Traffic Talk: Part 2
Early in this series we talked about the Traffic Pyramid. That pyramid showed the intent of the prospect. In this section, we are going to flip that diagram upside-down and discuss the intent of our marketing efforts.
Once you understand the framework I’m about to show you, it will pay dividends forever.
Calling this diagram an inverted pyramid would be accurate, but it wouldn’t convey the right message. There is a flow to this diagram — a journey — that can help us visualize how customers interact with our business. Which is why what you see here is commonly referred to as a sales funnel.
From top to bottom, the stages are:
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Conversion
Let’s walk through them in order…
The first stage, at the top, is Awareness — which is our initial point of contact with a prospect. This is where we transition from unknown to known (though not well-known yet) for the prospect.
Awareness asks: How do we attract people?
This question is focused on attention/traffic/user growth, as well as segmentation of those elements. Meaning that the top of the funnel is a bit a like a magnet crossed with Hogwarts’ Sorting Hat.
It is important to understand that awareness, in our context, is not necessarily the point of first contact. It could be a series of small touch-points over a long period of time which, when taken together, make your business (and your offer) much more visible to the prospect.
Engagement is an interesting term. Conventional wisdom says engagement is the moment someone becomes a lead (they fill out a form, opt-in for emails, or sign up for your newsletter, etc.).
I think by now you know how we feel about conventional.
At Wabbit, we define engagement as the steps (sometimes baby-steps) a prospect takes to move deeper into our world — which often means closer to us, and our way of thinking.
We affectionately call this stage of the funnel the “messy middle,” and it is the engine that works to convert a visitor into a lead.
Engagement can take a wide range of shapes from simply commenting on something, to opt-ins for gated content, downloading a lead magnet, attending a webinar, and so on…
Conversion is all about making a sale. It is the stage where common things like sales pages, bundles, up-sells, cross-sells, abandoned-cart emails, waitlists, and pre-sales all hang out.
This funnel framework applies to all traffic but, it is important to understand the goals for each section — especially when we are paying for traffic.
At the top of the funnel (Awareness), we want to share content that demonstrates empathetic authority — meaning, you understand the prospect’s pains deeply, and you can clearly demonstrate your experience and trustworthiness on the matter.
The value is the content itself, regardless of the form it takes.
Text and video both work well in the Awareness stage. For what it’s worth, still images can work too but, they are much more difficult to execute well.
The point of the Awareness stage is to make useful, valuable content that can be consumed and shared.
When using video, what matters is consumption. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- What percentage of people watch 50% or more? 95%?
- How frequently is the content shared?
- What do people say in the comments?
- What questions do they ask?
If we want to be really clever (and we definitely do), we can use their comments and questions to link to other content, or to develop additional content.
When using text, our recommendation is that you include as much value as possible within the ad itself.
Don’t hide the value behind a click-through unless there is a profoundly compelling reason to do so. Demonstrate your understanding of the topic, choose a novel perspective (if possible), and take a stance that appeals to a motivated minority of your audience.
As with video, likes (or other reactions), comments, and shares are all useful data points to analyze for insights.
In either case (video or text), it is important to make something memorable and share-worthy.
One final point about Awareness before we move on:
The internet is full of trolls. Their only purpose in life is to talk shit and try to tear you down. It doesn’t matter what market you’re in, you will come across one of these subhumans eventually. It is the unfortunate reality of anonymity and lack of consequence in the digital age.
Don’t take it personally, it has nothing to do with you. Their behavior is a reflection of their own unhappiness and not inadequacy on your part.
There is a delicate balance between brushing off these antagonistic comments, and paying attention in order to notice any grains of truth. You will have to work this balance out for yourself but, my advice is to look for consistencies among the feedback. There’s an old saying that goes something like:
If you hear it once, it is irrelevant opinion.
If you hear it twice, it may be coincidence.
If you hear it three times, pay attention.
Do what is best for you and your business, and remember to use the “delete” button with remorseless glee when the trolls come.
The middle of the funnel (Engagement) is overwhelmingly about lead generation.
In many cases it is possible to skip the top of the funnel entirely and start a paid traffic campaign here. In fact, the rising costs of online advertising make this a common tactic because it is an effective way to test if something is interesting enough to cause action.
A typical engagement campaign is a big, specific promise — fulfilled by a lead magnet, email series, etc. Webinars are common here too and they often have conversion elements embedded in them as well.
Bottom of funnel (Conversion) campaigns are those which are focused on leading to a sale immediately. Structuring these campaigns effectively is complex, and heavily dependent on your business, and your approach to traffic (paid or otherwise).
We will talk about this more in the next section.
For now, your assignment is to look through the content you have (or a short list of content you could create) and assign that content either to top or middle of the funnel.