Optimizing Lead Generation Through Traffic Channel Mapping

Jennie Wright [00:00:01]:

Hello. This is the Acquire podcast from the Odd Phonic Podcast Network, and I am Jenny Wright. This is the podcast that delves deep into the world of list building and online events, and it’s designed to empower entrepreneurs and marketers with the knowledge and strategies to master these essential business growth tactics. And in this show, I actually want to talk about how to get you better leads for your offers and stop leads leaking away from you. And every answer we need for this is stored in the data of your traffic channels. So I will tell you in advance that this is going to open a can can of worms for you if you’ve never done this before. And if you have done this before, then you’re going to understand this is gonna create a really cool action plan for the things that you can do to improve your traffic channels. So if that feels good, let’s do this.

Jennie Wright [00:00:53]:

I do this on a regular basis for my clients. I get hired to do this. So this is part of a marketing audit that I do and I love doing this. Means I get my fingers into with so much data and I love getting in there and looking at the minutiae of how people are driving traffic. So Let’s look at what this is. We’re gonna look at pulling data on how we’re getting leads into your business. We’re gonna look at what are the best traffic sources. We’re gonna look at the way the traffic is converting and what is not converting.

Jennie Wright [00:01:25]:

We’re gonna look at why we can improve or how we can proof on the traffic that you are getting. And we’re gonna look at creating an action plan going forward so that you have better sources of sources of traffic and better results from the traffic that you’re getting. So the best way to look at this is to reverse engineer it. So we’re not gonna look at all of your traffic sources to start off with. We’re actually gonna look at the products and programs or services that you’re offering and work our way out. So let’s do that. This is called traffic channel mapping, and it’s how we’re gonna identify and understand these various traffic sources and their performance levels. So the first thing is we’re gonna map and then we’re gonna assess.

Jennie Wright [00:02:10]:

We’re gonna identify all the leaks. We’re gonna look at optimization of g’s, and that’s gonna build the action plan. And then you can execute on that action plan going forward. It’s not difficult. This is not a hard process. Desk. It takes a bit of time, but it is actually incredibly revealing. And you’ll either see that your business has as a few minor tweaks.

Jennie Wright [00:02:33]:

By the way, minor tweaks can make a massive difference as you go through your traffic channels to increase sales or increase brochure, whatever the call to action or, you know, what it is that you need. I do wanna point out that that if you do have a niche problem, meaning you haven’t done the work to understand who your ideal client is or if that changed over time. That needs to happen first. You need to understand all of the nuances of who your ideal client it is and why they would want the thing that you’re offering. It might also tell you that your offers need to be changed or updated, so that stuff comes first. This process, this trend this traffic channel mapping starts when you have a really clear definition of what it is that you wanna sell and to who you wanna sell it to, and now we just need to make sure that everything else is optimized. And That’s where we’re gonna focus. Okay? So again, we’re gonna assess everything.

Jennie Wright [00:03:31]:

We’re gonna identify the leaks. We’re gonna look for optimization, and then we’re gonna in action plan. So if you wanna do this with me, go ahead and grab a piece of paper, turn it lengthwise, that’s how I did it, and or horizontal, however you wanna call it. Put one of your products or offers on the left or the right hand side right at the edge. Now if you wanna use a document in or if you wanna use Miro, go ahead and do that. Just set it up however you like to do it. I’m the pencil and paper kind of person for this process, and then I can transfer things later on, but I wanna be able to write things down and and kinda be flowy. Right? So I want you to think of your product or your surface or surface that you wanna focus on right now.

Jennie Wright [00:04:09]:

Just pick 1. You might have multiples. That’s fine. You can do this process for each and every single one, but I want you to take one of them. And then when you’re ready, we’re also gonna look at things like your lead magnets. Right? Because those are also a traffic source or a traffic channel, but let’s start with a product because you need to know how effective all of this is in bringing you good leads versus leads that will never convert. And you could be getting hundreds of leads coming to you from different traffic sources, and they will never make it past the first level of your traffic at all. And then you’re gonna have a ton more questions to answer on that side.

Jennie Wright [00:04:47]:

So offer a product, whatever that is. The first step is how are people getting to the place where they make the decision to buy? It could be a sales page. It could be a product page. It could be, I don’t know, whatever lever, whatever Whatever page they need to get to or whatever spot to be able to make a purchase, pull up their credit card, that’s that first step in this work back sort of piece that we’re creating, okay, and this flow. So what is happening right before they invest? Put that right next to your product or offer. Draw a line and put it there. It might be a call, evergreen webinar, pinned social post, affiliate launch, direct referral. There’s so many different ways, and write them all down.

Jennie Wright [00:05:35]:

So if you have all of those, draw a line from your product to each of them. Don’t forget things like PPC ads or other lead sources that directly affect your sales. This could all So be traffic, say, from a Facebook group where in your Facebook group where people enter, you actually send them to said page or social bot. It could be your podcast or guest speaking opportunities like summits or bundles. If you’re a digital marketer and you’re pushing people, say, to a low cost product or even a lead magnet that then leads to a low cost product. So these are the levers that I want you or the channels that I want you to write down. So what traffic channels have you pulled together right now? And I want you to try and think of them all. And if you don’t think Think of them right now.

Jennie Wright [00:06:22]:

You might have to go back and add some. That’s fine. I always find that clients have to keep going back and adding a few as they go through. I always find this process as great to run with somebody else or have somebody else to take a look at it. In case you’ve forgotten something, I always run everything past my partner. And they always identify something I’ve missed, and that’s fine. I love that because they know they know me, they know the business, and they’re always gonna be able to challenge me on things that I may forget. That’s great.

Jennie Wright [00:06:51]:

Alright. Here’s the thing. Often, we’re gonna overlook things like newsletters, email marketing, and realizing that our autoresponders haven’t been set up or engagement email series after lead magnet have never been set up. This is the step you’re gonna start to see things. So product on the left or right hand side of the page, your 1st traffic channels that are getting you to the point of sale, and then keep working back. Right? So if there was an evergreen webinar that leads to a sales page. Work back. Now we have a landing page for that evergreen webinar.

Jennie Wright [00:07:30]:

Before that, we’re gonna have our promotional posts for that evergreen webinar, whatever they are. They could be on your blog. They could be on your social media. That could be in your email marketing. So you’re working your way back step by step by step. And eventually, you’re gonna that end up at the beginning of this work back flow that we just created. And you’re gonna keep adding these level of traffic, these different areas of traffic, depending on you offer until you’re at that very first step, the place where leads are first introduced or brought into your ecosystem. So this could be the form on your website where people enter their name and email.

Jennie Wright [00:08:10]:

This could be, again, this, you know, this This could be your podcast. This could be a lead magnet. The there’s so many different things it could be, and I want you to document all of them because they’re all important in traffic sources. The next piece that we’re gonna do is we’re gonna analyze it. This is where we’re going to identify all those areas where the leads are leaking out, and then we’re gonna look at the ways we’re gonna plug it. People like me are often brought in to businesses to identify these areas. I actually perform audits in this space. I take about a month, month and a half.

Jennie Wright [00:08:45]:

I go through the entire business, all of the marketing, and I look at the opportunities of where this is happening. They are very deep audits. It like I said, it takes me about a month or a month and a half to do. It is practically a full time thing, but I am finding all of those opportunities and creating an extensive report on what it would look like to fix them. So I’m giving them the exact step by step on how to do this, and it helps them plug all of those little leaky points and increase sales by small percentages, mid percentages, even big percentages depending on what these look like. And then looking at ways that we can add more traffic channels to increase the total number of good leads that we’re getting to those offers. It’s basically a game of analyze, fix, refine, reevaluate, add, and then analyze again. It’s a process.

Jennie Wright [00:09:40]:

And unless you’re a data geek like me, this might feel a little bit heavy, but it’s very important. And I promise you, it’s going to have an incredible impact. Go through the process, please. Alright. Now we’re gonna get back to your traffic channel mapping, and it’s time to start adding the data that helps us figure out what’s working in what’s not. Now you might want to have a new piece of paper or a new doc where you’re looking at your traffic channel mapping And you’re adding the data separately. Or if you’re like me, you’re just gonna grab a different color pencil or like a a pen, sorry, and start writing that in. So we’re We’re gonna look at the ways that everything works, and we’re going to see opportunities as we’re going through.

Jennie Wright [00:10:24]:

Try not to rabbit hole down what those things are, stay at this level, and then we can go deeper into analyzation later later. Okay? So, again, this could be big things. It could be little things. It could be a fraction of a percentage that we’re gonna look at trying fixing. And This next step is gonna really sort of blow your mind. It’s it’s really gonna open your eyes. And if you’ve done this before, amazing. But every time you do it, it shows something else.

Jennie Wright [00:10:48]:

You could also discover that you don’t have enough traffic sources to your offers and you’re going to see that there’s a plan that you need to put in place to to really, like up those up and what those can be. Alright. So let’s get into the data. Now the data is gonna look like organic data. It’s gonna look like paid data if you’re being paid, so you’re doing link clicks from social. So get your social platforms open and start looking at the metrics behind those. Open your Google Analytics dashboard, open Semrush if you’re using Semrush. I love Semrush, by the way.

Jennie Wright [00:11:20]:

It’s free. They have a they have a free side. They have a paid side, but definitely use the free side for sure. And it’s a must that you have, obviously, have Google Analytics on everything, and so you should. Okay? Also, take a look at your paid data. So if you’re running Google, PPC ads, if you’re running meta ads, get all that kinda like, just create a little opening on your, on your browser with all this data open. Okay? So let’s also go deep on our lead magnet conversion rates. So make sure you have whatever platform you’re creating your lead magnets on.

Jennie Wright [00:11:56]:

It could be, you know, could be on your website, but it could also be on things like go high level or click funnels. Also, we’re gonna look at things like slow lead times or slow load times, I should say, on your website. We’re gonna look at over location. Eventually, we’re gonna look at missing trust signals, like lack of testimonials and reviews and social proof and so on. But we’re 1st 1st level, we’re gonna look at the data, then we’re gonna get into sort of that, you know, deeper conversation about what things look like and so So 1 question you can ask yourself is if you’re using blogs to drive traffic, is it working. Is it even a lead source for you? A lot of times people don’t use blogs. They don’t think it’s worth their time. There’s a lot of websites these days that do actually not have blogs.

Jennie Wright [00:12:45]:

And if they do have blogs, they’re hidden. Like, they’re not put on the home page. So if we can if we can talk right now for a second about the SEO of your website and blogs as well, we’re gonna kinda smoosh them all in there. Take a look at a a cross section of the blogs that are that might be driving traffic to, say, booking a call with viewer checking out a lead you know, checking out a a resource. Make sure that those blogs have proper descriptions, So metadata. And are you using a product like Yoast SEO or another SEO tool that helps you optimize these blogs? Making making sure that you’re using things like proper keywords and so on. I like Yoast. It’s free, and it has this little traffic signal sort of red light, green light, yellow light thing, and it helps you to understand how your blogs are doing.

Jennie Wright [00:13:39]:

Obviously, you wanna get green lights across aboard. You don’t always do that, but having red lights is bad. So if you’re looking at your if you install the plug in on the back end of your website And once you get it sort of, like, situated and then you see all red lights on your blogs, you know you’ve got some work to do. Right? So you would not believe how many people do not have SEO keywords and metadata on their actual blogs and on their website pages and on their landing pages for their for their lead magnets or even their sales pages. It is mind boggling to me that we don’t have that data, but it is often just something that people miss. It is not usually something that a copywriter will think of. It’s not something usually that a business owner will think of unless they have an understanding of SEO. Page builders, they often should be doing it.

Jennie Wright [00:14:28]:

I certainly do when I was building pages more, but a lot of people just don’t do it. Alright. So that’s one thing to look at. Take a look also at the nitty gritty on your ads traffic, if if you’re running any at all, and what is working and what is not. This could be as high as your PPC ads and you’re looking at at your cost per lead. You’re looking at all the different metrics that tell you if an ad is actually performing and how much you’re spending. Right? So In the process of this this traffic channel mapping, you’re also gonna see where you’re spending money, time, and resources and where you might need to change that. So if you’re spending a ton of time on creating lead magnets, but none of those are optimized and landing pages aren’t converting, then you’re spending ton of time in one spot that’s not working.

Jennie Wright [00:15:16]:

If you’re paying a boatload of money to some external company or some provider who is doing your Facebook ads or your meta ads or your Google My Business ads, and those aren’t performing, that’s bad too. If you’re paying an external person to write blogs for you And those blogs are not working in your favor. That’s a cost of business that you need to then modify. Those blogs that need to work for you or you need to find somebody else perhaps. Right? So this is this is not just, traffic channel mapping. This is analysis. It’s analysis. It’s getting into the nitty gritty of what’s working and what’s not and what you might need to change.

Jennie Wright [00:15:56]:

And this discovery is it it goes really deep. I Love it. So let’s start plotting that data onto your traffic channel mapping sheet or a different piece of paper. The other things that you’re eventually gonna wanna look at as we do this is, like, your bounce rate on your website or the bounce rate on certain pages of your web site that lead to your offer. So most times, what I have or what I have for clients is they have their website, And then under services, they have listed out several services. Those services have a subpage on their website, and then those would either lead to a book call button or it would lead to a sales page. Right? So we can see how that traffic is moving from the home page to a services page to a actual services, like sales page, to the button, And then we can also see the data from booking consultations. So we can see where the breakdown and where the leads are leaking all through those different steps.

Jennie Wright [00:17:00]:

And that’s and a really important thing. I really want you to take a look at those. And so this is not a 5 minute exercise. It’s gonna take you longer, and that’s totally fine. But I really I want you to identify those opportunities that are going to show you exactly where all these leads are leaking out. That’s that’s gonna change the way your business It’s also gonna make you look at your action plan. And that part, I love, but it also feels or it can feel a little bit overwhelming. But if you create the action steps, obviously, always attack the low hanging fruit first and then make a plan of action of the things that you can do that are gonna take more time, energy, or effort.

Jennie Wright [00:17:39]:

One of my clients drives traffic to her blog as one of her traffic channels. That blog always has a call to action to book a call. It’s always at the bottom of the page. The format of the blogs is always the same. There’s usually an h one tag. There’s not always an h three tag. There’s there’s not always even a picture, and there’s not a lot of internal links or journal links. So when I did my analysis of her marketing and I looked at her blogs, I found that the blogs were not actually SEO optimized, which which means they weren’t maximizing on that organic search traffic if somebody was to put in a parameter into Google that might bring that up.

Jennie Wright [00:18:18]:

So other people were coming up on search ahead of her, like, by pages and pages. And so those those blogs were not optimized to encourage traffic to even get to those you know, to the to the page, but they also weren’t optimized, for people to take action, like downloading a resource and getting people into their email marketing system and allowing you to take the next step and connect. So this was a profound issue, And we found also that the call to action on the blogs was always book a call. And like I said earlier, it was always on the bottom of the page. And every blog wasn’t getting enough reading time or enough you know, we figured out that the time to read 1 blog was like a minute 30 or 2 minutes, and we could tell by looking at the Google Analytics that people were only staying on the page for about of 30 or 40 seconds, meaning they never got to the call to action. They never read through to the bottom. How are you gonna get people to book a call Or take that next step if they’re never getting to the bottom. So what was eventually gonna happen here is that, you know, you’re just creating content for For the sake of creating content, what the heck are those blogs doing for that client? They’re not doing anything.

Jennie Wright [00:19:30]:

And so we need to modify the blogs. We need to move the call to action into different places so it’s not always at the bottom in the very last sentence in the, you know, the very last words. So So you’ve gotta find different areas. And then additionally, you’ve gotta make sure that those blogs are SEO optimized. Another client that I had a while back, this person was running traffic to a series of landing pages from their podcast, and their podcast was running really, really well. They had set it up months before. They were getting about 10,000 downloads. It was awesome.

Jennie Wright [00:20:02]:

However, none of the pages in the the lead magnets, none of them were converting at all. So this was their top level traffic channel. The whole goal of this podcast was to get clients, and so it was every podcast channel had a call to action. Sometimes they even had, like, pre roll or even mid roll as they created to send people to these landing pages. They were putting I have 4 podcasts a month. They were driving really good traffic to these landing pages. Hundreds and hundreds of people were seeing these landing pages every month, And they even had an automation set up for once these people registered for the lead magnet to try and drive them to a call. The landing pages were converting at 1%, 2%.

Jennie Wright [00:20:43]:

They weren’t doing him any favors at all. And the data showed that even though he was getting this decent traffic because this podcast was doing well. The landing pages needed a complete overhaul. So this went on his action plan. Every page needed to be overhauled for opt like, for optimizing for traffic. It had to be completely changed. So these Big and small changes, they make a massive difference. And I’ve probably if you’ve done this process while we’ve been, you know, while we’ve been talking this or if you pause me and then you’ve done it, I’ve probably just created a ton of work for you, and I am not sorry because these are the things that are going to optimize your business and increase your chance of getting better leads, better sales, also having the right people.

Jennie Wright [00:21:23]:

And again, I will totally reiterate that having done The niche work is super important before you even do this project. But if you’ve done it, this gets easy. You’re gonna get better traffic. You’re gonna get better leads. You’re gonna A ton more people looking at your stuff and you’re optimized for even more traffic. So if you’re thinking of running a big launch or a launch campaign to whatever traffic channels you’ve created so far. Having done this process means that those are optimized, and the leads that come in are not gonna leak. The leads that come in are gonna be better leads, and they’re gonna make it through all the different traffic channels and get more people at the end result, which is get them on the sales page, get them to book a call, get them to buy your stuff.

Jennie Wright [00:22:04]:

Alright. I love this process. I hope you actually do this. I think it’s gonna be really valuable for you. So I hope that this is something that you do on a regular basis. I always recommend that you do it at least once a year. It’s a great process, and as you do it, it gets easier. Alright.

Jennie Wright [00:22:19]:

As always, the acquire podcast is produced and edited by Jason Wheeler. And if you found this episode to be valuable, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and Leave me a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. I appreciate you being part of my community. Do consider joining me on social media. All the links will be in the show notes, and I’m excited to keep delivering content that helps and empowers you with your list building, your lead generation, and your launches. The acquired podcast is brought to you by the Phonic Podcast Network. Thanks so much for listening.