Does Your Business Have A Traffic Problem Or A Conversions’ Problem?

Let me start saying that this is a tricky question. But it’s an enlightening one.

This is, actually, the very first question I ask when consulting with clients.

Most people is quick to say that their problem is, quite obviously, a traffic problem.

This problem takes different flavors of course, the most popular being “I can’t get traffic cheap enough to make it work for my business”

Now, we all know that “the traffic problem” is real, isn’t it?

After all, you can have the best product in the world, the best sales pitch, the most professional website ever, but if nobody ever gets there, there is not way in Earth of being successful.

Yes, I get that.

However, I’ll make a bold claim here: THERE IS NOT SUCH A THING AS A TRAFFIC PROBLEM.

I know, I know. This can sound kind of crazy for most people. Specially in a world filled with “Traffic Submits” and “Traffic & Conversions” conventions.

Most experts will tell you that there are two parts to the equation of marketing your business on the Internet, and these two parts are, of course, TRAFFIC and CONVERSIONS.

I couldn’t agree more with this concept.

But not both of these two terms of the equation have to be a problem. 

In fact, mathematics teaches us that is not possible to find a solution to a problem whose 2 only variables happen to be unknowns.

For solving the equation of getting more targeted leads and convert them into clients, we need at least one of these terms to be a certainty.

And the most certain thing in internet marketing is, even if this can be surprising for some, that WE CAN GET TRAFFIC.

But of course, in order for you to understand the full meaning and extension of my words we need to make some clarifications:

First of all, YOU CANNOT CREATE TRAFFIC.

Traffic is, never forget, PEOPLE that happen to be surfing the Internet through any device at a particular point in time.

You cannot create this phenomenon. It happens by itself as the ultimate result of technology and its penetration in societies around the world.

What you can do is to MANIPULATE, DIVERT and REFOCUS this traffic, that's it, PEOPLE, toward a particular web property.

Consequently, you’re approaching the problem the wrong way when you say “I need to create/build /generate traffic to this offer”. You just can’t do that.

What you need to do is to find a way of putting your offer IN FRONT OF the right kind of traffic.

Yes, there is a right and a wrong kind of traffic. 

The right kind of traffic is the web traffic that’s composed of people that are highly likely to convert for your particular offer. Marketing experts call this kind of traffic “targeted traffic”.

Finally, if you really want to stop struggling with the concept of traffic, my best recommendation is… STOP CALLING IT TRAFFIC!!

Traffic is just such an impersonal, cold word.

People are not traffic. People are people, and each and every person in the group has his own aspirations, desires, fears, greatnesses and dark sides, just like you and me.

You are not really looking for “traffic”. What you need is an AUDIENCE.

And if you cannot build traffic, you can definitively put together an audience.

When you stop thinking in terms of “traffic” and start thinking in terms of “audiences” something magical happens. A new superpower unleashes deep inside your mind. A superpower that can transform your business forever.

Now you are ready to hear the secret in full:

There are indeed TWO problems to solve in your quest for a successful internet business (or for being able to use the full potential of the Internet to make your offline business or professional practice to explode). But none of them is TRAFFIC.

Ready?

Ok, here we go: these two problems are A MINDSET PROBLEM and A COVERSIONS’ PROBLEM.

“Mindset problem? Are you kidding me?”

Not in the slightest…

Now you know that TRAFFIC or, better said, building a target audience for you or your business, is not a problem. There are literally BILLIONS of people connecting to the Internet each and every day of the year -1.3 billions log in daily to Facebook alone according to the last stats- and this number is nothing but growing by the minute.

And getting a sizable portion of this gargantuan multitude diverted to your website is pretty easy and straight-forward these days: you only have to pay “traffic controllers” their fee.

As you probably guessed, I call “traffic controllers” to websites that can reach millions or even billions of people in a daily basis, being Facebook and Google the prime example of them.

These traffic powerhouses do a great job attracting people to their platforms and letting them hangout and/or connect with people with similar interests, passions and, last but not least, PROBLEMS. 

And by doing that, they CONGREGATE hundreds or even thousands of “audiences” under the same roof and give us, marketers, the best chance in history to reach out to our ideal customers, followers and supporters.

In my book, this is a commendable work; one that truly deserves paying a small fee to support and benefit from.

So, if it’s really so easy and straight-forward to get the traffic that your business needs to thrive (just pay the fee to reach out to your ideal audience)… then why are so many business owners struggling yet with the concept of traffic and letting their business die a slow and painful death for the lack of it?

Well, that’s where the MINSET PROBLEM comes to play…

Many business owners and entrepreneurs are just hesitant, and sometimes plainly opposed, for whatever reason, to pay for the traffic that their businesses so desperately need.

And I’m not saying that these people are not willing to invest in their businesses. Not at all.

Many of them have and are still investing plenty of money not only in the infrastructure their businesses need to operate, but in many non essential software tools and courses that promise some kind of alleviation for their traffic problems.

But for some reason that escapes me, they’re not so inclined to just go out there and pay for the real thing… (maybe so many empty promises about “free traffic” have started eroding our common sense?)

Now, I have to concede that there actually are many other business owners that truly understand that they need to pay for the right to build an audience and they bravely go for it.

These are the ones that normally reply to my question with a “traffic is just too expensive” kind of excuse.

And from their particular point of view, they are totally right. They are paying just too much for traffic considering the results they’re currently getting from it.

Sometimes it could be that they just don’t know how to properly optimize a marketing campaign or reach the right audience for their businesses -it’s not their work to know anyway: they are great artists or dentists or doctors or lawyers and that’s what they love to do and what they are really good at- but, most of the time, the real problem boils down to something completely different…

Remember that I said before that there are 2 and only 2 problems to solve to get all the traffic that your business can manage and then some?

Yes, that’s it: either you have a MINDSET PROBLEM or you have a CONVERSION’S PROBLEM. 

The mindset problem is pretty straight-forward: if you’re not willing to pay for reaching your audience, you’ll be out of business rather soon.

Deal with it your way, BUT YOU HAVE TO SOLVE THIS MINDSET PROBLEM IF YOU WANT ANY CHANCE TO SUCCESS.

Do you know why the question I opened this article with is the first question I ask to my consulting clients?

Because I NEED TO KNOW IF I CAN HELP THEM!

And if after our first session together I find that a particular client suffers from “the mindset problem” I politely invite him (or her) to focus on solving this problem first and come to me at a later date.

I don’t do this out of arrogance; I genuinely want to help my clients to reach their goals and I positively know that if someone comes to me with this mindset problem unsolved I won’t be able to help him out. This is a kind of problem everyone needs to deal with at home, before even trying to reach out for success.

Are those other clients that already figured this thing out, those that are already investing a big chunk of their hard-earned money to build an audience for their businesses -most of the time, with mixed results- the ones I CAN REALLY HELP.

And my first lesson to them -and to you today- is this: You don’t really have a traffic problem. You cannot have it because THERE IS NOT SUCH A THING AS A TRAFFIC PROBLEM.

So, if you’re already investing money to get targeted traffic to your offers, the only problem you can really have IS A CONVERSIONS’ PROBLEM.

Now, most of the time, they don’t accept this piece of advice that easily. They fight back.

“But you don’t know my business”, “Traffic is just so expensive in my industry”, “There HAVE TO BE a way to get cheaper traffic!!”.

Now, stop right there! I’m not the get-the-cheapest-traffic-around kind of expert. If you want that from me, you’re not looking in the right place...

But that doesn’t matter, actually. 

What really matters is that cheap traffic is not going to save your business. 

Cheap traffic is only going to produce cheap results. And if your conversions are low with your current source of traffic, plug cheaper traffic in and see them go right down the hill!

NO.

Your problem IS A CONVERSIONS’ PROBLEM.

Yes, I know I said that before. Now let me prove it to you:

Let’s say that you’re paying $3 a click for getting traffic to your website or offer (by the way, if you’re still using a "website" to sell online, THAT’S A BIG PROBLEM. But we’ll talk about that in another occasion). That’s $300 per 100 visitors.

And let’s asume that your offer is priced at $200 dollars.

Now, we need another piece of information: what’s this offer’s current conversion ratio? 

If you don't know what a conversion ratio is, well, that’s another problem you have to solve ASAP. But bear with me that I’ll make it clear for you in this example…

I’m going to say, for the sake of this example, that your offer has a conversion ratio of 1%, which is pretty standard in most industries; not wonderful, not horrible.

What this little number means is that you close 1 sale out of every 100 visitors to your sales page.

So, you’re basically paying $300 to close one $200 sale.

Sounds familiar?

That is, indeed, the kind of situation that most business owners trying their hand at paid advertising find themselves in. 

Not a confortable situation to be in and, to be totally sincere, NOT A SUSTAINABLE SITUATION. At least, not for most of us.

And this is a context where that claim of “traffic is just so damn expensive” makes a lot of sense.

But that’s just one way of looking at the problem…

Let’s suppose now that you go to your product’s salespage, apply some kind of secret black-magic conversion trick to it -it could be something so mundane like changing the color of your order button or the position of your testimonial boxes, or maybe adding an explainer video at the top of it- and now your conversion rate got a rise to an astonishing…. 2%.

Yes, that’s it. You don’t need to hit it out of the part to make this thing work.

Now, with a 2% conversion rate, YOU’RE MAKING 2 SALES FOR EVERY 100 VISITORS THAT HIT YOUR WEBSITE.

And just this tiny, for some even almost unnoticeable change in your conversion numbers, will surely bring a really noticeable change to your bank account.

That’s right: the campaign that was killing you, is now killing it!

Even more important: it’s killing it WITH THE EXACT SAME TRAFFIC SOURCE AND PAYING EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT FOR VISITOR!

Paying $300 and getting $400 back is not an uncomfortable situation to be in anymore. 

Now you can sit on it WITH THE CERTAINTY that every time that you put 3 dollars in you’re getting $4 back like clockwork. 

Or you could do something even better and focus now in further optimizing this already profitable campaign to make it even more profitable for your business.

But let’s stop it there. There you have your answer.

Now let me take the mic back for a second and ask you a quick question:

Didn't you tell me, 2 minutes ago, that traffic was just too damn expensive at $3 a click to make it work?

And I clearly don’t care if the cost per click that you have in mind is $5, $10 o even $100. Once and again I’ll come back to you and say: “It’s a conversion’s problem!!”.

Hopefully this little example is enough to bring the point home.

Talk soon,

Leonardo