My 18 month old likes to bite furniture (and walls, people, dogs, etc.) to get his sister's attention.

This definitely gets her attention but it's not the kind of attention he's looking for.

When he instead, walks over to her, gives her an epic 10 second squeezie hug complete with delicious baby noises, he also gets her attention.

And it usually means that she'll put down the 10lb novel she's currently reading to play trucks (for at least a few minutes).

He hasn't quite mastered getting the second kind of attention yet. I think we're a firm 50-50 split right now, but he's learning.

Attention for your business, just like for kids, is vital to growth. Without people knowing who you are and what you do they can't possibly buy from you, right?

But are you trying to get attention the right way and from the right people?

Are you trying to bite the proverbial furniture to get someone, anyone to pay attention or are you deliberately crafting the perfect overture to melt your audience's heart into wanting to hang out with you?

The bottom line is: You don't need to focus on getting all of the attention, you need to focus on getting the right kind of attention from the right people.

And in the world of your business on the internet, one way we measure attention is traffic.

The Difference Between Getting Traffic and Getting the Right Kind of Traffic

Just like 100 calories of spinach is technically the same amount of energy as 100 calories of chips, we're all pretty sure where to place our bets as far as the most healthy option.

Traffic is the same way.

When you look on the surface, a pageview is a pageview.

But when you look deeper, you're going to see that not all attention is created equal. This information is going to be critical when you're trying to address marketing that isn't working or simply creating a marketing plan that makes the best use of your time.

The simple question to ask yourself is:

“Which traffic sources lead to the most revenue?”

(If you're not sure of how to answer that question, check out the free marketing metrics download.)

Be sure to think of your non-traditional sources of traffic too – like direct referrals from past clients which won't necessarily show up in your analytics software.

You can also check other behavioural indicators of traffic quality like:

• Conversion rate to email subscriber (certain traffic channels, social networks, etc. will convert at very different rates).
• Lower bounce rate, more pages/session and higher than average session duration (all in your Google Analytics Channels Report).

Create Your Own Compass

Too often I see business owners whose ”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹marketing plan is dictated by what shows up in their inbox on Monday morning. I've been there myself too.

If someone emails them selling a Facebook Ads course, they drop everything and check it out because maybe that's the answer.

If someone is hailing the benefits of creating online programs, then maybe they should crack open a Google Doc and start outlining their signature course.

With this reactive approach, you're never focusing on your strengths, what's working for your business or what your audience prefers. You're just jumping from tactic to tactic, never fully developing a strategy.

Instead, let your results guide you to the right solutions. Create your own compass that will serve as the guide to your best marketing plan.

Once you can clearly see your best traffic sources, it's time to do a little critical thinking, then double down and really focus on where you're seeing results.

To start, ask yourself some questions about those stand out traffic channels that were showing the highest revenue:

• Do I have a certain communication strength that is making this channel work better than others?
• Have I been more consistent with this channel than others?
• Am I spending more time on this channel than others?
• Does this channel get me in front of my target market more than others?

With these questions, really try to get a sense of why your best channels are doing well for you. You'll learn great insights into how you best connect with people and ways you may be able to turn around underperforming marketing channels in the future.

After you've done some deep thinking around “the why” of your most successful traffic channels, it's time to focus on them with renewed intensity.

What does that kind of intensity look like?

How about spending nearly 80% of your marketing time focused on that one particular channel for the next 1, 2 or 3 months. Use the remaining 20% of your time to maintain other marketing channels that you don't want to ignore but just aren't the main focus right now.

Let's Dive Deeper With An Example

Here's an example of how this whole process might look in practice with a fictional business owner named Nancy whose main offer is a monthly membership community for new runners.

Nancy takes a look at her Google Analytics and fills out her marketing metrics spreadsheet.

She sees that out of all of her traffic channels – social media and particularly, Facebook, is bringing in the highest amounts of leads and sales.

But this seems kind of strange to Nancy because she recently bought an Instagram course and she's been spending hours on it each week, posting constantly, obsessing over hashtags and trying to find just the right angles to create a beautifully curated feed.

All that Insta-effort has really increased traffic on her website, but looking at the metrics, it's hasn't done much for her as far as sales (or even email sign ups!).

On Facebook the only action is a live monthly Q&A and posting her weekly blog updates, and yet, this is where all the leads and sales are from.

So what does all this information tell us?

It could be that more of Nancy's fans on Facebook are her target market, or that she's so engaging on live video that she sells her membership without really even having to sell it.

She could test a weekly live show on Facebook, or a monthly webinar to capitalize on her video prowess. She could create a content calendar just for Facebook and work hard at making her page the most engaging and helpful place for new runners.

With any marketing tests, the proof will be in the numbers. After a couple months of trying a new strategy, you'll know if it's working or needs further tweaking.

It's Time to Kill the Darlings

I know, I can hear you now, what's our fictional Nancy supposed to do with her Instagram? She's put so much time and money into it already. (And Instagram is so much hipper than Facebook!)

We all only have so much time in a day and wouldn't you rather spend your time doing the things that help you serve your community at a higher level?

So yes, sometimes that means killing your darlings and not focusing on channels that aren't serving you right now. But don't worry, they'll be there later when you're knocking it out of the park and can hire someone else to take care of it for you.

Imagine walking into a pharmacy and buying every single medication and supplement that was lining their shelves in an expensive, but hopeful attempt to cure a bothersome symptom.

Sounds like a strange way to spend a Saturday night, doesn't it?

Most of us would head over to our friendly family doctor or even the walk-in clinic and get a diagnosis from a trained professional before buying remedies.

Then we can walk into that same pharmacy, prescription in hand, and head straight over to the exact thing that is going to solve our problem.

But when it comes to our businesses we often attempt the “trying everything model” without first taking the time to diagnose what the real problem is.

Symptoms vary but may include:

• Starting one marketing idea only to give up and try another – never fully following through
• Jumping from task to task throughout the day with no clear focus
• Being on every social network because it feels like you should be, but not feeling like you have a strategy to make one or two of those networks truly work for your business
• Endless reading of blog posts trying to discover the next big/hot/trendy thing to try
• Signing up for just one more course (even though you said you wouldn't) because that will be the one that changes everything

And the reason we do these random acts of marketing, is very much the same as why we might try multiple remedies – we don't know the root cause of why the marketing isn't working.

What to do if your marketing isn't working

Your marketing system is one of the most important parts of your business. It's what brings in new leads and customers and without it – your business isn't going to last very long.

But where do you start when you feel like you've tried everything or you're overwhelmed with all the possibilities?

You start with the data.

Your marketing data is like a GPS, showing you the way.

It can show you which strategies have been working, what tactics are wasting your time and what needs a few more tweaks or focused effort to really bring home the sales.

And without that feedback to guide your next plans, all you're working with is assumptions.

So where should you start?

With the basics: reach, visits/traffic, leads, customers.

REACH

Reach is the amount of people you can get in front of with any particular marketing campaign or message. You could also count paid reach in this category but we're going simple for today.

To measure Reach, record all your social media follower counts as well as your email list size. You'll also want to include anywhere that you have an earned presence where you can reach people, places like Medium, Crowdcast, YouTube or Podcast subscribers.

Each month, you'll be able to see the month over month growth in each of these channels and also how your overall reach is growing. This will give you direction about where to put your efforts, what channels you want to target for improvement or what channels aren't the best use of your time right now.

VISITS

With Reach we're talking about places off of your site, that's the top most portion of the digital marketing funnel, if you want to get fancy. With visits (or traffic) we're taking one step closer to a sale by tracking how that reach translates into actual eyeballs on your website.

For traffic numbers, you'll find it all in Google Analytics under Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels and make sure to adjust your date range appropriately.

The main channels you'll want to track each month are Direct Traffic, Email, Organic Search, Referrals, and Social Media.

Each month, you'll see how each traffic channel changes, which are growing fastest, which need more attention to reach your goals and if you dig a little deeper, the numbers will tell you even more.

You may notice that certain traffic channels take very little time but bring in big numbers (search can often do this if you've been blogging consistently) while other channels that take huge time (social anyone!) might bring in less traffic.

That's not to say you should throw out the traffic sources that require more effort but you should follow those visitors down the funnel to see how your strategy is impacting your email list and sales.

If you spend hours upon hours on a channel and it's not translating into revenue in your business – it's definitely time to adjust!

As with any metrics, the numbers require interpretation and a deeper dive to be truly helpful – don't just stop at the data collection, ask yourself, what are these numbers telling me about my current marketing efforts?

LEADS

Getting ever closer to that sale, Leads are the next step in your sales and marketing funnel. Once someone has been made aware of you (Reach), found their way to your site (Visits) and loved what they've seen, the next step is for them to join your email list and become a lead.

I recommend tracking your leads in 2 ways:

1. The actual number of subscribers from each traffic source
2. Visit-to-lead conversion rate for your website

Lead data allows you to see which traffic sources convert best into email subscribers, very valuable information when you're planning your next marketing campaign!

You can also go even further to look at each social network individually (does Facebook convert traffic better than Pinterest, etc.) or each referral source (do certain guest posts and interviews lead to higher conversions than others).

A visit-to-lead conversion rate of 1-3% is average so don't be shocked if yours hanging out down there too.

Use the data you collect to go big on traffic sources that convert well and also design your website to convert traffic at a higher rate.

CUSTOMERS

Hanging out at the bottom of your marketing funnel is your customer data. This number of is where the rubber meets the road.

You can have all the traffic in the world but if you don't have sales, you're popular, not profitable.

Depending on how you collect payment for your products or services will depend on how you set up your sales goals in Google Analytics or whether it's tracked elsewhere.

If you're tracking sales in Google Analytics through goals or the ecommerce reports, you'll be able to see how each of your traffic sources turn into customers – very invaluable information!

If you've been stuck in “list building mode” and haven't been seeing the sales you want, then pouring over your customer data can help you see where the problems are – and therefore where to start addressing issues.

Are you building your list full of the wrong people who were never going to buy anyway? Does your email marketing or content need a better strategy to start making sales?

Next Steps

Creating a simple to implement, measurement routine for your marketing doesn't have to be overwhelming.

1. Pick your date, first Tuesday of every month, doesn't matter, just make yourself a recurring appointment to check in with your biz!
2. Bookmark this post to check back each month during your review so you're not just writing the numbers down but actually interpreting what they mean as well.
3. Download the simple Marketing Metrics Spreadsheet for a shortcut!

Do you spend 20 hours per week marketing your business?

According to a survey of 1300 small business owners, 20 hours is about average.

Just think of all the things you do that fall under the big marketing umbrella:

• Social media
• Blogging
• Podcasting
• Video creation
• Live streaming
• Email marketing
• Podcast/article interviews
• Presentations/Workshops
• Speaking
• Webinars

And then ballpark how long each of those things takes to plan, research, outline, prepare and promote.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine marketing taking even more time each week, especially during launches or when you're just getting started in business.

What if you don't have 20 hours to spare?

What if you only have 20 hours of work time each week, total, including your client work or product delivery?

If that's you, I hear ya loud and clear! Just like you, I'm managing marketing right alongside service delivery, usually in as little as 3 or 4 hours a day.

Despite how it feels right now, you CAN market your biz in a time effective and non-overwhelming way!

Here's 5 ways you can simplify your marketing while still seeing results (and probably better results than before!):

START WITH THE END IN MIND

Before you roll your eyes because you've heard that a thousand times, ask yourself this:

When you did your last marketing activity (a social media update, a blog post, an interview, etc.) what was the purpose of it?

If you're like most business owners, chances are that your reason was because you felt like you were supposed to do something or it had been awhile since you did that particular thing so you were feeling guilty and just did up a quick update/post.

That's why starting with the end in mind is so critical with your marketing. Without a goal, an endpoint, a destination – there's a lot of random going on.

Randomness takes a lot of time and a lot of mental energy.

Just imagine these 2 scenarios:

Business Owner #1

You've got your marketing campaign planned out for the next 8 weeks, you know your podcast topics, social media ideas are mapped out, you even have your emails outlined for what you plan to sell at the end of the 2 months.

Each day you work to complete the tasks you've already finalized so it's just a matter of sitting down and getting to work. You already know what you're going to do before you start.

Business Owner #2

Contrast that with thumbing through your Facebook feed on Monday morning while waiting for your coffee to brew. You see a bunch of ads for people's courses and programs, cool lead magnet offers and a great blog post a friend landed on Fast Company.

That reminds you that you really haven't blogged in awhile, and you probably should since you're not getting featured in Fast Company anytime soon if you don't get writing!

Fresh coffee in hand, you sit down at your laptop ready to conquer the day, but oh crap! You don't know what to write about!

So you head over to your favorite inspiration site (your competition) to see what's been working for them lately but it turns out, that was just a recipe for the green eyed envy monster to take up residence in your previously optimistic brain.

And now it's time to run out for that long overdue dentist appointment (is writer's block a reason to cancel?) and there is nothing to show for a morning's worth of busy.

I'm pretty sure business owner #1 wrote 2 blog posts and 4 social updates in the same amount of time – all because they had a goal, a plan and could maintain a whole helluva lotta focus.

TALK TO ONE. SINGLE. REAL. LIVE. PERSON.

The same way randomness can steal all your time and mental energy so can creating content for multiple audiences when you're short on time.

For example, if you're trying to speak to both stay-at-home moms and single, C-level female executives chances are you're making your marketing life exponentially more complicated than it needs to be.

To do this right, you'll have to have separate copy for everything to ensure you're hitting the right problems and pain points of each of those audiences.

Or to include both audiences you're watering down your marketing, trying to be everything to everyone, so it's completely ineffective (a.k.a a total waste of precious time).

What to do instead?

Pick one audience for your marketing campaigns. And from within that audience, pick a real live person you know that is or would be your perfect customer (think client, friend, peer, influencer, family member as long it's actually a person and not a made up avatar).

You don't have to worry about naming them or coming up with a backstory like in some ideal customer avatar exercises because they're an actual person! They have a name and a backstory all their own!

When you're writing blog content, recording podcasts, creating videos or social media updates imagine writing to that real live person. It will make your copy more conversational, compelling and effective.

JUST PICK ONE

Hands down, if you can only do one thing on this list, this would be it.

Pick one content creation medium (blogging, podcasting, videoing, live streaming) and go all in on that one thing. Ideally pick the one that you enjoy the most and your audience responds to.

See? That was easy. Now you can stop worrying about all the new, fancy, trendy stuff that's always popping up in your inbox and focus on getting really good at just this one thing – for now.

And while it is important to stay on top of what's new in marketing, most people focus on what's new to the exclusion of everything else and never see traction with any particular medium.

I'm not worried in the least that you're going to miss out on something if you just go heads down, all in on your podcast or blog or live show for the next quarter. I'm willing to bet that you'll actually experience better results than you ever have before!

This pick one rule doesn't just apply to content creation, it can travel throughout all your marketing! Just imagine how simple life could be if you were only worried about one social media network?

If you're experiencing serious FOMO with this concept, remember – doing one thing for now, isn't forever! Deciding to focus 100% on a few areas of your marketing doesn't mean you can't add more next quarter when you've totally nailed the others.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

How many times have you lamented at the sheer volume of content you had to create for a marketing campaign? Couple times a month? Weekly? Daily?

Chances are you're trying to create way too much content and it's not only doing you a disservice by overwhelming you, it's not helping your audience deepen their understanding either.

Reduce your marketing hours by reusing content, ideas and themes across all your marketing channels.

For example, you can publish an epic post on Medium or your blog and then:

• Talk about the same topics in a podcast interview
• Put together a lead magnet with the same content for your own site
• Do a Facebook Live answering the biggest question or objection to your blog post ideas
• Create an infographic and share it on Pinterest
• Add the post to your email autoresponder series (you don't have to worry about duplicating content since Google doesn't index your emails!)
• Create a content upgrade about the same topic
• Record a YouTube video expanding on the blog post
• Create a series on Instagram where you microblog each day covering the points from the blog post

There are literally hundreds of ways you can get mileage out of one idea. Covering that same idea from different angles and in different places helps your audience learn through repetition, reinforces you as the expert on this topic and it's likely most people aren't following you on every platform anyway.

One additional note about topic repetition – it may seem boring to us, the business owner, but it's helpful and comforting to your audience. Just imagine if Brené Brown all of a sudden started talking about motorcycle repair instead of vulnerability, courage and shame. It would be completely off brand and she's lose her audience left and right!

MEASURE YOUR EFFORTS

If you feel like you're running on the marketing treadmill and never seeing any results – or at least not the results you want – then I'm going to bet that you're not measuring your efforts.

If starting with the end in mind is like having the destination labeled on a map, metrics and measurement are like the GPS telling you if you need to reroute.

These are just a few things that metric tracking can help you understand:

• What topics are resonating with your audience right now? What topics are being ignored?
• Is your brand's reach growing week over week?
• Where does your traffic, leads and sales come from?
• Is your website converting traffic well enough to make your lead goals?
• Are you bringing in enough leads to make your sales goals?

Knowledge is power in marketing. When you understand how all the parts of your digital marketing funnel work individually and as system, you'll be able to see where your attention is most needed and focus there.

Often I see clients “trying everything” to increase sales without knowing which strategy is actually working. When we do an audit of their marketing it's usually crystal clear what's working, what's not and what the next steps should be.

That level of clarity helps you stop doing what's not working, do more of what is and fix any parts of your funnel that are letting you down. Less wasted effort and more action on what truly works – that's a recipe for simplicity in my books!

Next Steps

Where is your marketing suffering from needless complication and overwhelm? Which ONE thing from this list do you most need to start with?

With the proliferation of free themes, website builders and low cost options, it makes a lot of sense to ask yourself the question:

Why should I pay for a website designer when I can design a website myself?

And honestly, there is one pretty good reason you SHOULD build your website DIY-style. And that reason is budget.

If your business isn't making money yet, you don't have personal funds to cover it or can't save enough in the near future to devote to a design then do it yourself IS the way to go.

Yes, you could finance a website design but it's risky to incur a debt when you haven't proved your product or service is viable yet.

The last thing you want to do is be in the hole before you start and have no income in the near future. That level of stress is a creativity killer and you're going to need all your creative juices flowing to grow that biz!

Now, say you're not in that situation. You do have money in your business or can find/save enough from other sources –

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT'S TIME TO HIRE A DESIGNER
RATHER THAN CONTINUE TO WEBSITE DIY?

So glad you asked, here's 4 ways to know it's time to hire help in the website design department.

You're ready to accelerate your business & your knowledge

When you work with a web designer who understands design as well as business strategy, lead generation, conversion and marketing you're not just hiring someone who can build you a site – you're hiring someone who can help you grow your business.

Instead of spending weeks reading about “web design” you'll be working through the process, learning the entire time and actually getting the whole project done rather than just consuming more information (which most of us do way too much).

There's a heavy dose of accountability and coaching that goes into a website design project – it can help you go further, faster.

You've been working on your site forever

You know how you've been working on that about page – forever. Or that product page, or your homepage?

When it's your own business, I swear it takes at least 4x as long to finish and there are 2 main reasons for this:

1. You're so close to the design you lack perspective and have a hard time cutting content. You usually end up including way too many pages, words and “stuff” – all of which has to be designed.

The sheer volume of content you're trying to deal with ends up with you having a serious case of the overwhelms and the project gets pushed off, sometimes indefinitely.

2. You're doing all the other things to run your business – like client work, customer service or marketing – and the website gets pushed farther and farther down the priority list.

The thing about websites is that they need to be out in the real world, with people using them before you can judge whether they are a success.

Launch day, with raw pageviews, tells you nothing of the success of a website – it only tells you how loud you can yell into your internet shaped megaphone.

True success comes from launching the site, measuring key performance indicators, and making strategic changes. NONE of that can happens when you dabble at your site for months on end and never begin the measurement stage.

You're thinking about fonts and colors but haven't addressed business strategy

A website is a business asset that should be designed to make you far more money than it ever costs to build. It has a job description, and it's not to just look pretty.

It needs to help build awareness, clearly explain what you do and who you do it for and it needs to have a clear path to purchase from lead generation to sales.

None of what I've mentioned has to do with fonts or colors, why?

Because they're some of the last things we address in a design. All the other strategic items need to be on point or the “pretty” stuff isn't going to matter.

If you're spending hours on Pinterest looking for design inspiration in hopes of bolstering your business' bottom line – it's time to bring in some professional help to design the website around your business and not the other way around.

You know that your time is better spent elsewhere

Most of my clients have had a moment, shortly before they reach out to me when they realize that it's not that they can't do the design themselves – it's that they shouldn't.

Everything you chose to spend your time on in business has an opportunity cost.

When you chose to spend 40 hours fiddling with a website, that is 40 hours that you couldn't spend elsewhere in your business. It cost you another opportunity.

Is YOUR time best spent learning how and then designing your site? Troubleshooting technology, learning conversion strategy, reading more blog posts, watching YouTube tutorials and then trying to apply all that new information?

Or is it better spent creating marketing campaigns, having sales conversations, planning offers for next quarter and a vision for the next year?

Next steps

If you're ready for a website design or redesign and you're oscillating between going website DIY or hiring a web designer, then work through the list above and ask yourself the tough questions – you'll get much better answers that way.

We've all had one of those friends.

They'd meet a new guy, it was all rainbows, sunshine and lollipops, then next time you're out for coffee – it's over and only to begin again with someone new in a few weeks.

The guy got boring. Or he wasn't who he said he was or he didn't like Macadamia Nut Brittle ice cream – you know how these things go.

While it's easy to see this kind of “thrill of the chase” in our friends, it's harder to see it in our businesses, but it's there just the same.

According to Kissmetrics, 96% of people are not ready to buy from you the first time they land on your website. They're going to need more time and exposure to build the know, like and trust factor.

But do you spend most of your time trying to bring people to your website (that first visit when 96% of people aren't ready to buy) OR improving the systems in your business to keep those 96% around until they ARE ready to buy.

And where do you think the best time investment is for you?

Writing your blog, doing all the social media, posting in Facebook groups, doing videos, podcasts and interviews are all valid ways to bring people into your business but that's only half of the plan.

You don't want to spin your wheels for months (or years) without gaining any traction. No one can maintain enthusiasm that long – no matter how much you love what you do.

Instead, let's work through a solid plan for helping your 96% get to know you better and reach a purchase decision.

CREATING A PATH TO PURCHASE (HELP VISITORS PUT A RING ON IT)

Creating a path to purchase can also be called a sales funnel, digital marketing funnel, etc. but whatever term you want to use, know that it's really not all about the sales, all the time.

It's about building relationships with your audience by helping them address problems, frustrations and questions they have about your topic area.

When you do this well, some of that audience will want to move on to a higher level of help – your paid products and services. And some just never will.

Here's the easiest way to architect your path to purchase:

1. Decide what product or service you're going to be leading people towards – you can't create a map without a destination. Start with what already sells the best, it's easier to measure these steps if you already have confirmation that the offer is a winner. If you're having a hard time selling something and it just won't move no matter how hard you try – you may have a problem with your product/market fit or messaging but that's a topic for another day.

2. Decide on the single most important action for people to take on your website that will move them closer to the destination. Are you in a high-touch service that requires a strategy call or do you need to get people on your list for more relationship building?

3. Make your desired action clear when visitors arrive on your website – this is your website's primary call to action. You can have other calls to action throughout your site but there needs to be something unmistakable for people to do to take the next step in the purchase process. Get feedback from someone who isn't familiar with your site if you're unsure of how clear your CTA is – it's hard to be objective when we're close to our designs.

4. Craft the “after action” experience. What happens after your visitor takes the desired action? You'll want to create whatever email sequence or follow up is required to move people to a purchase decision. Follow ups will be varied, here are some examples to get the ideas flowing.

A visitor:

• Signs up for a lead magnet about topic related to your main offer, receives email sequence and sales offer.
• Signs up for a webinar with sales offer at the end and you follow up with emails for watching the replay and sales deadlines.
• Requests a strategy call, is redirected to online schedule app, you connect on a call, send proposal for engagement if good fit.
• Signs up for a lead magnet about topic related to your main offer, receives email sequence and offer for a strategy call.

YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO EXPERIMENT TO GET THIS RIGHT

If you've tried to create a marketing funnel like this before and you haven't seen sales increase (and you've already sold this offering) then you've got a number of things to test.

Is your follow up the best way to transition your audience into a state of awareness where they're ready to buy? If email doesn't work, try video, or webinars or live streaming. You can also experiment with your sales content. Are you empathizing with their struggles enough? Are you showing them that there is a better way, a light at the end of the tunnel? That solutions exist? That your product might be one of those solutions?

Too often, people jump right into “Hey, look at this thing I made” without the proper education process.  When one method, whether it's format or messaging, isn't converting, that's just information you use to make better decisions – it's not a failure!

Are your leads a good fit for your offering? The lead magnet you're using to get people to sign up for your list needs to be closely aligned with your paid product/service or you're setting yourself up for poor sales. Being ultra specific is one way to guarantee alignment.

Remember you don't have to worry about turning people off by being too specific. In fact, that's exactly what you want to do. Smaller list with higher engagement will build a business faster and stronger than a vanity list with no passion for your brand.

Are you measuring the key performance indicators of your purchase path? What is the measurement of success at each point in your purchase path? What we measure improves, we all know this! Know what to measure, create a schedule to do it consistently and make changes based on your data.

NEXT STEPS

With your purchase path in place, you can turn on that marketing engine again, bring in new folks to your business and start to see much better results.

You know that anticipation filled moment before you make a new web design live? The moment when anything is possible?

When the design can catapult you to fame and fortune.

When the design can get you booked on the biggest podcast in your niche, and they get in touch with you, not the other way around.

When the design can help you finally make this hobby-business into a business-business.

So… you hold your breathe, press the big red button and make the site live.

But instead of cheers and noise makers, it sounds more like the air being let out of a balloon as it flies around the room.

Been there before?

It's brutal. But trust me, you are not alone – in fact, parades and cheers are the exception, not the rule.

And the reason?

DIY'ers approach website design like an art project. Designers on the other hand, approach website design like problem solvers because that is what we are.

Web design for digital entrepreneurs is about a beautiful marriage of art and science, of form and function, of hard data and big visions. It really has very little to do with having just the right shade of blue on your buttons.

And this is where I see so many folks struggle.

By getting bogged down in the tiny details of their web design – they lose months of business growth focusing on the wrong things.

5 KEY STEPS TO PLANNING A WEB DESIGN THAT GROWS YOUR BUSINESS

If your current design isn't working and you're thinking about making some changes, either major or minor, here's a few questions and tasks to start your web design planning.

The answers will help guide you to a better site and a more profitable business.

1. What are the current shortcomings of your site? What issues are you having with your business or the growth of your business that you're trying to solve through the redesign?

This one can be a tricky question, especially if you haven't had any products or services sell yet because you don't know what you don't know.

Here's the 2 main issues that I hear about when doing pre-design strategy work with clients to see if that spurs any ideas for you.

A. Lead Generation Issues: low email conversion rates, low traffic

B. Lead Conversion (Sales) Issues :low email engagement, not selling anything, not selling enough or not selling consistently

I know it's never fun to look at your business and acknowledge the ugly underbelly that isn't working – but that's where you need to look to understand what you're trying to fix with any design project.

2. What are your business goals? Over the next 6 months, 12 months and beyond?

How can your website help you reach those goals? What role does it play in your marketing and product delivery? What capacities does it need to have to help you reach your short term goals?

Your design should support your short term goals but it doesn't actually have to support your long term ones, just yet. It only needs to be flexible enough to expand capacity later.

No one knows what their business is going to look like 2 years from now so don't stress yourself (and your wallet) out trying to build a site that supports an unpredictable future.

For example, say you're transitioning from blogger to business owner and are now offering coaching services.

Your short term goal (3-6 months) might be to make $1000/per month.

Your long term goal (2 years +) might be to have an education business with 4 online programs and a yearly retreat bringing in $30,000/month.

When planning the strategy for this website, don't worry about building your ecourse or researching learning management platforms – you're not there yet. Focus on the client services for now and what your website needs to do and be in order to rock that first goal.

3. With your goals in mind, what are the fewest number of pages that you need on your site to support your goals?

A few pages brilliantly written and well designed pages is often all you need plus it's a whole hell of a lot easier to maintain.

In our previous example, you'd need a way to deliver and onboard your client plus ways to support the marketing of your product.

For delivery, you'd need to add a services page, a way for prospects to get in touch with you – like a contact page, address ways to accept payments and then a process for gathering information about your new client. This can be done via a form on your website or even a Google doc.

For marketing, if you're already blogging and only adding services, the blog is already done! Additionally, you'll want to have an email marketing system in place for lead generation, nurturing and lead conversion.

Email marketing won't necessarily add any pages to your design, you can simply use embedded forms and pop ups or you could take things up a level and have landing pages for lead magnets, lead capture and to run paid traffic like Facebook Ads.

4. Write copy for the pages that make the cut or outsource them to a copywriter.

Your message and your copy comes before the design. Your tone and copy inform the rest of the project!

Too often business owners work backwards with their design. They start with a theme or layout they like, lured in by the fancy fonts, animations or images, and then they try and put their business into the theme.

A theme's pre-made layout is NOT necessarily the best way to layout your website. Most designers are not business strategists and aren't versed in email marketing or conversion design. We need to stop trusting businesses to someone else's version of an art project.

For example, I recently had a friend email me about what to put in “this box” that's part her website's theme homepage. That box was a pre-made area in the theme she recently purchased.

What should go in the box is the wrong question – the right question is should that box even be there?

That's why copy comes first. You decide on what to say and how to say it – then you design the website around your words!

5. Start Your Design Once the Plan is Done!

The entire process I've outlined here is truly all part of the design so let's say this is where the art project starts!

You get to take your goals, your required pages, your copy and bring it all to life, with just the right shade of blue on the buttons 😉

I know that it's fun to jump right into color palettes and fonts but I also know that it's even more fun to reach your goals and pay your mortgage!

Any web design project needs to start with research, planning and strategy.

This is where the vast majority of the work is. If you (or your designer) don't devote a significant amount of time up front to really understanding your business, your audience and your goals, your design is destined to fall flat – even if it's gorgeous.

WEB DESIGN PLANNING: NEXT STEPS

Planning a website redesign this year? Make sure that you're talking about, and planning to hit your business goals with your website long before you talk about fonts, colors or branding.

Not planning a redesign this year? Then ask yourself what's the one goal you have in your business right now? Make $5000/month? Hit 1000 email subscribers?

Take 15-20 minutes to figure out how your website can be set up differently to support your short term goals. What's missing and needs to be added? What needs updating? What is extra noise and distracting from your goals that can be removed?

ConvertKit is the darling of the email marketing world at the moment – and with good reason.

Up until now, it's been impossible to find the level of automations, segmentation and email personalization that ConvertKit offers in such an affordable monthly package ($29 to start).

But depending on your subscriber count, you'll likely be paying than you're used to, especially if moving over from a provider like Mailchimp.

The whole point of switching over to a more powerful email service provider is to take advantage of it's more powerful features, right?

That's why I wanted to walk through 9 different ways you can use ConvertKit automations to level up your email marketing, serve your subscribers better AND save yourself a lot of time.

How ConvertKit Handles Subscribers Differently

Before we jump into the automations, here's a bit of an overview of how Convertkit handles subscribers, it's a bit different than you may be used to.

The “lists” are gone. They have been replaced with subscribers, you know, like real people. It's rather refreshing.

Each of those subscribers can have multiple characteristics assigned to them through the use of tags.

One subscriber can have multiple tags. Like a tag that they have purchased a product from you, another tag that they are interested in a certain topic and yet another tag that they are at a certain stage in business.

Basically tags allow you to collect subscriber information and then use that information to better communicate with them.

That brief background should help all that follows make a bit more sense if you're not a ConvertKit user.

And naturally, if your email service provider isn't ConvertKit but does allow for tagging, these automations will work for you too!

ConvertKit Automations To Enhance Your Marketing While Saving You Time

1. OPT IN FOR LEAD MAGNET > ADD A TOPIC INTEREST TAG

Not only are lead magnets a great way to encourage people to sign up for your list, they also act as a natural segmenting tool.

For example, if I had a lead magnet about list building and another about Google Analytics, I could automatically “tag” a subscriber as interested in those respective topics by creating different tags in ConvertKit. i.e Interest: List Building, Interest: Analytics.

I can then use those tags to filter messages and send subscribers more targeted, topic specific emails and stay out of their inbox if the info isn't for them.

Plus, subscribers can have multiple tags! So if someone gets both lead magnets, they can be tagged both times.

(As a sidenote, ConvertKit also makes it incredibly easy use a variety of lead magnets in your business, all without creating multiple lists!)

2. OPT IN FOR LEAD MAGNET > SEND A SPECIFIC EMAIL SEQUENCE

This Convertkit automation is a natural extension of #1. It's when you send a topic specific email sequence to a person based on the lead magnet they signed up for.

That person who wanted the list building lead magnet could receive an automated series of emails all about list building while our Google Analytics subscriber would be receiving an entirely different series with content geared to their interests.

Providing subscriber specific content captures and keeps attention much better than generic information.

And once you lose someone's attention – it's usually gone for good.

3. OPT IN FOR LEAD MAGNET > SEND A SPECIFIC SALES SEQUENCE

A simple sales funnel, this automation is all about matching your subscriber's problem with your paid solution.

A subscriber opts in for your lead magnet that addresses a specific problem or concern and then they receive a series of informational and sales messages about the same issue.

You have just created an automated sales person in your business!

4. CLICKS A LINK > TRIGGERS AN AUTOMATION

ConvertKit has a handy feature (maybe my favorite) called Link Triggers.

This feature allows you to include links in your emails that trigger other actions in your ConvertKit account.

For example, if:

• someone clicks an email link to your product about list building, you could tag them as interested in list building
• you create a new lead magnet, you can allow your current subscribers to access it by simply clicking a link instead of filling out a new form
• someone clicks a link they can be added to a product waitlist so you can send specific information to them later
• a subscriber doesn't want to hear about a product you're currently pitching, you can create a link that allows them to opt out of the “pitches” but stay on your main list
• you ask subscribers to click a link based on their interests as a sort of mini-survey of your audience

5. SUBSCRIBER PURCHASES PRODUCT > EXCLUDE FROM SALES SEQUENCE

It seems kind of basic that when someone has purchased a product, you don't want to email them asking them to buy it, right?

Has that every happened to you? I know it's happened to me and when using different email providers, I know I was guilty of this too.

ConvertKit makes it very straight forward to tag someone as a customer and then you simply configure all messages in your automation sequences to exclude that tag.

Once again, better subscriber experience, totally on autopilot.

6. SEND A TRIAL OFFER, DOWNSELL OR SURVEY

Just as you can set up automations to know if someone has purchased a product, you also know when people haven't purchased at the end of a promotion.

This knowledge allows you to do a few different things.

You can offer a lower cost trial if you're selling a recurring product, you can offer a related product or you can simply provide a survey to gather information about why the subscriber didn't buy.

7. SUBSCRIBER PURCHASES PRODUCT > SEND A SPECIFIC UPSELL

The same as with the downsell for non-buyers, an automated upsell is also a great strategy to test. Do you have a great complementary product that would enhance what they just bought? Could you offer a coaching upsell to a digital product or an add on that can help a customer get their desired result faster or easier?

8. SUBSCRIBER FINISHES SEQUENCE > ADD SUBSCRIBER TO NEW SEQUENCE

A rather underused automation is moving subscribers through different sequences based on their interests. Yes, this is a bit more advanced but can be well worth the effort

For example, you send 3 emails as part of a welcome sequence and within those, you could ask a subscriber to let you know what topics they were interested in learning more about (you'd use Link Triggers for that).

Then, when that welcome sequence is done, you can set a ConvertKit automation to move them to another email sequence based on their expressed interests! That email sequence could sell them a solution to their problem or be entirely information. Then the subscriber could return to another more generic autoresponder sequence.

Imagine how engaged a reader would be if they received such customized email communication! And don't worry, you can add a ConvertKit automation to block a user from receiving regular “broadcasts” while they're in a special sequence, this is great to keep them from getting too many emails or getting something off topic!

Now it's Your Turn

What's one email automation technique you're going to implement this week?

If growing your list is taking forever (or what feels like forever) you may be coming at it the wrong way.

While it's important to have a solid list building foundation on your website to ensure you're converting as many interested visitors to subscribers as possible, there are also a ton of ways to super charge your list building efforts into concentrated periods of times.

If you've been watching the “big guys” in your niche, you may have seen these sorts of events happening around you and thought – there is no way I could pull that off. It's either to technically complicated or I don't know enough of the “right” people.

List Building Events are a great way to raise your profile, get more leads and give your community something to talk about, share and enjoy!

List building events, or active list building, can look like a lot of work on the surface, which is why people often avoid them. But you can, and should, go simple! Enjoy the list building benefits of these events without all the headaches that come when we overcomplicate things.

There will always be time later to make your events more “polished” if you want but don't let your vision of perfection hold you back from trying these great list building opportunities.

List Building Events to Add to Your Marketing Calendar

WEBINARS

Webinars are great tools to sell products and services but they are also amazing list building tools!

Even if you have nothing to sell right now or are not comfortable selling on a webinar, there is nothing stopping you from doing a teaching only webinar to build your list.

You can do these events solo but if you want to up the ante even more, doing a joint webinar with someone else can help you both increase your lists even faster.

Ideas to Consider:

• plan a solo webinar and if you're really nervous, just plan one for your own list without “advertising it”
• create a webinar based around one of your audiences biggest pain points and advertise the daylights out of it to get more people on your list
• talk to other complementary business owners (similar audience, different products/services) about doing joint webinars where you both advertise the event to your lists. One person can “host” the other or you can both present, whatever works!

Ways to Keep It Simple:

• Use a super simple slidedeck, think white background with your branding in the lower corner
• Do your first joint webinar with a friend, even if the audience fit isn't perfect
• Choose simple technology like Crowdcast, Big Marker or Zoom and take advantage of free trials to find the best fit

Choosing a webinar platform that suits your level of technology comfort can be an overwhelming task but if you're stuck, I have an amazing free resource for you to check out called Webinar Palooza.

It was an event hosted by Steve Dotto of Dottotech and he went through a bunch of different webinar platforms and recorded the front facing, client side and back facing admin interface of each software. It's a great way to see each platform in action and make the right choice for you!

CHALLENGES

A challenge is an event centered around accomplishing or making progress around one specific activity.

You send out prompts at a pre-determined interval to mobilize your audience into action!

Although you can use a challenge as a regular lead magnet, using the challenge as a time sensitive list building event makes it particularly effective at building your subscriber base. Also, when all your subscribers go through the challenge together, you can add a community component which will build your list and business awareness even more.

Choose a challenge topic that your audience routinely struggles with and that you can help them overcome by taking small incremental steps.

Decide on your challenge duration, something like 7 days or 30 days is popular, and map out what your participants will need to do each day or week to get the desired result.

Once you've mapped out your content, create a simple landing page on your website and gather emails for the challenge. Add sharing buttons on sign up thank you pages to encourage social sharing and more participants!

You can do something as simple as 7 days of emails, with each email being an easy to complete task or a challenge that's much more involved with videos and fancy pdf's.

But in the beginning, when running your first challenge, keep the duration short and the “designed” features simple so you can focus more on the content. People will remember the results you help them achieve before they remember a fancy pdf design.

A Great (And Fancy) Challenge Example:

The ladies from Tone It Up, a fitness and nutrition website, do challenges continually throughout the year to motivate members, create a sense of community, to build their list and to upsell participants into their paid programs and products.

They even have a challenge going on right now, here's a look at the pop up for the challenge:

As well as the current hero image that is on the site to advertise the challenge:

Now these ladies have been at this whole business thing awhile so the graphics and the challenge materials, a pdf “starter guide” (you can see an image of the guide in this post), are highly designed and the entire event is super slick.

But instead of thinking that you can't do something like that, take inspiration from it instead of being intimidated by it. They also have amazing ways of mobilizing their community, promote viral sharing of the event and helping their members get results!

ONLINE SUMMITS

Online summits are online conferences where one “host” pulls together many different influencers around a certain topic and does multiple webinars. The webinars can be live or pre-recorded, or a mixture of both.

Summits are a powerful list builder because each speaker advertises the event to their respective lists. So, if you have even 5 speakers joining you for your summit, you get your name and content in front of 5 different audiences almost instantly!

The thing that usually trips people up when they plan their first summit, and I speak from experience here, is that they try to go way too big when you really don't need to.

You don't need to have 20 speakers in 20 live sessions across 20 time zones and have everyone in matching T-shirts drinking from color coordinated coffee mugs. You will make yourself crazy.

What about doing 5 pre-recorded video interviews where you release one interview a day for 5 days? That's a summit!

Seriously, press the easy button, especially for your first one and find the lowest stress way to pull off the event. You'll still build your list but you'll also encounter less tech headaches which will make for a better experience all around.

What you may find is that you can build your list really fast with just these lower key events and have no need to get fancy with it. You can use all the time you save for other business building activities.

A Great (And Simple) Online Summit Example:

Recently, Michael Hyatt held an online summit based around productivity in promotion of a new course he's offering. It was a list building event that lead into the launch of the product.

Something to note with this summit is that even with a team of people supporting him, graphic designers, video editors, the works, this summit was super simple. There were just 5 interviews, all pre-recorded, and sent out to his registrants once per day for 5 days.

The whole event can be done, emails written and scheduled weeks in advance and then you're just left with the promotion, social media interaction and main marketing push at the time of the event.

And oddly enough, normally if I register for an online summit, I'll catch maybe one or 2 of the speakers, it's just too overwhelming for me as a participant. With this event, it was really easy to catch all the interviews because it was only 5!

GIVEAWAYS AND CONTENTS

Tried and true, a great giveaway can really boost your list numbers but it's only a good idea when the giveaway is in alignment with your business offerings.

You want a list filled with people who are truly engaged and interested in you, your message and ultimately what you sell. A small engaged list is better than a big one that ignores you.

For example, it's easy to get a million emails by giving away an iPad – because everyone would like a free one of those, but that list won't be incredibly interested in what it is you sell – and that's the whole point.

When running a giveaway something to remember is to add viral sharing elements into the contest to help spread the word farther through social media.

This goes beyond the simple, “share this giveaway with your friends” type of promotion and lets people have additional entries when they share across their social media channels.

As you may have guessed, to encourage the type of viral sharing you're going to need, some tech assistance is in order. My two favorite giveaway apps are:

1. Rafflecopter: Works with any platform
2. KingSumo: WordPress plugin

Both of these tools allow for easy entries and viral sharing. You can also have them up and running in minutes!

Out of all the methods for list building mentioned in this post, although contests are the quickest to pull off, they are last on my list to recommend. That doesn't mean they're bad, it's just they're not the best pick, and here's why.

The best way to build momentum in your business and create raving fans who promote your message for you, is for people to get to know you. For your community to feel an affinity for you. With webinars, challenges and online summits, you're able to get to know your audience better and vice versa. Those events also present you in a place of authority in your space, contents don't.

That's not to say don't do a giveaway, it's just to say keep in mind what your overall business goals are right now and make the right choice for you!

Making List Building Events Work In Your Business

I know you're busy and may be thinking, “Do I really need another thing on my to-do list?” but hear me out.

A list building event can do double, even triple duty in your business. Just like the examples we covered, the event gives your audience something to get excited about, it's a list builder (obviously), but you can also use it for blog content, social media updates, email newsletter topics and more.

Reuse, repurpose and get every ounce of mileage out of your event so it saves you time too.

What's one list building event you could plan this quarter to up-size your list?

Remember back when you were a teenager and your parents were finally away for the entire weekend. The weekend when you invited everyone you knew over for the most epic party.

Then as Saturday afternoon turned into evening, you're left sitting at your kitchen table with your besties and not a single person more?

Just me? Ok, maybe that's true but I know it's also a common feeling when it comes to getting people on your list.

And what's worse, in list building you can clearly see the “cool kids” down the block who have HUGE lists and have no trouble getting everyone to their party.

Email lists are like that, businesses are like that too. Once you get to a certain point of visibility everything gets a whole lot easier.

But I'm going to guess that you're not there yet. You're at the part where it feels like you have to beg people to type their email into that little rectangular box – and that's not a great feeling. So let's try and make some headway on this!

One of the trickiest parts of list building is that most of what works really well seems totally backwards, so it's easy to do the exact wrong things.

If you have some traffic coming to your site but no one's signing up for your email list, there are likely 3 big reasons why.

You may have one or all 3 of these issues going on – take a look and see how you can make some small tweaks that can have a big impact on your website to subscriber conversion rate.

Overwhelm

In website design, in content, in life in general, less is almost always more.

Overwhelm can kill your list sign ups in 2 different ways.

WEBSITE OVERWHELM

Take a quick look at your homepage, or an inner blog post page, how many things (links, images, ads, etc.) could a visitor click on at any one time? 10? 20? More?

If there is too much to click on, visitors click on nothing.

Usually, displaying #allthethings comes from a good hearted place, you're trying to help a visitor see all the opportunities that are available to them, but in reality, that's not the best way to display information for the human brain.

Instead, think of what your priorities are for each page on your website. What's THE most important action you want people to take?

Start stripping away the extraneous images, links and clickable items that don't support your priorities and you'll be amazed at what this little bit of focus can do for your optin rate.

CONTENT OVERWHELM

We all LOVE our businesses and get really excited about our topics. Plus most of us eat, sleep and breathe our topic material. So it's natural, to want to share all the things you know!

Your lead magnet however, is not the place to share all those nuggets of wisdom.

Writing a 90 page ebook or having a 30 day video course is way over delivering. Not only does it take you a long time to produce, it's not something that the majority of people are going to want.

People want quick wins, actionable tips. Things that move the needle in their lives – and quickly.

Things like checklists, cheatsheets, step-by-step blueprints, templates, swipe files are all good lead magnet starting points that aren't overwhelming and help your audience achieve something useful.

The goal is to get people to use the tips you provide in real life so that they feel a connection to you and start building a relationship. Too much info will have the opposite affect.

Being too general

It's easy to forget that when people arrive on your site, they're (A) not usually landing on your homepage and (B) they're looking for something.

That means they're often coming from a search engine query or maybe from another site that linked to you, a social media update you shared – there's some context to why they've visited, other than just to “check things out.”

With those sorts of specific needs, it's no wonder that a general lead magnet about a general topic you talk about doesn't convert very well.

Instead, try matching lead magnets to specific traffic sources or specific content.

This doesn't have to be as challenging as it sounds with a bit of software help. With solutions like Optinmonster, you can create optin forms that only appear on certain pages, certain blog post categories, from certain referral sites and more.

For example, say you land a guest post on a big blog. You could create a cheat sheet or checklist that complements the blog post but only have it show up as an offer to traffic that comes from the “big blog.”

Or maybe your blog has 3-5 main categories of content. What super valuable, quick win kind of lead magnet could you make that matches up with each of those categories?

Just imagine how much better your sign up rate will be with a lead magnet that complements your content rather than one that interrupts it.

Features over benefits

One of the most important parts of any website – are the words. They are one of the most overlooked parts of any website as well.

Graphics, video, web design and imagery get all the attention but it's your words and your stories that are going to do a lot of the selling of your products, services and free lead magnets.

Are you making this one common mistake with your lead magnet descriptions:

Talking about what your lead magnet IS instead of talking about what your lead magnet DOES.

For example:

30 page pdf recipe guide
(that's what it IS)
vs
1 month of no dinner planning
(that's what it DOES)

It's about focusing on benefits and solving problems rather than the features of the lead magnet.

This can be a bit tricky when you're not used to writing persuasive copy (copy that tries to persuade people to do things – sales pages would fall into this category too.) And don't feel bad if this is hard for you, copywriters spend decades on their craft!

An easy way to think of this is how someone would Google the problem your lead magnet fixes.

They won't Google – I want a 30 page pdf, that's kind of silly, right? No one needs one of those!

But they would Google, meal plans, menu planning, weekly meal plan, monthly menu planning or things like that. This is more the type of language you want to use in the copy around your lead magnet!