Unlocking Event Success: The Science of Lead Registration Optimization

Jennie Wright [00:00:03]:

Hi. This is the Aquire podcast from the Audphonic Podcast Network, and I’m Jennie Wright. And this podcast always delves deep into the world of list building and online events, lead generation, and even sales. My goal is to empower entrepreneurs and marketers with the knowledge and strategies to master these really fundamental business skills and growth tactics. This week, I wanna focus on a couple of things, and I’m going to relate this to the launch of this podcast. Acquire launched a week ago. And what was really interesting is during the launch of this particular podcast, you can call it an event. I mean, it’s still a list building and lead generation strategy.

Jennie Wright [00:00:42]:

That getting people to come to the landing page for the website or to go to Apple Podcasts or anything, all had a very measurable sort of process. And there is a measurable process to get anybody to read your email, to click on an ad, everything in hopes of going to your event page. This works for lead magnets. This works for summits. This works for challenges and also podcasts. The effort that we put in in creating the style the style of content, long form or short form, but generally podcasts are longer form content. Is that we want people to not only be interested in what we’re doing, but also make a choice to participate either register on a landing page or listen to this podcast or take action on a book a call page. All of those have a process.

Jennie Wright [00:01:41]:

And we’re gonna go through that process together to show you what it takes to get people to do the thing. The first one is actually awareness. The second one is interest. The third is consideration. The 4th is engagement, and the last is decision. So we have to go through every single one of these to get somebody to take action. You may have heard of the rule of 7. I actually think it’s now, like, the rule of 15, but the rule of 7 the very well known marketing strategy.

Jennie Wright [00:02:15]:

And it’s the behavior that people need to have or your prospects need to see your content 5 times, 7 times before they take an action. And, again, I think it’s the rule of like, 15 because I think that number is completely changed. I think it takes twice as much effort for people to see your thing because it’s such a crowded marketplace. And I think with these behavioral sides of things, we need to consider what your lead is doing, what your ideal client is doing. And, again, We all need to know who our our ideal client is. If you struggle with what your niche is, go back to episode 2 with Jason Wheeler. Check that out. And then check out episode number 3 where we’re talking about the targeting of your ideal audience.

Jennie Wright [00:03:05]:

Both of those episodes will help you prepare to make sure that these 5 different elements to get people to make a decision are ready to go. But with awareness, we’re talking about this rule of 7, like I said, awareness is is this key first part is we’re getting we’re trying to get people to become aware of the event at all. This is gonna happen through your social media. This is gonna happen through paid advertising if you use it. This is gonna happen through email, word-of-mouth, and the whole goal here is to get people to understand that something’s happening and to have them know that it’s there. One of the biggest pitfalls that people fall into is they think that we only need to do this very, very lightly, and we don’t need to put a ton of effort into the promo side. Or the awareness creation side. And we put out one social media post.

Jennie Wright [00:03:59]:

We send one email. And this is a big mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make. When they are doing something like a summit, and I’m going to give you a story. So I had a client that wanted to do a summit, and she had already done one sum previously. I’d never worked on that summit before. She came to me. Her first summit did not go well. Her experts, 1, her experts didn’t promote, and 2, think she had about a 150 registrations was not a good result.

Jennie Wright [00:04:26]:

And when she came to me, she said, these were the problems. She actually described, her speakers as people who did not promote, she had a lot to say. And I said actually it has nothing to do with your speakers. It has everything to do. With what you ask them to do. Now think about this in behavioral terms. If you ask somebody to do, one email, and 2 social media posts. The I don’t even know the right explanation for this, but I’m sure we could figure it out and look it up.

Jennie Wright [00:04:59]:

But the way that people’s brains think is we’ll do one email, and I might get a social media post out. There’s a lot of people who feel that way. Some of us will absolutely do 1 plus emails or 2 plus social media posts. But most people, if you give them what you want them to do, They’ll do it the bare minimum. So we always flip the script. If you’re working with experts and you want them to promote on your summit, This is what I told this woman. So I tell all my clients is instead of saying, hi. The expectations for you to participate on this event are to send one email and 2 social media posts is I have a conversation.

Jennie Wright [00:05:40]:

That conversation always sounds like, hey. So and so. I think it’d be a great fit for my online event. I’d love to have you participate. And one of the stipulations is being an expert on this as event. Is that you need to promote. So what would promotion look like to you? And what are you comfortable with? And then I don’t talk. I let the expert fill the air with whatever it is they feel comfortable with.

Jennie Wright [00:06:06]:

Often. Often. They will actually give me more than I would have wanted. You can be on my podcast, Jenny. I’m gonna send out 2 dedicated emails. How about 5 social media posts? We’ll do a live together. And you can go live in my Facebook group where I have 3000 people. Yes, please.

Jennie Wright [00:06:23]:

So now instead of me stipulating one email and 2 social media posts, I just got a boatload worth of marketing and created a ton of awareness just from one person. Duplicate that with all of your speakers if you’re doing a summit. And now you have between 25 40 speakers. Who have told you exactly what they’re willing to do. And it usually means it’s gonna go above and beyond your expectations. Okay. Take that. I think it’s one of the best pieces of advice.

Jennie Wright [00:06:56]:

It’s a story that repeats itself a lot. So with awareness, we really wanna get those emails in front of people. We wanna get that social media in front of people. And I’m always telling people that Whatever you think you’re doing in terms of promotion, triple it, go more. Go bigger. It takes a lot for people to see your content. I don’t look at everybody’s posts on Instagram. I see I don’t know.

Jennie Wright [00:07:24]:

I scroll a little bit here and there, and I don’t see everybody’s. But what I will take a look at is stories and what I will take a look at is reels. Everybody looks at Instagram differently. Everybody looks at LinkedIn differently. Everybody, consumes even TikTok differently. And You have to take a look at what people are looking at. The majority of people look at stories and reels, for sure, more than posts. I feel like with Instagram, that stories are the get to know you piece, reels are the information or teachable piece, and the posts are almost like the confirmation of your expertise piece.

Jennie Wright [00:08:00]:

At least that’s how I use it. That’s, you know, that’s one of the ways that I look at it. And with an upcoming episode actually next week with Katie Brinkley. She explains her 4 post strategy, which does an incredible job. Of promoting whatever it is that you want. And I think that, it explains it really, really well. I just love adding in, and she does too, but I love for myself adding in extra stories and reels, especially during promo. Okay.

Jennie Wright [00:08:30]:

So we’ve got awareness. Now we have to create interest in what it is that we’re doing. Interest is difficult. Awareness isn’t that hard. The interest side is hard. We need to get our leads to express a genuine interest in what it is that we wanna do. Attend the webinar. Register for the challenge, participate in the summit, and so on.

Jennie Wright [00:08:54]:

And we need them to click on the ad, read more about the event, engage on a funnel or landing page and check out what it is that we’re gonna do. Any event related content, all of this relates. And we we want them to do this in such a way that it leads them to wanting to take the next stage, which is consideration. So with interest, how do we get interest? How do we stand out amongst everybody else and what they’re doing? Well, there’s only a couple ways this happens and they honestly just change a little bit over time. I will say that when I talk to a client about, creating this interest, It’s never from the hypey hype side of things because that only creates a flash pan of interest. It never holds people’s interest. Now People learn different ways. Some people like to read.

Jennie Wright [00:09:46]:

Some people like to watch. Some people like to listen, and some people like to glance. And I know there’s a lot more, of a technical way of explaining this, but I’m explaining it in sort of layman’s terms. And with the people who wanna listen, that might be they wanna listen to a reel, or they wanna listen to a podcast, or they want to listen to a video. With people who read, it could be they wanna read every single word on the page, the bio, the, you know, if this is for you, all those pieces of content on a landing page, sales page, registration page, and so on. All the details for people who want to skim they are quickly pulling in content. So they’re reading a headline. They’re looking at the date of the event.

Jennie Wright [00:10:31]:

Maybe they’re looking for a cost if there is one. They’re looking at, like, the time commitment it’s gonna take and maybe who’s involved. And so every different type of learning or not learning style, but every different type of interest style or participation style is different, and you’ve got to relate to all of them. I like to create content that satisfies all of these different modalities. And so I will have the, you know, on on my landing pages, my funnels for any type of registration page or even a sales page. I make sure to cover all my bases. So my headlines really stand out. I possibly have a video with closed captioning.

Jennie Wright [00:11:10]:

For people to read and or listen. My page has all of the content that a reader, like, a a long reader would want, It also has the scroll ability of being able to find the pinpoints of information you want quickly. I always include FAQs, I always include, what’s called connection copy that allows you to see if this event is for you. It either makes you feel included, or it makes you feel like it’s not something for you. So all of these different elements, all these different ways of processing information and creating interest, we have to cover those. So we can’t just do one way. You can’t just expect to do an article in LinkedIn or an email to your list and have enough interest in your stuff for people to do it. Okay? So now we have to create that interest.

Jennie Wright [00:11:58]:

We’ve done that. That’s great. Once we’ve created interest, and they are on your funnels, and they’ve done these different things where they’re taking a look. They’re reading. They’re listening. However, they’re doing it. Now we need to get them to consider it. We need them to ponder for a second.

Jennie Wright [00:12:14]:

And the best way to do that is to keep them coming back to what it is that you’re doing. This plays back into the awareness piece where we have multiple pieces. This plays into the interest piece where we have multiple modalities in creating that interest. And now with the consideration, we wanna give people the reason to consider it. We want them to sit and ponder and think about why this would be a good fit. And the questions that are always gonna come up are, is it at the right time? Is it the right topic? Is this somebody I think is credible enough to listen to? To wanna learn more from. Is this something I need right now, or is this something that I need later? And there’s a whole bunch of other questions they may ask, but those are the really big ones. And those are the ones that get people to consider whether or not they wanna do or participate in your thing.

Jennie Wright [00:13:06]:

And everything that you create has to sort of answer those questions for them. If you create a very small barrier of resistance for people to participate or register for your thing, It makes it easier for them to say yes. If you do not provide the information that answers the questions that I just mentioned, you’re creating more resistance. Because they’re gonna look for those answers. And if they can’t find them readily, they’re going to, like, literally bonk off your page. They’re gonna leave. They’re not gonna be interested because any barrier to resistance about them actually being part of your thing is gonna get them to not be part of your thing. So if you can create the littlest barrier resistance, the smallest amount of friction possible, you’re going to get more people to consider.

Jennie Wright [00:13:52]:

And then it leads us to the engagement. And the engagement is where your potential lead now engages in any activities related to what it is that you’re trying to do, be it common on a post, like a post, share a post, read more in the email, really get into the page. Click on any links in the page or, click on the button that would actually get them to register, but they haven’t registered that they’ve clicked on the button, this is that engagement piece. They’re doing something. They’re taking an action that is leading them a little bit closer every single time. To participating. And what we, again, we really don’t want any friction. So this is where on the engagement side, All of your testing should be done.

Jennie Wright [00:14:38]:

I can’t tell you how many times this has happened, and I will tell you a small story with this. I had a client who put up a webinar, and this was a little bit a little while ago. She was using a software called easy webinar, and she was setting everything up. And she was gonna run it live, and then she was gonna run it as Evergreen. Great strategy. A lot of people use it. What she didn’t do is she didn’t test the links on her landing page. So the button to register, for this webinar wasn’t functioning properly.

Jennie Wright [00:15:09]:

There was supposed to be a button and a pop up, and the pop up was supposed to allow you to enter your name and your email and hit submit. So the pop up would come up, but the functionality wasn’t working because in the back end, she hadn’t told the software. To submit the page, to relay the information, like, to hit, like, what when you hit the button, it was supposed to relay the information to her, I think it was active campaign. And something was broken there. So people were going to the page. They were clicking on the button. They they passed through the awareness thing. So they saw her ad and they went through the awareness piece.

Jennie Wright [00:15:48]:

They were interested in the content. They considered it. And then during the engagement stage, they clicked on button. They actually did the thing that we wanted them to do, and it led to nothing. So the page was broken. And we, This was not my setup. I was actually strategizing. I was in a consultant with this client, and her team and her were setting this up.

Jennie Wright [00:16:13]:

We got an email from a really nice woman named Maureen. And this person named Maureen said, hey. I went to your page. I was really interested in participating in your webinar. It’s something I’ve been really looking forward to. It happened at the exact time I needed it to and so on. But when I went to register, I couldn’t submit my information. It keeps popping up an empty and I haven’t received a confirmation email.

Jennie Wright [00:16:36]:

So when we looked, there had been over 200 individual hits on this page. So two hundred people had gone to this page. One person had let us know there was an error. And when we fixed it, we started getting registrations. But we lost a 199 people for not checking our software. For not checking for a link for not making sure the registration page worked for not testing. And so it’s essential for this engagement piece to work. That your technology works.

Jennie Wright [00:17:07]:

And that client that client felt really, really dumb and was really, really upset with herself because that was a 199 people that could have purchased her membership. She was selling a membership, I think, for, like, $19. That would have been a big difference in income in terms of, like, sales for her. And she was she was really devastated, but we pick up and we move on. So the next stage is the decision stage. And the decision stage of this whole process is where they actually decide that they’re going to participate. They’re going to attend or not attend They’re going to register or not register. Right? And so engagement is clicking the box, getting ready to go, and decision is actually I’m doing this, and I’m doing, you know, I’m I’m registered.

Jennie Wright [00:17:51]:

That decision piece, there should be no niggly little things in their brain that tell them this is the wrong thing. Again, this has to relate back to The landing page, the copy, the graphics, the email, the social media, the presence that you’ve created. In addition, have you answer all the questions in the FAQ. Have you done all the things that are gonna create the least barrier to entry for this person? So the decision is stupid simple. And if you have, you increase your chances of actually converting better. By the way, everything that I’ve mentioned here Awareness, interest, consideration, engagement, and decision is all the different ways that you can increase the conversions for your event. It’s everything I put into play when we’re creating a launch, and it gets us from quote, unquote industry standard of, like, 24 to 30 percent opt in rates to where I like to perform for my clients and about 50 to 80%. I want a hundred people to lay on the page, and I want at least 50% or higher to register.

Jennie Wright [00:19:00]:

That’s what I’m going for. And if you really kind of play into the strategies and the techniques that I was just talking about, that’s really gonna increase your chances. It’s gonna help a whole lot. So let’s talk about the behavior of why people do this. And we did a little bit earlier. We talked about this rule of 7, which I really think is the rule of 15. I really don’t think the rule of 7 even applies anymore. I just I think we’ve really gone past that.

Jennie Wright [00:19:25]:

Wiehler inundated with so much social media that it makes sense that it’s gonna take more effort for people to actually see our stuff. The next thing that really makes a decision on the behavior of whether or not somebody’s going to register or participate is the complexity of things. And this has to go in again to that whole, abrasion or, difficulty level in participation. If something feels too complex, if it feels like it has too many things, if it feels like there’s too many barriers to entry, If it feels too good to be true, if it feels, first, you gotta register for this, and then you gotta register for that, and then you gotta do this, and then you gotta do that. These are the things that make it too complex. We wanna keep it as simple as possible whilst — still covering all of our bases. And that means that you may not need a long form sales page for a $19 membership it means you may not need a long form registration page for a webinar. It may mean that you have to look at your language and your presentation, everything to make sure that it doesn’t feel complex.

Jennie Wright [00:20:38]:

A really good example of this was a book launch that, I built the funnel for for a client. The client was being this is years ago. The client actually had their own strategist, and I was hired as an external person. I was still a VA at the time. So this is This is, I don’t know, 2016, maybe. And, this book launch What they wanted people to do is they wanted people to step 1, come to this landing page. Step 2, Click on a link on that landing page and go to, I think it was Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Step 3 was purchased the book.

Jennie Wright [00:21:16]:

Step 4 was come back to the landing page. Step 5 was to Submit the order number from their Barnes and Noble or Amazon receipt into the page with their name and address. Step 5 was to hit the register button. So it was five steps that they wanted these people to take to then, you know, access some free gift. And What happened wise is that it was too complex. There was too many steps. It meant that people had to keep an extra tab open. If you were on your cell phone, How hard is that? Right? So you got a landing page, then you go to Barnes And Noble or Amazon, then you, you know, you Click that and you have to purchase that.

Jennie Wright [00:22:01]:

And then you have to be able to go back on your phone if you’re on a a browser. You have to have a different tab open be then to go back to that landing page. Or if you didn’t keep that tab open, you now have to go back to the email or the la the ad or read, you know, wherever you found the information to go back to that to access that page. Then you’ve gotta somehow take a look at your Barnes and Noble receipt number or your Amazon receipt number. Copy it, paste it, put your name and email, and hit submit. I just got exhausted thinking about it, and I already didn’t wanna do it. So if it’s that complex, chances are people aren’t gonna do it. I had a client who wanted to make sure that people could not download and repurpose something they had created.

Jennie Wright [00:22:47]:

They wanted a PDF basically behind the, the appearance of the paywall. So they wanted the PDF to be sort of hidden away. And that to access it, you had to go to what looked like an order form. And you had to click a little box and put all your information. You actually had to enter your address and everything so you could access this PDF. And the conversation ahead of time was, look. This is not gonna work. I don’t think this is the right way to go.

Jennie Wright [00:23:19]:

You’re making it too difficult for people to access the thing. It’s too complex. And you’re going to see a really low engagement rate. You’re gonna see people not even subscribing, registering, whatever. It’s not gonna happen. And, the client insisted So I said, okay. We’re gonna do a split test. We’re gonna do, 50% traffic to your thing and 50% traffic to my way.

Jennie Wright [00:23:41]:

Gonna see what works. What’s gonna get the best option rate? And, honestly, can I tell you that if you’re trying to, like, safeguard your content, you can do it the best of your ability, but things get shared all the time? Log ins get shared all the time. PDFs get shared everywhere. Take it as a compliment that people wanna share your information. Obviously, things down as much as you can, put trademarks and so on and so forth and copyright, but people are gonna share. So be aware that it’s just gonna happen. So anyways, we sent this traffic, 50% to his side, 50% to mine, or my version. And low and behold, it took 2 days.

Jennie Wright [00:24:18]:

To see that the opt in page, the way I created it with very low barrier to entry, name, and email. That was it. Was converting at over 50%. I think it was, like, 62.1%. The client’s version that I had created for him as part of the split test was converting. They’re about 19 a half percent. It’s a massive difference. And if it was a lead generation tactic, you’re just trying to generate leads.

Jennie Wright [00:24:43]:

Now if you want to go the way of, like, kind of gatekeeping things in terms of you wanna gather as much information and you want to keep, like, the tire kickers out and things like that. You can add a little something extra to make that happen. But if your sole goal is to attract leads, you’ve you’re really dialed in on your niche, you’re you’re doing really great meeting. You’re not gonna have as many tire kickers as you think. So why not make it easier for people to register? Another thing that’s going to affect behavior wise, whether or not people are going to register and participate or be part of your thing, is audience familiarity. If nobody knows who you are, if you’ve not spent the time letting them to get to know you, such as your previous audience, any audience growth that you’re doing, if you make it difficult for people to understand who you are or understand what you do, then audience familiarity is really gonna play a big role in people not registering or participating in your event because they don’t know who you are. Years years years ago, and I’ve talked about this this person before. Years ago, I was participating in a large coaching group, and we were told to create landing pages for some it’s this first summit, and we were told to put a banner, an opt in box, a picture, like, sorry, a banner.

Jennie Wright [00:26:05]:

Name, email, submit, and that was basically it. Some people put a video, but almost nobody did. And that was it. That was the whole page. It always everything was above the fold. There was nothing more to it. And, back in the day, yeah, that converted. I’m not gonna lie.

Jennie Wright [00:26:22]:

I mean, I saw conversions of, like, you know, 50% on pages like that back in the day, but we’re a lot more discerning. Right? So we can’t just do that. So one of the things that’s gonna help with the audience familiarity you’re sending cold traffic or even warm traffic from somebody else’s list to your thing is you need people to understand who you are. It is essential that you have a bio on your pages, on your funnels. It’s essential in your social media marketing, in your email marketing that you let people kind of hear behind the curtain and understand who you are. So on all of my funnels for my clients, we always have a bio. It’s usually a first person bio. I prefer first person bio.

Jennie Wright [00:27:02]:

But we always have a bio. And this was a technique that was actually taught to me. I didn’t come up with this. Somebody taught this to me a couple years ago or years years ago. And the just the the difference it makes to have these bios on your page is huge. It’s I mean, we’re talking anywhere between 15 to 20 points I’m not even kidding to have a simple thing like a bio. Hey. I’m Jenny right.

Jennie Wright [00:27:23]:

Blah blah blah. Get those on your pages. Okay? Have them everywhere. They are really a huge game changer. And then another thing that’s really, really important, and I’m gonna wrap this up. Is the quality of your messaging and the effectiveness that your messaging plays. So if your content, if your copy If your ads resonate with your audience and address their pain points and provides a clear sense of value in what it is that you’re doing, you’re going to reduce the amount of touch points that are needed. For people to register for your things.

Jennie Wright [00:27:54]:

So as opposed to the rule of 15, you might be able to drop that down and have somebody register for your thing. In 2 or 3 or even 4 touches. So all of these things will reduce or increase the amount of touch points needed to actually participate in your event register and so on. And it’s so important that you think of these things. So when I look at what we were talking We’ve talked about awareness, interest, consideration, engagement, and decision. That’s the process that people naturally go through. To register or participate in what you’re doing. Then we have the psychological side, and that is the how many touch points it’s gonna be that’s needed for somebody to actually get to the awareness side and then make decisions.

Jennie Wright [00:28:38]:

Right? So we have that rule of 7 or rule of 15. We have the complexity of the offer. We have audience familiarity. We have the quality of your messaging. And if you get all of these right, this is where you have opt in rates that are over 80%. This is where I like to play. This is the space I like to live in all the time is these high conversion spaces. And if you spend the time in all of these little spots, Wiehler talking bumps of points.

Jennie Wright [00:29:05]:

We’re talking, you know, on a huge funnel, it could be, like, a percentage or a point of a percentage, but that could be 100 of 1000 of dollars. From one of the big funnels. On smaller funnels, smaller offers, smaller events, it could be the difference between 5, 10, 15, or even 20 points of conversion. And that can be everything. That can be the difference between having a list build of 500 to a 1000 or more. Right? Don’t quote me on my math. My math sucks. But I’m, you know, I’m I’m doing It’s not girl math, but it’s it’s marketing math.

Jennie Wright [00:29:39]:

I’m doing marketing math. Girl marketing math. And so it really actually plays a huge role. And I really want you to consider that when you’re looking at your your list building, your event building, everything that you’re doing so that you’re getting the most out of this. Which actually requires less effort in the long run. So all of this effort that you put into this sort of, like, who’s your audience? Your your niching, your technicals, all that, this all plays a role into getting people into your program product or service. And when we do that, it all comes together. It all works.

Jennie Wright [00:30:11]:

And it’s it’s really quite beautiful. So I really think that when we talk about what actually gets the potential leads to our pages and the participation. These little things that we talked about really make that big difference. And if you like that, amazing, now go and implement it. It can be the difference maker. And I really would love to see you come back and listen to Katie Brinkley’s episode next week. It’s episode 6. And it’s all about her 4 post method.

Jennie Wright [00:30:40]:

Really, really great. And if you missed last week, we had, Julie C Butler. She was on, and she talked about how a summit completely changed her business. And because this, you know, this podcast is so new right now, this is episode 5. I can quote all the episodes, and I know what they’re all about. But I definitely want you to get back and listen to episode 2 with Jason Wheeler and thinking about niche. These are all really great topics. The foundations of things that I think people should know.

Jennie Wright [00:31:08]

And I’ll be back very soon with my own solo episode, I think the next one is actually gonna be, you know, we got over you to the everybody to the page or the thing, and now I wanna create engagement. So I think the episode, the next episode 1. I think it’s gonna be episode 7. I will talk about how we get people to actually engage once they’re registered, and I hope you’re looking forward to it. Thanks so much for listening. Everything that I talked about today will be in the show notes. You can go to the Audphonic podcast network at oddfonic.com, Check out the podcast, check out the episodes. And if you like what you hear, please hit the subscribe button.

Jennie Wright [00:31:42]:

I’d love to hear a review as well if you wanna leave one of those for me. And I will see you all soon. Take care.