For example, before we began to market this site, we started mentioning it to people. At that time, we only had a placeholder up. As soon as we opened up the site for people to see, we had a surge of traffic. Less than 20 people had heard directly from it's creators about the site, but well more than 20 actually visited it. If you update your site regularly, which I hope you do, offer a newsletter to inform people of updates or changes to your site.
People hate checking pages for updates.
I know I do. When you offer a Newsletter, you're offering a service. The subscriber doesn't have to check for updates, or possibly 'miss out' on anything that comes up. With a newsletter, you're reminding a previous visitor that your site is still around. With all the web pages out there, you can't expect someone to remember visiting your site, much less remember to check it for updates.