew.

In 2014, I joined the Ultimate Blog Challenge, which is a challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days. You can see these posts starting here. Together, they are a course in growing an online business. Since I had been blogging weekly, the result was about 7 months worth of content done in 1 month! But it also gave me more traffic and readers.

Stretch yourself a little

Now, you don’t have to write a book a week for 20 weeks, or even write 30 blog posts in 30 days. But there are plenty of things you can do to build some buzz and drive some traffic to your site. The key is to find something that would make most people say “I could never do that.” And of course, you want to strategically choose your challenge so that it brings potential clients to your website.

And then do it. Here are some other ideas:

• Do a Facebook Live every day for 30 days
• Post a new video to your YouTube channel every day for 30 days
• Get interviewed on a blog or podcast every week for 6 months
• Create a new free offer every week for 8 weeks
• Create a new report and offer it for sale every week for 6 weeks

Whatever crazy challenge you choose to pull off, it must have 3 components to be successful:

1. It must be outside what most people would consider their comfort zone
2. You must commit to it publicly and often—tell your list, your social media followers, your blog readers, your clients, everyone.
3. It must display your expertise, capability or knowledge (even if you’re learning as you go)

Of course, your absolute conviction to finish is essential. The last thing you want is to publicly declare your intention then quietly fade out mid-way to your goal.

If you’re looking for a fun, innovative way to drive a lot of traffic to your website and get more eyes on your content, consider setting a big, outrageous goal for yourself. You’ll be surprised how many people turn up to watch and cheer you on, and you’ll have fun along the way.

At the end, you’ll have lots of content you can repurpose again and again. For example, I was able to reuse the blog posts I created as reports.

Finally, you’ll gain experience and expertise that you can teach to others.

Create a challenge for others

I won’t go into details here, but you can also gain traffic by creating a challenge for others to participate in, just like the Ultimate Blog Challenge I participated in. But don’t make it as hard as yours! Instead, create a shorter challenge that will be useful for people, give them instructions each day, and offer prizes for some or all people who complete all of the assignments.

Have you done something crazy to get publicity? Have you followed someone who did? What are you thinking of doing? Leave a comment!

And please share this post with others using the social media buttons because the ideas here might help them as well.