A cold traffic funnel that you can scale is what every direct response marketer is after. Many spend years never quite cracking the code. Others seem to know some magic trick. What it really takes is a combination of both art and science.
We take a systematic approach when helping our clients crack the cold traffic code. Starting with our Four Framework Growth method and moving on to a method of testing the two biggest levers for a cold traffic funnel.
That’s right, there are just two big levers when it comes to scaling a cold traffic funnel. The first is the marketing BIG IDEA. Which is the concept that everything is built on top of. This is what informs the hook, the marketing lead, and everything that connects to it.
The second is the marketing Offer. Which is the most important element of your entire funnel. A weak offer with strong copy will get sales, but you’re still leaving a lot on the table. However, if your copywriting is weak, a strong irresistible offer can make up for it. Ideally though you’ll want to have both fine tuned.
But how do you know if the Big Idea and Offer are even ready for cold traffic?
Most marketers don’t and they just blast it out and hope for the best. That’s an expensive lesson. But sometimes it works, which is why so many people do it. They hope to hit the lottery. The problem is, if you send a bunch of cold traffic to a funnel that has a weak offer and a lackluster big idea you’re only going to amplify weak results.
Instead, smart direct response dietary supplement marketers test their Big Idea and Offer before they hit the ground running with tons of cold traffic.
Trying different Offers and Big Ideas, gives you a chance to slow down and gain insight into what works.
The trick is to test the Big idea and the Offer separately so that you understand the impact of each on different types of traffic.
There are 4 steps to getting a cold traffic funnel to work.
Different steps test either the Big Idea or the Offer with a distinct audience segment. Each segment of traffic has a different degree of temperature, ranging from hot to cold.
Cold Traffic Funnel Step One
The first place you want to test your Offer is with your internal email house list. These are the people who already know you. This is the easiest level to get a win from, because their level of trust is typically the highest. If your offer does not work with this segment then it’s not going to work with cold traffic.
Typically the best way to test the Offer alone is to do all of the selling in the email copy and drive them to an order page to buy. No fancy sales page or video sales letter.
They know the product and in many cases have bought before. They are at the highest level of awareness. Give them a great Offer and they will buy. Big ticket packages work well here. Buy 12 bottles for a full year supply at 30% off. This eliminates the Big Idea as much as possible. Remember you’re just looking for the right mix of Offers and how high you might be able to go in terms of price and volume for your biggest package option when you test against cold traffic. You’re looking for a learning here, above all else.
To test your Big Idea you’ll want to segment out just the leads from your list. Removing the buyers lets you get closer to the behavior of cold traffic.
This is the group where you want to try out new marketing leads and big ideas before you open it up to the masses.
The simplest way to do that is again through email copy that is written around different Big Ideas to gauge which one resonates best based on clickthrough to the sales page. I’m not talking subject line here, I’m talking about the actual email copy Big Idea.
Once you have an Offer and a Big Idea that shows some potential, it’s time to take them to the next level.
Cold Traffic Funnel Step Two
The second step is opening up that Big Idea and Offer to Affiliate traffic. Since that audience has an existing relationship, they are more likely to buy based on the referral to your product. This group is already a little bit warmed up yet colder than your buyers list. Which makes them the perfect group to learn from before going to totally cold traffic.
Your foot is in the door at this point and your prospect is more likely to listen to your message. That’s the only real advantage you can get from this group. And that’s more than you’re going to get when you’re marketing to cold traffic.
One strategy to use here is to treat your email copy, that the affiliate sends, as the presell page and create a true sales page that goes deeper into the expression of the Big Idea. That way you can test your Big Idea response based on clickthroughs from email to sales page like you did in step one but also test the Offer on the sales page in the same test.
This step puts a bit more stress on the funnel to see how well it holds up. It’s important to note that it likely won’t perform as well as your own email list, and will perform differently with different affiliate lists. Which is why it’s also important to test against a few different affiliate lists. Each affiliate cares for their lists differently. Some burn them with too many offers and some curate them and nurture them over time. How each list is cared for will make a big difference in the results. The sad part is there’s no real way to accurately see this. But remember you’re just looking for a gauge here, not to really hit it out of the park. There is no failure, only feedback, so you can adjust before you go on to the next step.
Cold Traffic Funnel Step Three
The third step is to stress test your winning Big Idea and Offer on a direct email buy. This step really takes the temperature of the traffic down a notch from step two. We’re getting closer to ice cold traffic here.
A direct email buy let’s you rent a list of targeted buyers and interests. There are a few obvious benefits to this traffic. First they are qualified, in some cases you may even be able to rent a list of buyers of other supplement products or condition specific categories. This is the online equivalent of direct mail.
The other big benefit of using this strategy is speed. You’re getting a ton of traffic all at once in a very quick burst. This speeds up the learnings on testing Big Ideas and Offers. But it also can be more expensive than the previous step.
Just like in step two you’ll want to treat your email copy, as the presell page. And can basically use the same assets and creative you used in step two.
Note the difference between the response rate from step two to three. This is where you’re going to get your biggest learnings. You may also want to try a few different tests and tweaks here on a few rounds of email buys to prepare for step four.
Cold Traffic Funnel Step Four
At this point, you’ve stress tested several Big Ideas and narrowed in on the right Offer. You’re ready for the forth and final step, cold traffic.
This is the moment of truth. But realize that there is more work to do. Even with all the previous testing you’re still going to need to continue to tweak and fine tune your sales funnel. It won’t likely perform at the level that you can scale it right out of the gate.
You may then be wondering why did you go through all the trouble of the first three steps? Why not go straight to cold traffic or do all at the same time?
First, a systematic approach lets you learn more at each step. When you combine everything all at once it’s difficult to really see the effect from each traffic source.
Second, it also keeps your data clean so you can see each level independently. A lot of shortcomings can easily hide in the muddy averages of mixed traffic sources.
At each level you’re ratcheting down the temperature of the traffic from warm to cold traffic. And with each level you’re learning what works and adjusting along the way. Trying different Big Ideas and Offers to see how they work.
The entire goal here is to see what resonates so you can scale your cold traffic spend. Each step also allows you measure, learn and most importantly adjust as you go.
Three Funnels Every Health Supplement Business Needs To Build A Multi-Million Dollar Empire
Through our work in the online health space, we’ve optimized many dietary supplement businesses. In that time, we’ve uncovered the three critical funnels for success.
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