Why Trying To Use Free Traffic Is A Dumb Idea And Will Completely Hinder Your Progress…

One of the biggest mistakes many people make when coming online is being cheap with their advertising budget and trying to use free traffic vs. tapping into paid media strategies. They’re most likely on a shoestring budget and don’t have much capital to get started with, and as a result immediately cross off paid traffic as an option.

Here’s why paid traffic is the only way to go, and why focusing too much of your energy on free traffic will actually only hold you back in the long-run…

Firstly you must realize that there’s no such things as “free traffic”. You can choose to pay for it with either your time or your money, but it’s never truly free. If you’re going to go the “free” route, it’s going to cost you hours of your time, and ton’s of energy you could be spending on other activities. The people who do best in our industry understand that truth, and also understand that their time is money.

Now, let’s take a moment and identify which activities ARE going to produce the lion share of the money in your business. Those activities are:

1. Irresistible Offer Creation

2. Emailing Your List With Value That Sells

3. Holding Webinars That Sell Your Products And Provide Value

Those 3 activities are the highest paying activities you can partake in, and having said that, it only makes sense to focus most of, if not all of your energy on those 3 activities, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET.

The more you focus on those activities, the faster your budget will grow from increased profits. 

Sure, there’s going to be other activities that pop up that you must deal with, but over the long-run, the people who make the most money in our industry spend their energy strategically on those 3 activities.

But here’s the deal…

In order to make any real money by completing any of the activities above, YOU MUST HAVE A DECENTLY SIZED E-MAIL LIST. 

Without a list, no-one will see your offers, come to your webinars, or read your e-mails.

And that truth brings us back to the topic of driving traffic. In order to build your e-mail list, you must be able to drive traffic to your capture page.

The mistake most people make who are on a limited budget is trying to avoid spending money on traffic with the belief that due to their current circumstances, the most direct path to monetization and profitability is free traffic.

The conversation in their head usually goes something like this: “I’ll start with free traffic, get into profit mode, and then take all of the profits and reinvest them back into paid traffic to scale”.

And don’t get me wrong… It makes perfect sense.

The problem lies in he fact that firstly, effectively driving free traffic is extremely complicated, and is something that very few ever truly figure out how to do, and secondly, when you’re spending all of your time trying to figure out how to drive free traffic (which most never end up doing), you’re spending none of your time on the true money making activities. 

The fact of the matter is that no matter how targeted your traffic is, only 1-3% of the people who come through your funnel will ever buy on the first point of contact… The first time they see your offer. So spending 40-60 hours per week painstakingly trying to bring 100 people through your funnel with free traffic won’t ever get you very far. You’d be much better off spending 10-20 hours a week e-mailing your list, hosting webinars that sell, and creating offers that crush it.

The fastest path to immediate monetization and profitability in your business is, and always will be to:

1. Create an irresistible offer or bonus offer to compliment an affiliate product

2. Bring people through your offers funnel and build your list with paid traffic

3. E-mail that list value based content with your offer and bonus offer sprinkled into p.s lines and the body copy where appropriate

4. Host webinars that provide value on the front end and sell on the backend

The key is to be able to bring people through your funnel and onto your e-mail list without using so much of your energy that you have none left for the other activities… And that’s why paid traffic is key.

So let’s go over some numbers to show you exactly what I mean…

Let’s say that hypothetically you spent $1,000 to build a list of 500 people (very conservative, you should be able to get more subs with $1,000). 

And let’s say that you’re selling a $50 front end product with an optional up-sell of $250.

Out of those 500 people who come through your funnel, if you’re offer converts at 1% (industry low, extremely conservative) you’ll make 5 $50 front end sales and make $250 back immediately.  So at this point you’ve spent $1,000 but only made back $250. You’re $750 in the hole.

But out of those 5 buyers, 2 decide to take the up-sell of $250 (again, industry average (a buyer is always 10X more responsive than a lead, so you’ll always get a higher percentage of up-sells than initial purchases)). That immediately adds $500 in commissions to your bottom line and leaves you at $750 in total commissions earned.

So you’ve spent $1,000 and made back $750. You’re $250 in the hole.

Seems like a shit deal right? WRONG.

Remember you now have an e-mail list of 500 people… And on average, through JUST E-MAILING YOUR LIST BACK TO YOUR FIRST OFFER ALONE (without hosting webinars or offering additional offers), you’ll make .50 per subscriber on your list per month.

So… after 30 days of consistent action (e-mailing) you’ll make your $250 back, break even, and then be left with an e-mail list of 500 people (probably about 400 now after unsubscribes) to market to.

Now let’s say that you’re starting to feel a little bit more confident due to your increased level of results, and you get the nerve up to hold a webinar.

With a list of 400 people (after unsubscribes) who you’re consistently in contact with, you should be able to get 20 people (5%) onto a webinar.

No matter how BAD you are at selling you are, on a webinar, you should be able to close at-least 10% of attendees. Webinars are personal, and people like buying on them. If you’re good at selling, you should be able to close 20% – 30% of attendees.

So let’s say that you’re terrible at selling, but still do your best, and offer the $250 up-sell offer at the end of your training.

With 20 people on your webinar, you’ll get at-least 2 people to buy your offer virtually every-time.

So with one webinar, you just made $500, and added $500 in pure profit to your bottom line.

Now you’re left with a list of 400 people, and $500 profit to reinvest back into building your list.

Rinse and repeat the process, and hold only one webinar per every ad-spend you make, and you’re immediately in profit mode and have more money to invest back into building your list. 

 The Compounding Effect: 

Now, look at the fact that as your list grows in size, the average monthly value of a subscriber (.50 per sub) and the average webinar attendance rate (5% conservatively) will stay consistent across the board as long as you keep doing your job in mailing your list and providing value.

Rinse and repeat the process for a year, continue to hold webinars, continue to mail your list, and then add a few more high ticket offers into play (something priced between $1,000 and $2,00o, more if you want), and you can see how your profit margins will continue to increase. The more people you have on your list, the more people will attend your webinars, the more people will  buy your products. Add the higher the profit margins into the mix (through high ticket offers), and you’re starting to see exactly how you’ll be making ALOT of money, relatively quickly.

The key lies in actually starting the process. 

Set a budget for your ad-spend every month, and stick to it. E-mail your list every day with high quality, value based training (if you don’t know what to share, learn something new and then share it), hold webinars that sell your higher priced offers, and then rinse and repeat the process while reinvesting all of your profits.

Focus your energy on completing that process consistently vs. spending all of your time and energy on trying to generate a few leads per day with free traffic, and you’re business will grow faster than you ever thought possible.

Did you get value out of today’s post, “Why Trying To Use Free Traffic Is A Dumb Idea And Will Completely Hinder Your Progress…”? If so, don’t forget to hit the facebook and google + share buttons, and to leave me a quick comment letting me know what you’re biggest takeaway was!

To Our Mutual Success,

Misha Wilson

P.S. If You’re Struggling To Generate Leads And Sales For Your Online Business, Be Sure To Grab A Copy Of My Free Report, The 5 Pillars Of Profitable, Business Building Traffic, Where I Show You Exactly How I Generate Laser Targeted, Pre-Qualified Traffic That Turns Into 75-100 Leads Each And Every Single Day For My Business, And Exactly How You Can Too! 

Click here to download the report now…

P.P.S

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