The online marketing genius and the co-founder of ClickFunnels, Russell Brunson, says that the “holy grail of online marketing” is the ability to communicate to cold traffic and still able to crush it in terms of conversions and sales. Put another way, he says that effectively reaching and converting a cold audience is the secret to a seven-, eight-, or even nine-figure business.

I talked about the importance of pre-framing before, which refers to people’s attitude or mindset toward you, your business, and the problem you’re solving before you ask for the sales. Pre-framing is highly effective at converting cold traffic.

In case you don’t already know, traffic is anyone who visits your site. When you have a bunch of people hitting your website, you have a lot of traffic.

This brings up a few questions: What does “cold traffic” means? Does traffic come in different temperatures? And how does any of this benefit my business?

Well read until the end, I will show you the example of how Marvel has successfully applied this tactic and generated billions of dollars in sales.

The 3 Temperature Levels Of Traffic

There are 3 levels of traffic that come to your website: hot, warm, and cold. Each group needs a special treatment and individualized communication message.

Traffic temperature is the attitude or mindset that the audience you’re reaching out to has regarding your product. This quote from legendary marketer and copywriter Gene Schwartz will help you further understand traffic temperature and why it’s so invaluable to know:

“If your prospect is aware of your product and has realized it can satisfy his desire, the headline starts with the product.

If he’s not aware of your product, but only of the desire itself, your headline starts with the desire.

If he is not yet aware of what he really seeks, but is concerned with the general problem, your headline starts with the problem and crystallizes it into a specific need.”

In other words, in order to know how to communicate to your audience, it’s important to determine their temperature beforehand. Below, you’ll read a description of each type of audience—and more importantly, how to communicate with each of them.

Hot Traffic

Product, Problem, and Desire Awareness

Hot traffic knows exactly who you are, what you’re selling, and why they need it. They’ve likely been on your email list for some time, and they read everything you send.

They’re your biggest fans because you provide immense value to them. You likely talk to them casually—as if they’re a close friend. And this rapport means that when you’re ready to sell them something, they’ll jump on it faster than a Titanic passenger on a lifeboat.

In short, when your traffic is hot, you’re golden. Think of those Apple raving fans who would buy anything Apple releases to the market.

How to Communicate with Hot Traffic

The cool part about hot traffic is that you do not really have to convince them to buy. Even a simple email—or a so-called “nine-word email” with a text link will suffice. They already want what you have, so you just simply have to ask for the sales and offer some kind of incentives (discount or extra bonuses) for them to take action now.

Warm Traffic

Problem and Desire Awareness

These are people who are aware of the problem they have and the desire to do something about it. Warm traffic makes things just a little trickier because although they’re ready to pay, but they don’t really know who you are or what you offer.

How to Communicate with Warm Traffic

With warm traffic, you’ll have to educate people who you are, why they should trust you, and how your product will solve their problem. If you can successfully communicate that then people will hand you their money.

A great strategy to communicate to warm traffic is to leverage the authority of someone they know to help lend credibility to your product. Russell calls these excerpts “lift letters.” Essentially, you let someone else be a promoter for the product or service.

For example, a company like Whole Foods might partner with Instacart for grocery delivery. If Whole Foods wants everyone to check out Instacart, they might warm up the traffic by saying something like:

“Hello Whole Foods shopper! Whole Foods is starting an exclusive partnership with Instacard, the premier grocery delivery service. Using their services, you can get your groceries brought to your front door with one click.”

…or something like that.

If Whole Foods email recipients like the sound of groceries delivered, they suddenly have gone from warm to hot traffic for Instacart. This is where joint ventures (JVs) can be so invaluable at helping you warm up your leads and grow your customer base.

In my opinion, this is the essence of pre-framing. You’re getting people hyped about something new and different. And since it’s coming from someone they know, they’re likely to trust it—and like it. That’s why it’s such a big deal for authors who can say that Oprah recommends their books, or when Spotify recommends a new artist to listeners who might like it.

Cold Traffic

Problem Awareness

Cold traffic is the hardest to communicate with and convert. They know that they have a problem, however they don’t necessarily have a strong desire to do something about it. So, they most likely don’t even aware of possible solutions. You will not only have to educate them about your solution to solve their problem, but you also have to create the DESIRE for them to take action as well.

For that reason, it is way harder to convert this type of traffic on your site. They have no idea who you are—and therefore do not trust you. They usually just stumbled across one of your blog posts or your Instagram page. Or perhaps they were brought in by paid advertising. In that case, it is absolutely essential that you know how to make them convert.

How To Communicate To Cold Traffic

This is where pre-framing turns from a “good idea” into an absolute necessity. You must provide a crystal clear picture for the customer: everything from the jargon you use, how the product solves their problems, why it is a necessity for them to solve those problems now, to what they get when they buy your product.

How Marvel Applies This In Their Business

Just look at Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel warms up their cold audience through a series of movies to introduce the main characters before they release the first Avenger movie.

Then in the first Avenger movie, you saw glimpses into how the team was assembled. You began to understand the relationship between Thor and Loki and their father. And you might even have seen the beginnings of a romance between Hulk and Black Widow. Then the conflicts between Captain America and Ironman.

When Avengers: Endgame came out, you were already hyped. You know the backstory. You understand what’s at stake. You’re looking forward to an action-packed movie filled with Loki one-liners, Stan Lee cameos, and Ironman beat-downs. You’re now considered as extremely hot traffic for Marvel.

The result speaks for itself, Avengers: Endgame tops Avatar to be highest grossing film of all time. More importantly, you’re probably hooked on the whole franchise—and eager to watch the next Thor, Spiderman, or Doctor Strange.

Hopefully you can now see and understand the flow of turning cold traffic into warm and then hot traffic through that example. You have to inform your prospects fully, so that when you do present your product or service to them they know everything about it and ready to take your desired action!

In Summary

If you want to increase sales and profit for your business, you must understand how to communicate to the 3 different levels of traffic temperature. As mentioned, each traffic temperature requires a different marketing message.

The goal is to turn cold and warm traffic into hot traffic through pre-framing. You have to educate them about your solution to their problem and build the desire for them to take action. At the same time, build up trust and credibility for you and your business.

Want To Boost Website Traffic And Sales?

If you would like to learn more about generating website traffic and increasing sales for your business then there is a game-changing book that just came out that you NEED to read… (and since you can get it for FREE, why not…right?)

Russell Brunson recently launched his newest book called “Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook For Filling Your Website and Funnels With Your Dream Customers…”

Everything I just explained in this blog post was learned directly from Traffic Secrets. So if you found the 3 temperature levels of traffic is useful, then I can’t wait for you to learn all 20 traffic secrets in the book…

The best part is? Russell is actually PAYING for your copy of the book…for a very limited time, I’m sure. All you’ll cover is shipping.

>> Here’s where you can get a free copy <<