You have no traffic because you’re losing

You are one of two types of people: a) people who used to get a lot of traffic never had to think about it, b) people with a lot of content getting far less traffic than they should be.

For the never-had-traffic group, you’re climbing an ever-growing-in-size mountain too slowly to make it to the top with your current approach.

For the lost-traffic group, you had a vague idea you were doing the right things and that was that. You ignored it and didn’t notice it until you had fallen too far behind.

Traffic could be going down for years and it took some existential alarm going off like suddenly not making enough money to keep the lights on, or no more sponsors knocking on your door, or no ad revenue, or a shrinking email list resulting in flat launches.

We had an equipment rental client like this. At first glance, they were doing all the right things:

• They had the best customer service. They told me a story about how they had just dropped everything for a client and drove to Delaware to drop off a $100/day piece of equipment last minute.
• They would show you how to use the equipment before you took it out, even if it took them hours.
• They would meticulously double and triple check every item before sending it out, making sure no one would end up on set with a busted lens.

I spent a lot of time hacking at SQL data trying to figure out what happened.

Was the landscape changing? The cost of equipment coming down due to “disruption”? That people could by tech for $200 that just ten years ago would cost $20k? Maybe the tide was just turning.

Nope.

I mean, “sure,” that was part of it.

But it was more than that. Two new competitors were just… more competitive.

In the past one had been a partner with complimentary gear. They decided to add our client’s products to be a one-stop shop. The other would go around and demo the latest equipment at meetups, relevant departments, agencies, etc..

They were hustling up relationships, having conversations, understanding pain points (you know, because those can change over time), and simply getting people excited about what they could do with the latest and greatest products.

Let a noob play with a $200k piece of equipment and they’ll make it their mission to be a customer for life. But I digress.

The one thing our client prided themselves on, excellent customer service, was sucking them dry.

Meanwhile other shops were solving pain points more efficiently — shipping equipment overnight, letting customers do their own equipment checks, making it easy to order online, not taking valuable relationships for granted.

In summary? Their competitors were better than they were across multiple dimensions, but the client never considered that possibility, especially when it came to the one dimension they prided themselves on.

Your content is like this.

There are lots of dimensions that matter for earning, getting, and keeping traffic. But you’re just focused on one of them and rarely are you looking at it in the context everyone else is.