Everywhere I look, people are eager to generate traffic
to their websites with the hope of making a few bucks.

Is traffic really the holy grail of a successful internet business?

If you answered yes, THINK AGAIN

Traffic is a very important part of a successful website
BUT if you dont have the other parts in places, it will be
a waste of time and money!

In order for your traffic to actually worth anything, you
must do SOMETHING with it.

I call this “The Journey“. The marketing term for it is
“marketing funnel”.

In short, it is the FLOW of traffic to and through your business.
It involves capturing some of the traffic (lead generation)
and moving the leads through different stages in order to
increase their value (value of your lead = how much
money you make from  a lead during the life of their relationship
with you.)

For example:

  • 1000 visitors go to your website (traffic)
  • 500 of them optin for a newsletter (leads)
  • 50 of them purchased a $100 product (customers)
  • 25 of those 50 purchased an additional $500 item (leverage)
  • 10 of the 25 purchased a coaching program for $5000 
    (more leverage)
  • 5 of them pay you $1000/month for continued education
    (Residual income)

The process above will NOT happen on its own. It is a journey
YOU must take your visitors through and do it correctly in
order for it to work.

Note that the numbers of people are decreasing with every step
creating a “funnel” effect.

This is a simplified example to show you how it works.
It can be extended further to increase the value even more.

I created a diagram to show you a metaphorical representation
of this concept which I think will “stick” in your mind and help
you always keep it in mind when you create and optimize
your business.

I call this “The Swimming Pool” concept.

Click on the image below to open in a new window.

swimming-pool-final.jpg

Let me explain what this means and what it means for the success
of your business.

There is a “RIVER“.

You take a “HOSE” and you plug it into the river.

The hose takes water from the river and adds it into your
POOL.

The SUN heats up the pool and evaporates a percentage of
the water inside the pool. (lost water)

there is a PUMP that filters the water from the pool and
adds it back into it.

There is also another HOSE that takes water from the pool
and adds it into the SPA.

The Red arrows show the direction of the flow in the diagram.

This is how a real live swimming pool works. So keep this in
mind…

How Does this relate to your Business?

Lets break it down:

The river represents the traffic source. For example Google Adwords
represents a river of people.

Having a hose bringing water to your pool, is like having an adwords
campaign driving traffic to your website(s).
Some people will opt-in or buy, some will leave. 
People leaving (loss) is represented by the evaporation.

As soon as people are on your customer or mailing list, they are
INSIDE your pool.

When you have an autoresponder series sent to your people from
your pool, is like the circulation pump where you take people from
the pool, fliter them and then put them back in the pool.

The evaporation process happens continuously. meaning that
you always lose people from your list

Your Goal is to bring more traffic in than what is lost through
“evaporation”

AND…

Move people to your higher ticket items (Backend – SPA)

IF you stop bringing traffic in, your pool and spa will eventually
dry.

This is a simplified model.

More things to consider:

  • You can have the people in your pool and spa plug their hoses
    in other rivers and bring traffic to your pool (Affiliate -referral methods)
  • You can plug additional hoses to other rivers and get traffic in.
  • You can create more swimming pools and exchange traffic
    between them. (Cross Selling)
  • You can find other people with swimming pools and get them
    to exchange traffic with you (JV partners)
  • You can physically plug your hose on someone elses  pool
    and get some traffic from there (Integration Marketing)

and so forth…

As you can see from this example, Traffic itself IS NOT important.
Controlling the flow of traffic and converting it, is the
most important thing of all.

Also, knowing the cost of driving the traffic from each traffic
source and how much money that traffic is worth to you,
is FUNDAMENTAL.

Knowing the value of each person in your swimming pool will
tell you exactly how much to pay for advertising without
getting burned.

Sorry for the long post.

This is VERY important to understand in order to move your
business to the next level.

If you like this information and you want to keep it coming, please
post your comment below.

As I said before, If you post a comment, you will get a chance to
win my mystery gift on Sunday. A post on each blog post from
this week, will cound as an additional chance of winning the gift.
So if you posted before, post again to increase your chances.

Till Sunday,

Partner to Your Success,
-Socrates Socratous

P.S. Your comments is what drives me to continue to provide you
with this information. Your Comment COUNTS. So please post your
comment below.

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35 Comments

  1. Holgeron 23 Mar 2007 at 5:18 pm

    Hi Socrates,
    you got some real interesting ways to visualize your contents.
    keep it up
    Holger

  2. Jameson 23 Mar 2007 at 5:18 pm

    Hi Socrates,

    I like the way that you explain the process of bringing people to your web site and moving them through the buying process and also explaining that you have to keep doing this or you will lose all of your customers.

    You also explain that some of your customers will buy high end products from you.

    Of course some people will only be lookers, not buyers.

    I hope that you keep this material coming.

  3. brianon 23 Mar 2007 at 5:21 pm

    like to knon more

  4. Kathrynon 23 Mar 2007 at 5:28 pm

    That’s a good basic explanation. It all makes sense. But I think you should have included a couple of additional things. First, what is integration marketing? A simple definition would suffice for those of us who don’t know. And second, how do you calculate what the traffic is worth? Either a quick explanation, or a link to an explanation, or a simple “I’ll explain that next week” would suffice. I find this good information and helpful, but it is very basic. Which everyone needs at some point, so that’s great, but I think you should give us the option to continue with our learning if we so choose. Just my 2 cents. I do appreciate the basic explanations, though. They’re great for beginners.

  5. gregon 23 Mar 2007 at 5:42 pm

    i am a for real rookie, just starting out and this example makes more sense to me than anything i’ve seen yet. thanks a million.

  6. Royon 23 Mar 2007 at 5:48 pm

    Socrates,

    At a first glance, it looks basic.

    But if you ponder and think, and truly think…

    and expand the picture and fit yourself in it, you are in awe to find that your marketing process is not doing as good as the picture presents above.

    Way to go. Well done Socrates.

    Fact tells, stories sell, and picture is fact and stories combined.

    Roy

    royrecommends.com

  7. Markon 23 Mar 2007 at 6:28 pm

    Wasn’t all this put out in a pdf book called Profit Funnel? I don’t remember who it was but they weren’t the first. The first person I know of that taught this funnel principle is Marlon Sanders with his Amazing Formula back the late 90’s. Interesting how everything old is new again.

  8. Lawrenceon 23 Mar 2007 at 6:50 pm

    Socrates,
    Not everyone was able to get hold of the Profit Funnel or any of the hundreds of the “how to do its” that seem to be available. This is a nice simple way of putting it that doesn’t drain the brain.
    What it boils down to, is that we all need to get a better quality “shade-cloth” to hold and slow the evaporation.
    Like, better sales letters, best available products, some good freebies with your best follow-up customer service.
    Keep up the great work.

  9. Barbon 23 Mar 2007 at 7:02 pm

    Good explanation of the concept. Now just how do I do this?

  10. Loon 23 Mar 2007 at 7:06 pm

    Well done Socrates,your picture illustration speaks a thousand words.

    Is it better to build some kind of shelters(methods)over the spa to minimize evaporation and provide some shade for your expensive customers?

  11. Socrates Socratouson 23 Mar 2007 at 7:11 pm

    Hello Everyone and thanks for your comments.

    Kathryn, there is a lot more explanation coming soon. This is just the beginning.

    Roy, I am very glad that you were able to find flaws in your own marketing process by looking at my picture (Hey I am a top notch designer after all :))

    Mark, OLD? Since when marketing funnel got old? and where did I say this was a new breakthrough?
    If you think marketing funnel got old, then you are in trouble my friend. It’s like saying that looking ahead 100yards when we drive got old so we should stop doing it.

    I never claimed this is a brand new concept. To the contrary, I said it’s FUNDAMENTAL. However, the way I presented the topic is brand new. I never heard of anyone explaining this process the way I did.

    Mark, without being rude, I removed the link from your comment. (You know why)

    To everyone else, Please keep posting your comments. Remember, your participation and feedback is what motivates me to keep posting this kind of information.

    …and this is just the beginning

    Regards,
    -Socrates

  12. PJon 23 Mar 2007 at 8:01 pm

    A simple explanation that makes perfect sense. Keep the info coming!

  13. BusyBeeon 23 Mar 2007 at 9:06 pm

    Hi Everyone and thanks Socrates for publishing these tips, tricks and strategies.

    New ways of demonstrating tried and true concepts are constantly needed to continue to educate those that just don’t seem to “get it” and serve as reminders with a new perspective for the rest of us..

    There’s also no harm in articulating your thinking processes to conceive of a funnel or a pool as just another way to say “control the flow”

    Keep it up!

  14. Emilyon 23 Mar 2007 at 10:25 pm

    Greetings and Salutations!

    I love it when people get back to basics! Sometimes we all get so caught up in the latest and greatest, that we forget what it is that got us there.

    People may comment that everything that is old is new again, but it really is just that we are REMINDED once in a while that we need to get our heads out of the clouds to get to waht is the real driving force behind business.

    I personally have ADD, so it is very hard for me to take all of my ideas, and put a plan into action. I am always listening to organization skill cd’s in my car, and that sort of thing. I am hoping that one day I will get it by osmosis!

    In all seriousness, most of you I am assuming are visionaries, and do not want to be bothered with the minutia (I probably spelled this and several other things wrong, but it is 2 in the morning here!). It just goes to show that you can’t do it all, and that letting go of your control is a GOOD thing! I have a friend who banters back and forth with me about my being the kite, and her holding the string! We all need that down to Earth thing once in a while, and this shows it!

    Anyhow, sorry for the long post, but I really wanted to put into words what I think most people are considering with this!

    BTW, we all know how to do this, but it is like doing the dishes, you have to make yourself do it so that you are not eating off of paper plates for the rest of your life! I can’t even begin to tell you how many new dishes I have purchased in my life so that I did not have to wash the other ones!

    ~Emily

  15. Daveon 24 Mar 2007 at 12:32 am

    Hi,
    I am new to this game and my mind is full of different angles on which to take for success.
    This diagram is a good way to explain things if your brain is full like mine.
    I will use this each time i think of selling.
    However i now need to get everything else thst goes with this.
    Thankyou Socrates
    Dave

  16. Steveon 24 Mar 2007 at 4:19 am

    Socrates,

    Very basic put useful way of putting the concept. It does help to have graphics like you have made to explain what sometimes seems so simple but but is really deceptively complex. Entire ebooks can (and have) been written on each step of the “evaporating swimming pool” concept.

    This is a very good way of helping you to visualize and organize each of the steps you must take to monetize the traffic you get from the internet. Will be printing out and hanging on my office wall to help in my future IM endeavors.

    Thanks for the help and keep it coming. It is appreciated.

    Steve

  17. Keith Wardropon 24 Mar 2007 at 4:34 am

    Hi,

    No doubting what you say is true and I for one have reasons to look again at what I do with my site. However to continue your analogy I think you need to add the large concern with a bigger pipe who are extracting huge amounts of water upstream! (eg the guys who have more money to spend on adwords than me)
    Or not?

    Keith.

  18. Steve Galbraithon 24 Mar 2007 at 5:53 am

    Good Visual. A sucessful webstore business must have not only new customers to sustain itself, but repeat buyers are a must. The recirculation example is good. My web-designer and I are creating a cyber-mall of webstores, with several large “anchor” sites and multiple single page kiosk stores (niche products). Not only will each site be optimized for maximum google traffic they will all be interlinked. This cross traffic will drive up everyone’s sales. Integration is key for our mall to grow and the (JV) kiosk sites will bring in specific buyers. I am investigating the use of Ad-click programs to see if they are productive or a waste of money. Keep up the good job of helping us grow our business around sound internet selling techniques, sg

  19. Luis Antonioon 24 Mar 2007 at 6:24 am

    Good stuff!

    I HAVE BEEN in the Spa of a few netmarketers. But getting some water to my pool has been through costly mistakes in money and time.

    It’s kind of confusing for us part-timers in the e-biz.

    Net-Guru’s sometimes seem to be misleading.

    I am working with the English and Spanish speaking markets and building those pools have being time consuming.

    Working with sales letters, newsletters and follow-ups with the fierce competition present is a real challenge for a beginner.

    The same drop of water might be present at thousands of pools (physically impossible, but possible with your example) with similar offerings.

    An excellent and unlimited autoresponder is only the beginning.

    Thank you for your suggestions.

    Best web sites (ws),

    Luis Antonio

  20. Jasonon 24 Mar 2007 at 7:25 am

    Once again, Words Of Wisdom.

    Jason

    http://www.webmastersebiz.com

  21. Garyon 24 Mar 2007 at 8:54 am

    Hello Socrates,

    One of your earlier posters remarked that this is old hat and has been done before.

    This is all new stuff to me.

    I don’t care what has been published in the past. I never saw it.

    I don’t care that all the old stuff is now becoming new. I never saw them.

    It is a little like saying to a child learning to walk “Come on. People have been walking for thousands of years. It’s nothing new.”

    Do you think the child cares that people have been walking before him? Nah. He is just concerned with taking the first steps (with a helping hand guiding him over the obstacles so he doesn’t get hurt).

    Your blog is helping me to understand the concept and fundamentals of IM.

    So what if all the gurus out there reading this blog say “been there, done that” “seen it all before”. Well, I haven’t so it’s all new to me.

    Keep up the good work Socrates.

    Gary

  22. Markon 24 Mar 2007 at 11:14 am

    Hi Socrates,

    By “old” I don’t mean “not usable” I was just pointing out the funnel principle has been around for some time before the Internet. Perhaps I was misunderstood.

    I should thank you for bringing people’s attention back to

  23. Markon 24 Mar 2007 at 11:22 am

    Whoops! I hit the enter key and didn’t get to finish my comment (sorry).

    I did want to say thank you for bringing people’s attention back to the foundational truths of making any business online or off a success. If you can’t hold your customers you’ll spend a ton of money trying to always generate new customers.

    It costs more to get new customers than to market to your current list of buyers. It is true that the money is in the list.

  24. John-Paulon 24 Mar 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Thank you for your interesting mental picture of the ongoing need of developing one’s marketing program. While I’m a neophyte at internet marketing, I am grateful to you that I will develop my service business much faster through your suggestions. Your blogs also tell me that you’ve thought through your own products and that they are well worth purchasing.

  25. Frankon 25 Mar 2007 at 3:37 am

    Clear understandable comments that I find helpful to me as an recent starter in the world of online opportunity/s. I and still very much on the starting line in many ways but find your emails and comments emerging as really helpful to me. While I think I no doubt have other challenges ahead in getting my online business off the ground, I feel I am in good guiding hands with you. For this reason I will be staying tuned in waiting for your emails.

  26. Jefferyon 25 Mar 2007 at 5:52 am

    Having worked with water, I’d like to add an additional explanation. Spa water is heated, and the heat causes the water there to evaporate faster. So in your business model I guess that might mean that once someone buys that high end product, they may have little reason to return. It contributes to things drying up.

    – Jeffery

  27. Freda Plancichon 25 Mar 2007 at 11:18 am

    Yes, this is not a “new” concept but one you should learn and learn well. Another thing one should learn well is the actual cost of doing business anywhere–not just the internet.

    Keep up the good advice and thanks for jarring our memories along with the concepts that are new. Freda

  28. Nayanaon 29 Mar 2007 at 2:45 am

    Hi Socrates,

    Thank you for explaining these fundamentals in such a simple way.

  29. SunStar Digitalon 29 Mar 2007 at 11:46 am

    It’s just a given that overhead should be a part of marketing, and of course there are those who will slip through the cracks. Just be glad you have your business online, and you don’t have to worry about “Loss Inventory” ( no one to come in and steal your physical products! ), that’s of course if you have SSH secure shell on your server with a redundant server that almost NEVER goes down. I am happy to have bloober.com as my websource. Thank you Socrates!
    I think the pool theory is great! and the condensation, does fall (filter) back into the water, I have been actually get MORE water then loosing this month, and for that I am happy!

  30. Keeson 29 Mar 2007 at 2:13 pm

    Hello Socrates,

    I like the way you are telling your message in emails and on the web. It’s more personal and lively than what other people in this business come up with. Well done!

    Keep it up.

  31. SunStar Digitalon 01 Apr 2007 at 11:46 am

    Hi,
    I was looking at this again.
    I really like the graph. No, you may not be top notch in graphing, but I DO say you sure get the point across.! I think the last email “are you joking” was a little gruff. I am very serious about learning and joining the seminar.
    I hope to register today!

  32. Monicaon 02 Nov 2007 at 9:38 pm

    Great way of looking at how we should be doing business. I gave it a digg!! Thanks Socrates.

  33. Paulon 04 Feb 2008 at 7:02 am

    Nice visual aid. Many need a simplistic diagram to boil the funnel concept down to something they can easily grasp and implement.
    Again, great advice and information!

    Paul

  34. Sharon Fritzon 23 Sep 2008 at 6:45 pm

    Hi,
    Just starting out and am trying to sponge up everything I can. Thank you so much.
    Site not up yet.
    Sharon

  35. schoooleron 19 Jan 2009 at 3:34 pm

    Hi, i’m schoooler

    I’m new to the forum and just saying hello.

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