Making the Jump from Traffic to Sales

One of the biggest blinders that hold people back in online marketing is the focus on traffic numbers alone.

Now obviously, websites need visitors.  The more visitors a website gets (or so we’re told) the more profitable it will be.  What many marketers soon find out, however, is that traffic numbers are not always related to sales numbers.

Visitors are great.  Your website needs to get people visiting it and engaging with the information you present.  It also needs to convert these visitors into paying customers.

But how do you do that?

Two Different Objectives

Part of the problem comes from the fact that sales and traffic generation have two different objectives.  Traffic generation (generally) focuses on getting the greatest number of people on a website as possible.  Sales, on the other hand, focuses on your specific target customer.

You can’t simply put a million people in front of your sales page and expect to rake in the cash.  It just doesn’t work that way.

The difference here is that one focuses on capturing anyone while the other focuses on a specific person.  Sales certainly doesn’t work if visitors aren’t targeted, so your advertising efforts absolutely must be.

Targeting Customers

Traffic generation is great for creating a long list of leads, qualified as best you can tell.  This group of people may contain a few buyers but you’ll need to weed out the mass of people who will never buy something from you.  This can be done through the material posted on your website.

Each article, video, or audio file you post should be targeted to the specific market you’re trying to sell to.  When visitors come across an article on weight loss, for example, only those people interested in losing weight will read it.  That would be a great place to promote a weight loss product.

A Leaky Funnel

The trick to combining traffic and sales is to weed out the people who aren’t customers and sell to those who will spend money.  This is done with what we call a “Sales Funnel”.  Picture the shape of a funnel.  It’s larger at one end than the other.

A sales funnel works by directing all of your traffic into the sales process.  With each progressive step, the audience gets smaller and smaller in number.  Eventually, you’re left with only those people who will be interested in your product.  These are the people to whom you present your sales copy, products, and other offers.

Building a Funnel

The basic blueprint for a sales funnel is pretty simple.  You start with a general audience and then begin to shave it down until you’re left with a small group of people who are more likely to spend money. In some cases this can be less than 10% of your overall traffic numbers.

You can tell who they are by their behavior—which they usually take after you ask them to do something and see how they respond.

A truly powerful sales funnel can make or break a product.  They take a lot of tweaking, testing, and continued improvement.  And, it can be so difficult to build an effective sales funnel that many companies will spend tend of thousands hiring someone to do it for them, and several times more buying traffic to test it.

Fortunately for you, there’s no need to spend that kind of money.  You can get insider access to the most effective sales funnels and best-selling products in the home business niche today simply by clicking here.

What Media Buys Are and How They Work

“Media Buys” is a term you’ll often hear in marketing circles.  They are widely used, yet some people still don’t understand what they are.  To put it as simply as possible, a media buy is basically advertising space purchased on some sort of media, like a website ad or TV commercial.

There are a great range of options when it comes to media buys and each one has its benefits and drawbacks.  Some companies will spend millions of dollars every year and need to hire a dedicated media buyer to handle it all.  It’s actually quite easy to end up spending a significant amount of money, but you don’t need to break the bank if you know what you’re doing.

What media can you buy?

 Advertising space can be purchased on every form of media imaginable.  Television commercials and radio spots have long been popular options.  Space can also be purchased in magazines, newspapers, or circulars as well.

With the rise of the internet, however, web-based media buying has become a huge industry.  Websites of every type in nearly every market will sell advertising space.  Think of every website you’ve ever seen with ad space on them! This can often be a low-cost option that will still reach a large audience.

How to Know What to Buy

 They key to getting the best return on a media buy is to have an effective plan laid out before you spend any money.  Focus on developing a specific strategy.  You’ll want to know who your target audience is, how much you’re willing to spend, and what you want to get out of it.

One mistake many people make is buying a lot of ad space right off the bat, lured by the total number of views without regard for how relevant the ads will be to their audience.

Just as with anything in business, you need to have a plan to follow or you’ll get lost.  Media buys can either be a great investment or a total waste of money.  Having a focused plan is what makes the difference.

Where to Buy

 The strategy you develop needs to be focused on a target customer or audience, because this will tell you where to buy your media space.  Consider your ideal customer.  Do a little research to determine what sort of media they consume on a regular basis and what will get them to engage with your marketing.

When it comes to websites, you’ll want to pay attention to the traffic stats for each site.  If the visitors fall into the same range of age, location, and financial ability as your target customer, then this is a great option.

Determining Value

 It’s important to test a number of different media buying options to find the best one.  You can do this by assigning a value to each one after you’ve run some test campaigns.  Simply take the cost of the media buy and compare it to the traffic it generated.  Then, take that and compare it to the number of sales or leads generated from the campaign.

Media buys can be a wonderful way to increase the awareness of a product, promote a brand, or generate revenue through sales.  Once the media is bought, it is basically fully automated so it’s also one of the easiest marketing options around.

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Fail-Safe Tips for Effective Media Buying

Media Buys (buying packages of ad space) can be a great way to help grow your business.  Finding the right place to advertise will open up a large audience that might be receptive to your current marketing efforts.

There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to do it.  These six tips will put you on the right track to getting the greatest return on all your media buys.

#1: Budget It

 Media buys can be a great addition to your marketing strategy, but they can also be a great way to empty your bank account.
To avoid spending too much money, it’s vitally important that you set a budget for media buying and stick to it.  Once you go over budget you’ll be cutting into your profits.  I suggest starting small, finding out what works, and then incrementally increasing your ad budget.

#2: Shop Around

 It’s never a good idea to purchase the first thing you find.  When it comes to media buys, the cost of the buy isn’t always related to the quality of the audience.
While it might be tempting to spend a lot to advertise on a well-known website, you might be able to find cheaper options that are just as effective.

#3: Goals

 It’s important to keep the goals of your campaign in mind when looking for media to buy.  Different websites will have different types of visitors.
If you’re focused on gathering leads, then one site might be a better option than another.  If sales are your goal, then you’ll need to find a website full of real customers.

#4: Test It

 Every campaign is different.  The only way to really tell which media buy offered the best return is to constantly test different campaigns.  Instead of just running one campaign and hoping for the best, diversify your marketing efforts.
When the campaigns are over, you’ll be able to run a few numbers and find out which one brought you the highest return.

#5: Cost Per Lead

 You need to have a method of determining the most valuable media buys, and focusing on your cost per lead is a great way to do this.  Traffic is always nice, but if it doesn’t convert into leads or sales then it’s only wasting your time and money.  The cost per lead can be determined by taking the price of the media buy and dividing it by the number of leads or sales.  Needless to say, anything with a negative ROI should probably be thrown out.

#6: Get Creative

 At the end of the day, media buying is just advertising.  Once you’ve purchased it, you’ll need something eye catching, inventive, and enticing to use it for.
Make sure you leave room in your budget for creativity.  Hiring designers, writers, and even musicians can really boost the effectiveness of all your marketing.  Don’t fall into the trap of neglecting to budget for creative design.

The real secret to effective media buying can be found in planning and analysis.  It can be tempting to just jump right in and start buying anything you can find.  To get the most out of it, however, you need to know what you’re doing.  If all of this sounds just a bit too complicated you can get immediate access to my traffic-generation team that will get qualified leads for you here.