Once you have your marketing funnel set up, all you need is traffic. In this episode, Joe and Tami talk about the three main traffic sources for leads: search engines, social media, and email marketing. They discuss each traffic source in detail, how you can get leads from each, how to leverage them to grow your business, how to figure out how your competitors leverage them, and the importance of having a strategy.
Episode 19 Transcript:
Tami: Welcome to High Energy Marketing, a podcast with us, the digital marketing agency Ajax Union, where we interview our CEO, Joe Apfelbaum, on key marketing topics, and we share everything you need to know to properly grow your business online.
This is a question-and-answer podcast where I asked Joe questions about different topics and trends and marketing based on his book, High Energy Marketing. You can get the book at ajaxunion.com/book to follow along with us.
Today is the 19th official episode of our podcast about High Energy Marketing and we’re going to discuss the three main traffic sources for leads.
But first, a little housekeeping. Rate us on Apple podcasts, that purple icon. Give us a five-star rating, leave a review, and let us know if you’re enjoying listening to this podcast series. Before we jump into our topic of the day.
Joe, do you want to hit us with an inspiration minute before we get started?
Joe: Of course, Tami, the question I get often asked is why the past holds us back. The past gets stored in your mind, in your body, and in everything that you have around you. When you see something in your physical space, you automatically associate that thing with the past. Look at your clothing, your bed your body, you have a history with everything that you observe that you consider yours.
Where did you buy it? Who gave it to you? What experience do you have with those items in your life? All this happens automatically. And if you want to create an empowering vision for the future, you must realize that your memories are faulty. Your memories are often made of your imagination that matches what you want to believe to be true. And what you need to believe to be able to hold up your current belief system. If your past is made up of imagination, why can’t you imagine a future that never existed?
Where there’s no evidence that you can create that future for yourself, you can literally create anything you want for yourself. Why can’t you create a future where anything is possible? It’s probably because you’re stuck in the past. And the past is stuck in our minds and in our hearts. And we hold on to things. So if you want to be able to improve your life, if you want to be able to predict the future, the best way to do that is to create it. They say that human beings have over 40,000 thoughts every single day. Most of the thoughts are the same thoughts ruminating over and over about the past. And it holds us back and it keeps us locked up in jail.
When we let go of the past, we’re no longer attached to why things happened to resentment to regret. And we can imagine a new future that’s completely not related to the past. I want to encourage you to have the courage to let go of the past and create a new empowering future. And if you do that, you will get motivated.
Tami: Thank you so much, Joe! Let’s jump right into our topic of the day understanding the three main traffic sources for leads. So first question, if I have a marketing funnel, is that enough for me to start getting paid customers or clients Why or why not?
Joe: If you have a marketing funnel, it’s not enough for you to start getting clients. Because a marketing funnel alone is like building it. And they say if you build it, they will come if you build it, they will not come you have to market it and you have to send people with eyeballs to come to look at your stuff. Once you have your marketing strategy set up and you have all your assets, and you have your funnel, all you need is traffic.
You need people to visit your assets and fill your funnel. Ever heard of the saying if you build it, they will come it’s not true. You need marketing to get people to see your business and hopefully buy from you. Finding the best traffic sources where the right people are spending time in those traffic sources is really important. Make sure that you are getting traffic to your funnel.
So what are the three main traffic sources for leads?
There are three main traffic sources that we can tap into when it comes to getting leads online. The first one is search engines. The second one is social media. And a third one is email marketing. So let’s talk about those three.
But first, I want to let you know that there are a lot of other ways to get traffic if you know what I mean. We’re not going to cover things like affiliate marketing directories banner ads, podcasts, video marketing, traditional advertising, print, radio, or word of mouth. There are many other ways. But the main traffic sources are these three that I mentioned. These are the ones that we believe are the most measurable.
Google is the main search engine that will provide you the most of your organic and paid traffic via search. Organic means that you don’t have to pay for the traffic, you just rank based on how you optimize your SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. By the way, pay traffic on search engines is also known as PPC or S E M. PPC stands for pay-per-click. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It’s a way to get quick results and test out campaigns so you understand your return on investment on keywords that you think people are clicking on, that you think people will buy on.
The reason why search engines are popular is that using traffic sources from search engines means that people use intent that one word is so important. Think about it this way, when you’re searching on Google or any other search engine for that matter, you’re essentially asking yourself a question with a keyword. And many keywords that people use have buying intent, which means that the user is using that particular keyword because they want to solve a problem. And usually, they want to make a purchase to solve that problem.
For example, if I was searching immigration lawyer in Brooklyn, New York, you can assume that I’m looking for an immigration lawyer in Brooklyn, New York that I want to hire. Is it possible that I’m looking for a list of lawyers to research because I want to sell them something, of course, it’s possible. But most of the people that are searching for those types of things are more likely that they want to buy their product or service. If you run an ad on Google AdWords that leads people to a landing page with a forum for people to get in touch with a lawyer.
Your tension and your chances of having people fill out the form are much higher when you’re using search engines because of this concept called intent because the user has the intent to buy. That’s why Google is able to charge so much for every click because they’re certain that it’s going to be worth it for you to invest because they’re being so successful with their advertiser.
The second source of traffic is social media, where people spend most of their day you may have heard about this podcast through social media. It’s a passive way, reading the information, looking at updates from friends, family, and businesses, swiping and swiping and swiping clicking and, and putting your finger on it, moving it up or down on your phone. You could target people based on who they are on social media based on where they are based on what they’ve done, you can assume that I’m a 43-year-old man, and I’m part of a Tony Robbins group on Facebook that I’m into personal development where search engines show you intently.
Social media is more about getting people where they spend their time and what they enjoy doing. People might spend several seconds on a search engine, but they’re going to spend several hours, days, weeks, months years on social media. There are billions of people using social media every single day. And more and more people are joining niche websites to connect with family, and friends, and build relationships.
And finally, the third traffic source is email marketing, once you build a list, you have a group of people who trust you enough to be free for you to be able to send emails to them. Those people have a tremendous value, that list has a tremendous value. And it’s a great source of your own traffic. And it can drive lots of revenue to your business. Most companies don’t send out emails on a regular basis, and it’s a missed opportunity. And they do this because they don’t want to be annoying.
But if I tell you that I want to get your emails, it’s not annoying for you to send me the email. I heard a saying that really resonated with me. If no one gets upset at you by 12 PM, you’re not marketing hard enough. There will always be someone that doesn’t want to get your emails. And that’s why you have an unsubscribe button.
You might be wondering how you could still market to people who unsubscribe. Take that list. And use it on social media as retargeting. You can literally create ads and retarget people based on who they are, remember? So if I have your email, I know who you are, and I can run ads against you. You can advertise on social media with a list of email addresses. And they’re not going to get an email, but they’re still going to see your brand. So which one of these traffic sources are you most focused on?
For the longest time, we were focused mostly on search engines. But you know, now social media is king, LinkedIn is king, especially if you have a high-value product or service. So I just want you guys to know that using social media, in conjunction with email marketing, and in conjunction with SEO with search engine optimization, can really transform your business, you can get really good, high-quality leads, and this is no joke. This is some serious business. If you do it the right way, you’re gonna grow your business.
Tami: It seems like getting leads from social media is the best option right now. So how does one get leads from social media?
Joe: If your customers are on social media right now, and you know what they’re thinking, you know what they’re feeling. You’ve done one of the extra sizes that we typically do for our clients at our agency and our workshop, and you really get to know your client personas. And the way that you get clients with social media is by using a marketing funnel. Because when you’re doing search, people already telling you ‘I want to buy’, so that could be at the bottom of the funnel.
But in social media, usually, people are not, so you got to warm them up. That’s why it’s so important for you to have a marketing funnel, if you plan on using ad strategies on social media, nurturing people on social media gets you the highest value clients because these are people that aren’t necessarily looking right now. But if you take them through a funnel, and you stay top of mind with them, you’re gonna get more buyers than you’ve ever imagined.
Tami: So how can I get leads from email marketing?
Joe: The way that you get leads from email marketing is by taking action based on the actions that people take on so on email marketing, so because email marketing, you can see who opened who clicked, you can see how many times they clicked. There’s a lot of information that you can see.
So having your team reach out to those people that are the most engaged people the most qualified leads, or sending them strategic messages can be really, really significant to generate leads, you want to generate leads from people that are engaged, you want to generate revenue, your best clients are the ones that are engaging with all your stuff.
So that’s where you’re going to generate revenue, if you can have systems and processes to be able to reach out to people when they’re taking action on your assets, and you’re sending them emails, that’s a great way for you to get clients. How do I decide which traffic sources to focus on the way that you decide which traffic source is best for your business and where you can find the most client is by thinking about where your clients typically are. If your clients are typically on search engines looking for your products and services, you want to start focusing on that.
If your clients are typically spending time on social media, and they’re not really searching for your products and service, then you need to focus more on social media than on search engines. And if your clients are not really that much on social media, and they’re not really searching for your products and services, then you really need to double down on doing email, not just email newsletters, but also email automation.
Remember, every single person has an email address, you have to get people where they are. We’re big fans of using all three traffic sources and then using them in combination with each other. You get the most bang for your buck.
Tami: Thank you so much, Joe. That was amazing information. I hope everyone listening got as much out of this as we did.
In next week’s episode, we’ll be talking about PPC (pay-per-click) and Google ads. Make sure to hit that subscribe button so you can catch that next episode.
You can follow us on Instagram @ajaxunion and follow Joe on all social media platforms @JoeApfelbaum. Find him on LinkedIn Joelinkedin.com. And check our description for all social media links. You can also find more about the podcast at ajaxunion.com/podcast.
Have any questions? Shoot us an email at amazing@ajaxunion.com.
Our music is by Michael Suarez. This podcast is produced by Sarah and Shannon and edited by Sami Mititelu. Thank you so much. See you next week.
