Christina: (00:01) You are listening to the Scaling of Freedom podcast, and if you are an online coach or course creator, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. I’m an ads agency owner that gets an inside look every day on what’s working and what doesn’t. In the online coaching space. I’m here to share with you what we see works in our agency as well as what we see happening and changing in the industry. Stay tuned to uplevel your coaching business to have the freedom you want. Let’s get started.

Christina: (00:29) Welcome to episode 177. In this episode, we are gonna be talking about when your ads are attracting the wrong leads. So I’m really excited about this episode because this is something I hear all the time about. What do I do if my ads are attracting the wrong leads? And it, there’s always this assumption that it’s the targeting, but it’s not always the targeting. And I wanted to address this because I do speak in other masterminds. I get asked to speak in other, like, types of groups and like group programs and things like that. And, um, even just being interviewed on podcasts, I get asked this question about targeting and, um, you know, a lot of people struggle with this and so I wanted to break this down because it’s not always targeting. Now targeting is important. Um, it, you know, we don’t wanna just be like reckless or like, you know, careless with our targeting.

Christina: (01:21) Um, we do want to be strategic with that and there are ways to do that. But I wanted to talk about the other parts of trying to attract the right leads with your ads. And, you know, obviously this is important because in order to get a return on our ads, we do need to attract the right people. We need to attract people who are, um, in the place that our ideal client is, but also people who are going to be interested in investing, in solving whatever problem it is that you solve. So I’m gonna go over five different things that have nothing to do with targeting. Um, and all of these play a role in how your, uh, the quality of your leads going through your funnel. So let’s go ahead and dive into the first one. So the first one is going to be unclear ad messaging.

Christina: (02:06) So with messaging the word, even the word messaging, I, I kind of even hate saying that word now because it’s just used so much, but it’s used because it, it really truly is so important. It’s not a cliche, like you really do need to nail down your messaging and it’s so, so important. And the probably the most, um, common thing that I see is that the messaging is just too general and we are trying to be a little bit too broad in trying to attract too many people. Even if you are niche down, you still want ad copy to be more, even more specific. So we want it to be very clear, and it’s very common for people to not be clear enough in who they’re talking to, especially whenever you are using just, just general copy like, uh, just common copy formulas and things that you would use to create ad copy it, it just follows this sort of pattern on, you know, introducing the problem and like how it’s gonna be solved and like things like that.

Christina: (03:08) And you’re not really being specific enough in who you’re talking to and calling out who you’re talking to. So we want to make sure that ad messaging is super, super clear, so that is going to attract the right people, right? So it’s not just the targeting. We have to make sure that the messaging in the ad is also very, very specific and super clear and not confusing at all. The second thing is that one thing I see is people underestimating the volume needed to actually sell programs online. So you also might just not be bringing in enough leads to optimize your sales process to have those conversions because, you know, I think this is underestimated a lot, you know, really commonly because to sell things online, it really is a numbers game and it is more difficult than, you know, meeting people in person or going through referrals and things like that.

Christina: (04:01) When you are putting ads out there to a cold audience and you’re trying to warm them up and convert them to, um, a sale, it’s actually, depending on a lot of variables, it’s actually harder than you think sometimes. And you do need that volume. So if you have an ads budget that is really, really low, this actually might be more of the problem. So if you feel like your ad messaging is really clear and your targeting is really good and you know your ideal client and you know that you are speaking to them with your offer and with all of your, like the entire journey that you have in your sales process, you, you are confident that you’re using the right messaging, the right language, um, that you are speaking to them and you understand where they’re at and you’re meeting them there, if you are confident in that, it really could just be a numbers game and that you just need more leads going through because if only a small percentage of your leads are actually purchasing, if you have a small amount of leads, it’s hard to get sales.

Christina: (05:03) So I sometimes it really, it just is the numbers game. So that’s the second thing. The third thing that I think also gets overlooked is not being polarizing in your ad messaging. So, and not just your ad messaging, I’m always referring to that because that’s what I do, but also with sales page copy, emails, things like that, all of that, we want to not only attract the right people, but we also want to repel the people that we don’t actually want. So if there’s a specific kind of person that tends to be attracted to your ad messaging, but um, or your advertising or your sales copy or whatever, they tend to be attracted to your offer, but there is something they do fall into a different category where your offer is not right for them, it’s okay and great actually to call that person out, um, and just say if, if this is you like this or who, who this is not for.

Christina: (05:57) So, um, if this is you, this is not for you. Um, calling those things out is going to be really, really helpful so that people understand, you know, where they fit in, like if this is for them or not. Um, so it’s really, really helpful to have that. Um, and you can also, you know, definitely have this on your sales page for sure, but there are also ways to put it into ad copy, even though that is a lot shorter form copy. But you can do this with a very simple, like sometimes just a small phrase or like a, a short sentence just to make sure people are very clear on who you’re talking to and who you’re not talking to. So make sure that you are also being polarizing in your ad messaging as well. The fourth thing is that your sales process might just need work.

Christina: (06:44) This is another thing that I think gets estimated as far as you know, what it actually takes to nurture people. Get people to trust you, you know, like you and know you, um, so that you can actually make that sale. Uh, it, it is a process and it does take time. So it’s not as simple as, uh, I see a lot of focus on, you know, just getting the tech together and getting the funnel up and designed and built and all those things. And they feel like once it’s all built and put together that it’s finished and ready to go and it is ready to go as far as now you can begin the process of figuring out this funnel, but that’s what you’re doing at that point. You are now collecting data so that you can optimize it. So we need it to be optimized.

Christina: (07:28) You never know how it’s going to perform. Even if you know your ideal client really, really well and you’ve been doing this for a long time, you never know how people are going to respond to all of the messaging until you start putting people through it. So your sales process will take time to dial it in and make it really good at nurturing those people and getting them to the point of actually investing with you. So the sales process very well just might need work and just might need more time. Um, it might not be actually a lead quality issue. Now there are ways to find out, you know, if it is your sales process or if it’s lead quality. And so I would have some, you know, criteria that you can go through. And if you are getting lots of leads and it’s not your volume, um, then you can go through that criteria of people and figure out, you know, why, what is it about these leads that are making them not as quality?

Christina: (08:21) And maybe you can address that in your ad messaging with that polarizing copy that I was talking about. Um, and the best way to do this probably is through sales calls. Because sales calls actually, I said probably, I don’t mean probably this is probably the best way to figure out this lead quality and why there are not the right people. And with sales calls you can actually, you know, have conversations with them or if you have a sales team, have them have conversations and report back to you as far as you know, what it is. Like where are these people at and what are the objections and why are they not the right fit? Are they completely lost and think that the offer was something totally different? Are they, uh, you know, do they fall into that category of people that are almost right for the offer?

Christina: (09:06) But there’s this one thing that makes them not right, you know, is that, uh, something that we can address in our copy and things like that to make sure that those people don’t even make it through the funnel. Um, you know, what are things that we can do to figure out how to repel those people and then also attract the right people. Um, and then also address these objections before they ever get on a call too. That can be really helpful as well. So it could just mean that your sales process needs work. The last thing that I’m gonna touch on is, um, one that’s not as fun for people to hear, but it could very well be your offer. Now your offer isn’t just your, the content in your program and I have another podcast episode about this and I highly, highly recommend you listen to that episode.

Christina: (09:50) Um, it is, I’m not sure, I don’t know what episode number it is, but um, I go over five ways to make your offer more valuable. So I had to look it up, but that’s the episode. Um, it was actually from October. So this is episode, let me see, 158. So episode 158, I go over the different ways that you can make your offer more valuable. And the reason I think that you should listen to this episode isn’t necessarily to try and make your offer more valuable, although that could work. Um, but also I go over the different things that have to do with your offer, the different things that create your offer. It’s not just the content in your course, it’s also the container that it’s in. It is how you are selling it, how you’re presenting it. It is the things that, um, are included with it.

Christina: (10:40) You know, whether they’re calls or what kind of calls they are, how often they are, like all of these different variables make up your offer, whether you have payment plans, like, oh, you know, all these other things, um, bonuses, all that. So you know, there are different ways that you can shift around your offer to make it more, um, uh, more appealing to people and also just the right offer for people. So if you are getting the right people in, but the offer just isn’t right, they’re obviously not going to purchase. So there’s that one, that episode 1 58, and then there’s also the episode of, um, uh, is your offer Not selling? How to find out why That’s also a really good one to go check out. That’s episode 170. That’s fairly recent. A couple months ago I did that episode. Um, and it’s all about market research and how to figure out what it is about your offer or you know, um, what it is you’re, what it is that you do.

Christina: (11:30) And so that’s going to figure out what you would need to change. That way you’re not throwing spaghetti at the walls and just trying to figure out, you know, um, just like blindly trying to figure out what to change. And that can be a really long process. Um, but you really shorten that timeframe whenever you are having these conversations with people and figuring out exactly what it is that they want and how you can craft your offer to match that. Um, it is such a beautiful place whenever you are able to create your offer and, uh, change it up to exactly what um, people want. And then selling, once you have that volume going through and your sales processes is optimized, it becomes a lot easier at that point, really easy. And then you can start to optimize and just kinda like build on top of everything that you’ve built.

Christina: (12:18) So, and then from there you’re just doing little tweaks. So that is what I have for you today. So these are the five different things that have nothing to do with targeting about your lead quality. So the first one is unclear ad messaging. So we make sure that that is dialed in. The second thing is underestimating the volume that you actually need to sell your programs. You do it, it is a number scam. You do need a lot of people going through that funnel. Um, third one is being polarizing or not being polarizing rather, um, and your ad messaging so that we want to make sure we are repelling the people that we don’t want. So those leads that are coming through that are low quality, we won’t even have to have them in there if we can just address a couple of things sometimes.

Christina: (12:57) Um, the fourth thing is, uh, the sales process might just need work and you might just be wanting more sales too soon. Um, and then the last one is that it could be your offer itself. So, um, that is what I have for you today. I hope that you found this helpful and you’ve gone through each of these different sections to see if this is something that you can tweak and change. Because sometimes it really is just this tiny little tweak and things just start kicking off and that momentum starts to build. It really does work that way. You just have to figure out which dial it is that you need to turn. So that is what I have for you today. I will see you guys. Thank you for listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact, see if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our agency@christinabernhard.com/apply. Find the link in our show notes.