inverse correlation graph

Here’s some unconventional advice about how to double or triple your qualified leads:

Tank your website traffic.

I suppose I should explain this one.

There’s lots of bad marketing / SEO / lead generation advice out there:

  • Pick out keywords that get searched hundreds or thousands of times every month and put them in your page titles, urls, headers, sub-headers and sub-sub-headers. Then watch your Google rankings (and resulting traffic) climb!
  • Write as many blog posts as you can and traffic will soar!
  • Blast your audience by email. Then do it some more on LinkedIn and Facebook. And heck, while you’re at it, pour it on with Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok too. Just wait and see how much more traffic you’ll get!

But here’s my question for you:

Have you stopped to think about who the people are that make up all this great new traffic?

Who exactly are you trying to reach with all this stuff you’re doing?

Anyone willing to look?

Anyone who’d conceivably cut you a check?

What does it really mean for your business if traffic starts going like this?

increasing traffic

Isn’t it possible that all those extra eyeballs accumulating as you move East aren’t even the right people?

Any if they’re not, isn’t all this traffic growth just a vanity metric in the end?

7 or 8 years ago, we said “screw it.”

We were done being generalists at Gorilla.

We were done talking to anyone and everyone.

We were done worrying simplistically about “getting more traffic”.

We knew who our best customers were. We knew what those companies looked like. We knew who the buying process influencers were inside of those organizations, what kinds of problems and challenges those people faced, what kinds outcomes they were trying to achieve and what questions they were trying to get answered.

So we decided to own that – and for them.

We set our sights on the traffic we actually wanted. Because frankly, the rest didn’t matter.

We even changed our positioning from this:

“We make your brand stronger”

to this:

“We help midsized B2B manufacturers identify, attract, engage and drive sales opportunities with ideal-fit customers.”

See the difference there?

Now – we knew that by ignoring the rest of the world, our traffic would probably go like this:

declining traffic

And our leads would probably go like this (dark gray):

declining leads

And we were right. They both did.

But guess what?

Here’s what our happened to our qualified leads (orange):

increasing qualified leads

This lesson is one of focus.

Know who you want to target. And target them.

The rest simply don’t matter.

Traffic is a leading metric (and an important one, too). But it’s only relevant in the context of the more significant trailing metrics.

In other words, more traffic is fantastic, as long as it’s driving:

  • The right opportunities…
  • That produce the right customers…
  • Who generate the right level of revenue…
  • And at the right margin

So go ahead. Tank your traffic. Focus on the right types of companies and people.

Swallow your pride and ignore the rest.

Then take the time to notice and appreciate the growing number of high-quality conversations you begin having with right-fit future customers.