[Case Study] The 5-Day Challenge That Generated $22,331
"Can you really make money with 5 day challenges?"
I get asked this all the time when people hear how much I love to run 5-Day challenges.
So today, I decided to share a case study behind my $22,331 challenge.
5 Day Challenges can be insanely profitable - but they do take a couple of weeks to get up and running.
In order to start REALLY making money from my 5-day challenges, I had to develop a complete challenge system.
Seriously.
Not one of those "5-steps to make a million dollars systems."
Like a complete system with flowcharts, templates, budget, and all that stuff.
Now I realize that so many people run (or want to run) 5-day challenges but the face major challenges.
"How do I get people to sign up for the challenge?"
"How do I get FREE challenge participants to become paid customers?"
"What do I even talk about during my challenge?"
These are all great questions, so let's dive into it...
Part 1 - Build It
I spent about 4 days building out the content for the challenge which included:
Emails for the Challengers
Livestreaming Content for the Challengers
Sign Up/Thank You Pages
Facebook Group (Already Built)
Promotional Creative and Copy (For Ads/Social Media)
Building out the challenge was the "most intensive" part of the challenge - but I just locked myself in Starbucks for about 6 hours on Saturday and busted out the emails and content.
The program I was promoting was my Rock Your Live Streams course - which sold for $197 at the time, with the price rising to its new price of $297 at the end of the challenge.
The key to making this challenge successful was to highlight two main things:
A Clear and Measurable Outcome for the Challenge
Building A "Gap" that your Program Can Fill
Measureable Outcome
Many 5-Day challenges are for vague, instead of having an actual measurement for success.
People want to know EXACTLY what they can expect from your challenges - and having a clear outcome for your challenge is critical.
For this challenge, our outcome was "Generate Your Next 20 Leads & Your First (or Next) Sale on Periscope... in 5 Days!"
By creating a clear expectation - we're able to get more people excited and signed up.
Creating a "Gap"
The "Gap" is what separates your clients from where they are now, to where they would like to be.
Essentially - you want to create the need for your offering during the challenge.
In our challenge, we created the need by showing people what's possible with a few tips on Periscope and just a week together.
If they could generate a sale in just 5 days - what could they do if they committed to our entire system?
Creating this line of thought created the need for our program and improved our sales.
The Basic Structure
The basic structure of our challenge was to each day send an email with some tips and a quick assignment.
Then at some point during the day we would do a livestream training.
We also filtered people into a Facebook Group for more engagement.
The structure is pretty standard - but I just wanted to outline it for full understanding.
Part 2 - Fill It
Filling up a challenge is the biggest struggle for most. For this challenge we leveraged 3 core channels to generate sign ups.
Facebook Ads
Email Marketing
Organic Marketing
Let's dive a little deeper into each of these...
Facebook Ads
Let's start with Facebook ads because they are my PERSONAL favorite way to drive sign ups.
Now for the sake of 100% full transparency, we only ran ads to our warm market for this challenge, but even if you don't have a warm market you can promote your challenge with Facebook Ads.
The reason I share that is because I want to share the results of our ads with you, but the cost for each lead is VERY low, because we targeted people familiar with Heart, Soul & Hustle.
In order to fill the challenge we spent $225 on ads, and generated 568 sign ups.
The challenge in total had 1292 participants - so not ALL our sign-ups came from ads, which we'll get to in just a second.
But before we jump into the other promotional tools used in this challenge, let me show you the ad that we ran to get people to sign up.
A few things to note about the challenge ad:
We highlighted the start date as MONDAY so people were excited to start the following week
We made sure to highlight our core outcome of 20 leads and your first sale
We made sure to include branding for my warm audience (picture of me, brand colors, etc).
We linked to the challenge in the text, and in the actual ad image
I like to run ads that are super simple, because they work...
Don't kill yourself trying to create amazing ads - write effectively simple ads and watch the magic happen.
Email Marketing
Regardless of the size of your list, email marketing is important.
I like to keep my email marketing really simple - three emails and done!
Email #1 - I sent an invitation to my entire list letting them know what they can expect if they join the challenge.
Email #2 - A couple days later I send a second email to people that didn't open the first email I sent inviting them to the challenge from a different angle - the first email appeals to facts, but this email appeals to emotion.
Email #3 - The last email is simply to remind them that the challenge starts tomorrow if they are not already registered.
Those emails brought in an extra 300-400 signs ups for this challenge.
Organic Marketing
Never neglect the power of posting on social media.
I also don't like to go nuts with organic promotion either.
For this challenge, I posted in a few places that I had a social following including my Facebook group.
The organic marketing has a lot of power behind it because I invited new challengers to share with a friend and share on Facebook.
This organic marketing and sharing lead to a direct increase in the number of challengers.
Seriously... don't skip this one - no matter how "new" you are or how "small" your following is.
Part 3 - Sell It
After providing 5-days of strategic content that has created a "gap" in the minds of our customers, it's time to jump into sales - my favorite!
Our sales strategy is broken up into several pieces - and we make sure to hit the
By creating the gap during our challenge - and making sure to hit the 5 triggers for a successful 5-figure challenge - we simply have to make sure that we clearly present the offer and make sure that our potential customers are seeing it in multiple places.
Our sales strategy contains 3 core pieces:
Strategic Email Follow Up
Facebook Retargeting Ads
Livestreaming
Each of these pieces can add additional sales to your bottom line, but when used together, you get an extra push for sales.
Strategic Email Follow Up
I consider my 5-Day Challenges mini launches - and as such I include a very strategic email follow up series in my offer.
This consists of 6 emails we send after the challenge ends over the course of 2.5 days.
The emails are designed to do a few different things.
Throughout the follow-up sequence you want to:
Recap the challenge and the reason to buy the program now, discounts, bonuses etc.
Overcome core objections that people have that would prevent them from purchasing your offer
Share results that other students have gotten in the course in the form of a case study or testimonials
Remind them of the deadline to get the bonuses or discounts you offer.
For this challenge we were selling the course for $197 and after our promotional period we increased the price to $297.
There needs to be a reason to "buy now" whether it's a price break, a cart close, or additional bonuses.
Note: Any of these reasons to buy now will work. We've seen results from each type.
Facebook Retargeting Ads
After people completed the challenge they often visit the sales page for the offer, but not everyone that visits the sales page takes us up on our offer.
If someone has visited our sales page, we KNOW that they are interested in what we are selling - but the didn't pull the trigger.
With Facebook Ads we can follow them around the internet until they ARE ready to buy.
This was a challenge we ran that didn't see a HUGE return on retargeting ads - but we did generate 3 additional sales with a $75 spend.
That means we made about 9x what we spent on retargeting - it was worth the 15 minute set up to bring an additional $600 in sales.
We also ran ads to drive people to the challenge replay page which I set up with replays of each day of content which ultimately create more sales as well.
Livestreaming
On day 5 of the challenge I spent about 1 hour on Periscope selling my offer live.
Being able to offer the course on a live platform created a unique opportunity to overcome objections and share the experience that comes with being a customer.
During the livestream on the final day of the challenge we generated $5,000 in sales in an hour (and 2 minutes).
That's the power of livestreaming with the challenge - it creates a much faster know, like, and trust factor.
I did a few more livestreams on Periscope through the weekend which each brought in between $600-$1000 each time I went live.
The Results
Now before I wrap this up I wanted to share some of the results of the 5-Day challenge we ran!
Total Challenge Sign Ups - 1292
Leveraging Facebook Ads, Email Marketing, and Organic Marketing we had a total of 1292 people sign up for the challenge.
We leave enrollment open during the challenge, and about 150 of those signed up DURING the challenge itself.
Total Facebook Ad Spend - $434.23
The total Facebook Ad budget includes the cost of opt-in ads, retargeting ads, and ads that we ran during the challenge to promote the content.
Total Program Sales ($197) - 104 (8% Conversion from Sign Ups)
The challenge generated 104 new students inside of the Rock Your Live Streams program. So our base revenue generated was $20,488.
Total Upsell Sales ($97) - 19 (18.2% of buyers got the upsell)
For the Rock Your Live Streams program we offered a $97 upsell which 18% of buyers opted to add to their purchase.
Upsells could be an entire post themselves, but we essentially sold a template kit for Periscope to YouTube.
Total Sales - $22,331
So there you have it a $22,331 5-Day challenge that too a few days to set up, a week to execute, and was incredibly profitable!
If you want to learn more about challenges, make sure to click the image below and check out The 5-Figure Challenge. Doors are closing soon!
