Zero-click internet is here, and I'm so here for it ??

Apparently, it's harder to get traffic now...

So what?

AI overviews from LLMs, large UGC networks like Reddit and affiliate juggernauts like Forbes are getting the lionshare of traffic on the internet.

Read this great expose from Lars Lofgren — Part 1 and Part 2.

Ahrefs also did a study showing 97% of webpages get zero traffic.

But to that I say…

I'm glad.

I'm glad you're in a dilemma ??

97% of pages on the internet are crap anyway. ????

So what are you going to do about it?

How can you win against these guys for traffic when they're gobbling up the pie?

By going back to basics with ICP Marketing.

There's two ways to succeed in today's world online. They've always been here and will likely never change.

1. Horizontal marketing on social

Essentially boils down to the following:

• Research where your ICP spends their social time
• Create content natively in the feed with multimedia programs.
• Build a following there and drive people towards your owned properties & core offer

Examples include:

• 37signals Linkedin newsletter
• Nick Broekema — Content Design

Don't forget about distribution - it's called ‘content marketing’ for a reason.

Note: Content =\ company blog or only written stuffs.

Think bigger and bolder than that.

Growth tools, webinars, proprietary IP & research etc.

2. Vertical marketing in places of influence

Identify the places where people go to grow professionally. ( SparkToro can help with this)

Create content there and collaborate with the gatekeepers who ‘own’ the audience you wish to attract.

Joint ventures / partnerships remain one of the biggest growth levers you can pull.

Sometimes you may need to pay, but that's ok…

We did before, and it helped generate 250,000 brand views in 24 hours whilst setting a new baseline of traffic, signups and revenue for our SaaS that we wouldn't have hit otherwise.

Much more effective than paid search & social ads ??

(More on this another time).

I'm no partnerships expert, but I ask myself the following questions when exploring partnership arrangements.

1. What can I do for you, that you can't do for yourself?
2. What's can you do for me, that I can't do for myself?
3. What can we do together, that we can't do individually?

Examples include:

• Lashay Lewis ' multiple appearances with Exit Five
• Andy McCotter-Bicknell ?? , Tamara Grominsky and Jason Oakley teaming up to co-launch a course on Maven

• Fluvio 's strategic partnership with Product Marketing Alliance
• Zabal Media partnering with Webflow as Enterprise partners

3. Putting it all together with your own distribution engine

Once those folk are in your ecosystem, you can further build positive brand equity with exclusive content that can't be found anywhere else.

Hence, AudiencePlus & Uscreen 's approach towards helping you build your own Netflix-style media house.

Note: Make sure you have conversion pathways and omni-channel lifecycle flows in place to generate revenue.

Doing the above will get you results like these:

Which converts at rates like this...

resulting in revenue from just 1 partner like this..

That's the power of brand, not keywords.

But all of this is really hopeless unless you truly zero-in on your ICP and create messaging that resonates.

Tools like Keyplay and Wynter are designed to help with this.

That said, I don't believe you can choose an ICP. Your ICP chooses you.

And once they do — you'll soon realise that you don't need an additional 100k visitors/mo to generate record-pipeline growth.

5k of the right folk will more than suffice.

And that's precisely what we do at Grow that SaaS — driving full-funnel revenue growth for ambitious SaaS with ICP marketing. ??

—

Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment.

The golden age of traffic generation has well & truly passed.

Today, it's all about attention, distribution & influence.

Act accordingly and the results will follow.