The Growth Show with Whitney Bateson

We made it to the final episode of the funnel series! Over the past five episodes we've covered what a lead gen funnel is, the four parts of a productive one, how to nail your lead magnet and welcome sequence, and how to measure whether it's all working. This episode tackles the missing piece: traffic. Whitney breaks down the difference between organic and paid traffic, then walks through every major way to get the right people in front of your opt-in page, including your own website and channels, content marketing, direct sharing, other people's audiences, and Meta ads starting at just $5 a day. The big takeaway? You don't need a huge audience. You need a small, steady stream of the right people coming in from multiple places, and it compounds from there.Takeaways:A funnel without traffic does nothing on its own. People won't stumble across it, so you need to intentionally put it everywhere your ideal clients are already looking. Start with the set-it-and-forget-it placements: your homepage, services page, blog, footer, email signature, and every social bio. Your lead magnet should be impossible to miss. Other people's audiences are the fastest way to grow your own. Podcast appearances, guest talks, freebie swaps, online communities, and referral partnerships transfer built-in trust to you. Organic traffic builds slowly but compounds and keeps working after you stop. Paid traffic is fast and scalable but stops the moment you stop spending. The ideal setup runs both together. Meta lead gen ads at $5 a day are enough to bring in real subscribers and real data, so you can see what's working in weeks instead of months.Resources Mentioned:The Lead Gen Funnel Blueprint (free): whitneybateson.com/funnelblueprint Done-For-You Funnel Service: whitneybateson.com/dfyfunnel Free Live Open House & Coaching Call (Thursday, June 18 at 12pm ET): whitneybateson.com/funnelopenhouse Search past podcast episodes: https://offers.whitneybateson.com/funnel-podcast-series/ Charlotte's past episode on authentic LinkedIn outreach: https://whitneybateson.com/ep-84-unlocking-high-ticket-clients-on-linkedin-with-charlotte-ellis-maldari/ Ads Series, Episode 1: https://whitneybateson.com/ep-113-why-practitioners-are-ditching-the-daily-post-for-automated-leads-with-priscilla-zaehringer/ Connect with Whitney:Follow Whitney on Instagram @whitneybatesonSubscribe & Review:If you’re enjoying the podcast, don’t forget to follow and leave a review! Your support helps others discover  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever looked at your funnel and decided it's "not working," this episode is the gut check. Whitney has had practitioners tell her their funnel is broken, and almost every time she digs in, it turns out one small piece needs a tweak, not the whole thing scrapped. In this episode she walks through the five numbers worth tracking, split into the leading indicators you can actually change this week (new subscribers, open rate, click rate) and the lagging ones that move slowly over months (calls booked, new clients). Then she goes leak by leak through the five most common places a funnel springs a hole, from nobody opting in, to people opening but not clicking, to subscribers who love your emails but still aren't booking. The big reframe: a funnel is a system with measurable parts, not a magic button and not a mystery, so you never have to just guess again. And before you change anything, give it at least 50 people, because judging a funnel off 10 opt-ins is reacting to noise, not a trend.Takeaways:Give your funnel at least 50 people before you judge it. Most practitioners call it quits after 10 or 15 opt-ins, which is reacting to noise, not a real trend. Track 5 numbers in two tiers. Leading indicators you can change now (new subscribers, open rate, click rate), and lagging ones that move slowly (discovery calls booked, new clients). Know the healthy benchmarks: open rate around 30 to 45%, click rate around 2 to 5%, and a lead magnet opt-in page converting 5 to 15% (lower for cold ad traffic). But your most important benchmark is your own numbers over time. An open rate problem is almost always a subject line problem, and a click problem is almost always a body copy problem (an unclear call to action or a wall of text). Fix the cheap stuff before you rebuild anything. If people open, click, and stick around but still aren't booking, that's the good kind of leak. The funnel works, they just need more time, so keep emailing after the welcome sequence ends. That's where a lot of the conversions actually happen.Resources Mentioned:The Done For You Funnel. We build your entire lead gen funnel for you (lead magnet, opt-in page, full welcome sequence, all the tech setup, plus a live Facebook and Instagram ad campaign driving traffic to it) in under a month. Intro price is $1,297 for the first six builds, and it goes up once those are gone. Grab a spot or book a quick call with Whitney first at whitneybateson.com/dfyfunnel Free Funnel Open House. A live call on Thursday, June 18th at 12pm Eastern where Whitney walks through what the done-for-you funnels actually look like, answers questions about the service, and opens the floor for general funnel questions too. Look at your own numbers after this episode and bring whatever you're stuck on. Register at whitneybateson.com/funnelopenhouse (a recording goes out to everyone who registers)Connect with Whitney:Follow Whitney on Instagram @whitneybatesonSubscribe & Review:If you’re enjoying the podcast, don’t forget to follow and leave a review! Your support helps others discover the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You got the freebie up, people are downloading it, and then... crickets. In this episode, Whitney tackles the part of the funnel that quietly loses the most clients: what happens (or doesn't) right after someone opts in. She explains why the moment someone downloads your resource is the warmest they will ever be, and how a simple five-email welcome sequence can compress what used to take six months of someone occasionally bumping into your content down to about two weeks. She walks through all five emails one by one, the delivery email, your story, a value email, a natural intro to your offer, and a client story, including what each one should say, the job it's doing, and how far apart to space them. There's also a candid moment about the time her own welcome sequence ballooned to thirteen emails and never got finished, because done really is better than perfect. If you've ever wondered why your subscribers aren't booking calls, this is the fix.Takeaways:The warmest moment in the whole relationship is right after someone downloads your freebie. Go silent there and that's exactly where the funnel leaks. A welcome sequence and a sales sequence are two different things. The welcome sequence warms people up and plants the seed. It does not hard-sell. Five emails over about two weeks is plenty: delivery and welcome, your story and why, a pure value email, a natural offer intro, and a client story with a soft invite. Trigger email one immediately and email two the next day, while attention is highest. Space the rest a few days apart, and skip weekends. Done is better than perfect. A short sequence that's actually running beats a long one that never launches.Resources Mentioned:The Done For You Funnel — we build your entire lead gen funnel (lead magnet, pages, full welcome sequence, tech setup, plus a Facebook and Instagram ad campaign) in under a month. Intro price $1,297, six spots. Grab a spot or book a free 20-minute call at whitneybateson.com/dfyfunnel Lead Gen Funnel Blueprint for Health Practitioners — whitneybateson.com/funnelblueprintConnect with Whitney:Follow Whitney on Instagram @whitneybatesonSubscribe & Review:If you’re enjoying the podcast, don’t forget to follow and leave a review! Your support helps others discover the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If your funnel feels like it's almost working but new subscribers aren't actually booking calls, this episode is the one to listen to. Whitney digs into the lead magnet itself, the open door at the front of your funnel, and explains why most freebies fail at the one job that actually matters: leaving someone in the exact mental state where working with you feels like the obvious next step. She walks through a real example with a hormone health dietitian, showing the difference between a freebie that just satisfies curiosity ("5 foods to boost your energy") and ones that genuinely create appetite for the offer. You'll learn the test every freebie needs to pass, the three ways a lead magnet can quietly fail, and the gut-check questions to ask about your own resource. If you've been wondering why your subscribers aren't converting into clients, this is your answer.Grab the Lead Generation Funnel Blueprint for Practitioners: whitneybateson.com/funnelblueprintTakeaways:Topic alignment is the bare minimum. Your freebie needs to create a specific mental state, not just match your offer's topic. A great freebie answers one question and creates the next one your offer is positioned to answer. Surface-level freebies (like "5 foods to boost energy") attract too broad an audience and rarely lead anywhere specific. Self-assessments and insight-driven resources work because they help the reader connect dots they couldn't connect on their own. The final page of your lead magnet should always point to the next step: your offer or a discovery call.Connect with Whitney:Follow Whitney on Instagram @whitneybatesonSubscribe & Review:If you’re enjoying the podcast, don’t forget to follow and leave a review! Your support helps others discover the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Part two of the funnel series, Whitney is breaking down the actual mechanics of a lead generation funnel so you can see how every piece fits together. She walks through the full path a new lead takes (from finding your free resource to eventually booking a discovery call) and explains why this whole system can be about two weeks of automated emails doing the heavy lifting for you. You'll hear the four core components every funnel needs, plus the supporting pieces (like your services page, booking tool, and ongoing email nurture) that keep the whole thing working long after someone joins your list. Whitney also shares one optimization most practitioners miss: the confirmation page after someone opts in. If you've ever felt like marketing your practice means being "on" all the time, this episode will show you a calmer, more sustainable way to bring clients in.Grab the Lead Generation Funnel Blueprint for Practitioners: whitneybateson.com/funnelblueprintTakeaways:A lead gen funnel's job isn't to make an immediate sale, it's to get the right people onto your email list and warm them up over time The four core components are the opt-in location, the lead magnet itself, the delivery email, and a welcome email series Your confirmation/thank you page is a missed opportunity if all it says is "success" — use it to point new subscribers to a call, blog post, or podcast episode while trust is highest Run both an organic funnel (on your website) and a paid funnel (with Meta's native lead form) — they serve different traffic sources and work together Don't go silent after the two-week welcome series — keep showing up in inboxes with a mix of valuable content and clear invitations to work with youConnect with Whitney:Follow Whitney on Instagram @whitneybatesonSubscribe & Review:If you’re enjoying the podcast, don’t forget to follow and leave a review! Your support helps others discover the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.