Episode #033: The 90-Day Automated Sales Plan
The 90-Day Automated Sales Plan
If you've ever wanted to automate more sales of your offers - this episode is for you!
When you listen you're going to learn...
-> My 3 Stage Automation Process
-> How to start growing your list on autopilot with ads
-> The importance of simple email automation
-> How to grow your social media without posting 24/7
-> And more...
Tune in and be sure to let us know what you think of the show!
Links Mentioned on the Show From Zach:
Full Transcript:
This is Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, episode number 33. And in this episode, we're talking about how to automate more core sales in your business in 90 days or less. So let's get into it.
Hey, Hey, Hey, not so average marketer, welcome to another episode of the podcast. Now I'm really excited for this week's episode per usual, but that's because we're going to talk about something that I've been developing and working on over the last several months with students inside of our membership. And we've been getting some really good results from our members. And that is how we set up an automation flow, for core sales of a low ticket offer or a higher ticket offer over the course of 90 days.
So just to kind of set the stage, what we do is we set up automations through Facebook advertising, through automations in our email sequence, through automation and setting up sales pages so that people who join your email list through advertising get an offer for a course.
So we're basically setting it up so that everybody who joins your email list, which we're automatically growing through Facebook ads, is going to get an offer over time automatically.
So before we dive into how to bring this plan to life, I want to let you know that on June 7th, I am hosting a workshop called The Membership Workshop. Now, for those of you who don't know, we run a really profitable membership, Not Your Average Membership, which will also link up the details for that in the show notes. But we're going to be hosting a training where we walk you through how to plan, launch, and scale your online membership site.
And I'm really excited about this because it's going to be a really great workshop. It's going to be about two to two-and-a-half hours long. And when you join the workshop, you're going to learn how to map out a membership offer, how to pre-launch your membership, how to get those first members in the door, how to leverage Facebook and Instagram ads to sell more memberships, our content planning system that we use, and even how to get your members excited enough to share and refer people into your membership.
Now, the price for the workshop is just $37, and you're going to get to see behind the scenes of launches of our existing membership site, you're going to actually spend time during the workshop working on your membership plan, and you're really going to have a clear plan of attack to bring your own membership site to life if you decide that's something you want to do.
So if you want to join us on June 7th, you can head over to heartsoulhustle.com/membership. Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/membership and snag seat for this workshop.
So let's talk about how I look at the 90 Day Automation Flow, and that's how I'm going to reference that throughout this episode is, "The 90 Day Automation Flow." So I like to break it down into three stages the first 30 days, the second 30 days, and the third 30 days. So let's just take it one stage at a time and talk about how you start to automate your course sales.
So the first thing that you're going to do is create a really great freebie. Now, we have an entire episode of the podcast, episode number 19, that talks about how to create a really irresistible freebie, but I want to touch on a couple things here; and that is that you want to create a freebie that does two really big things. The first thing is that it solves a problem. And the second thing is that the problem it solves is directly related to an offer you want to make.
So just to be really specific, let's say that you are teaching people how to write an email funnel. If your freebie is around Instagram, there's not a logical next step there, you don't go, "Oh, well, if I'm using Instagram, then I definitely need a funnel." You want to make sure that there is a subsequent flow for everybody who joins your freebie, and then you really want to make sure that it solves a specific problem.
So again, if we use that same ideology or that same example, if you're going to do a funnel, your freebie should be like how to fix your funnel, how to create your first funnel. It needs to be something very, very specific. We find that when we go super broad with freebees, they don't work, but when we get really specific with freebees, they work really, really well.
So that's your first step is to create a freebie that solves a specific problem and is sequential to the offer you're going to make. Now, if you're not sure what you're going to offer yet, that's okay. We're going to talk about that a little bit in stage three, and you can start with a freebie that's really niche specific, but you may not know what you're going to offer until you grow your email list.
Now the second step in stage one is to start testing out Facebook lead ads. I have a whole episode about this as well, episode number 25, on list growth. And what I want you to understand is that we recommend Facebook lead ads. And Facebook lead ads are where people put their name and email into your form on Facebook, not on your website. And there's a huge number of benefits to this. But what we recommend is that in our testing period, you spend $100 to $150 over the course of five to seven days, and your goal is to generate 50 to 100 leads. So that's like $2 to $3 a lead is where you want to be with your freebie.
Now, that is a big generalization, you might pay a little more, or you might pay a little less, but just understand that you want to go through a testing period and get that initial 50 to 100 people onto your email list with lead ads.
Once you've kind of tested and you figured out what lead ads are going to work really well, what I then recommend is that you find your most successful ads and you spend about $10 to $15 a day, just running ads to your email list. In the first 30 days, all you're doing is growing the list and your goal is to hit about 300 leads over the course of 30 days. That might sound daunting, but think about this, if you get 50 to 100 leads in your first five to seven days, then you really only need to generate 10 leads a day to hit that 300 goal, even a little less than that, like seven leads a day.
And I tell you that because a lot of times we think that list growth has to be this like quick instantaneous, "How do I do it right now, and get more people on my list as fast as possible?" And it's okay to just have a slow burn. It's okay to just be growing the list consistently.
So that is stage one. And the point of stage one is simply for you to start growing your email list and get your first 300 leads in to your CRM, your autoresponder, your ConvertKit your MailChimp, whichever one you're using. So at the end of the first stage, you've got a freebie, you've got Facebook ads running, and you've got a email list of 200 to 300 people.
Into the second stage, what I do is I create my onboarding sequence. The onboarding sequence is a series of emails that's going to go out to my audience and tell them, "Hey, here's what to expect from us, and here is an offer." If you already have an offer, whether it be low ticket, mid-ticket, even like an automated webinar, you can put that into your onboarding sequence. And I have a whole episode on writing an onboard sequence, episode number 12, we'll link all of these episodes I'm referencing up in the show notes. But basically what I say is write a series of five emails that goes out to all new subscribers.
And what I do with that sequence is first I send them their freebie, so that's my first email, send their freebie. My second email is a value-based email. I might send them to a podcast or a blog. The third email is a soft pitch for either an offer, or if I have an automated funnel, like an automated webinar already, I may send them there. My fourth email is another value email where I send them to a blog or a piece of content. And then my fifth email is a hard pitch for my offer.
My personal favorite way to do this is to pitch a low ticket offer in this sequence, whether that be a membership, a $37 product, a MasterClass recording, you have. I like to promote a low ticket product. That works really well for me. If that doesn't resonate with you or you're like, "I just want to get people on the phone," you can do that too. And we have a really awesome member in our membership, her name is Danielle, and shout out to Danielle if you're listening, she actually used this process and started booking one-on-one sales calls, and she was able to get her first clients from Facebook ads, and that was pretty cool; not her first clients ever, but her first clients using advertising. And I do want to point that out, she had a really profitable business before that. But she was able to tap into this and start automating the process. So that's stage two onboarding sequence.
The second part of stage three is that I want to start what I call a social engagement strategy. The social engagement strategy is basically retargeting with advertising all of the people who have signed up to my email list to get them to follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram, depending on where my audience hangs out.
So what I do is everybody who joins my email list, not only are they going to get that five email sequence that kind of warms them up, makes an offer, they're also going to start seeing me on social media.
And a lot of times people are kind of nervous as I start talking about this, because they're like, "Zach, that's going to be expensive. I'm I'm running $10 to $15 a day to grow my email list every day, now you want me to do a social engagement strategy." You can spend just $5 to $10 a day on this. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be this big thing that you're always, always spending thousands of dollars a day. It can be really simple. It can be $5 a day.
And what you can do with Facebook ads, what's really cool with Facebook lead ads, is that you can say, "Hey, everybody who filled out this Facebook form, I want them to see this ad with an Instagram post." And I keep it really simple. I just grab one of my top performing Instagram posts, or I write what I call a stance post.
And a stance post is basically something that I stand for in my business. Like things like, "One funnel is not going to solve all your problems," or, "Being a not-so-average marketer is the key to success." And I'll take an Instagram post and I'll run that as an ad to everybody who's joined my email list. So stage two is really about saying, "I've got this list, I've got these people connecting with me, now let's get them to see an offer initially and start getting them to follow us and engage with us over on social media so that we have multiple touch points."
So the goal by the end of stage two is that you've got about 500 leads on your email list at the end of 60 days, you have an onboarding sequence for everyone who joins your email list, and you have a social media engagement strategy, leveraging low cost advertising.
Once you've done that, you can move into stage three. And stage three, if you have an offer, you can start to refine your offer. But if you're like, "Okay, I want to start fresh. I want to make this work. What do you recommend Zach?"
I say, "Start developing your low ticket offer." What I do is I create low ticket offer pre-sale assets.
At this point you have over 500 people on your list, there's two things you can do. If you feel like, "I really know my audience," you can develop your low ticket offer right out the gate. But what I recommend is that you send out a really simple email to your entire list before you start developing your low ticket offer and you ask them what they're looking for.
So if I was to do that specifically in my business, this is what it would look like. I would say, "Hey, first name. So excited to have you on my email list. I'm just curious when it comes to marketing your business and scaling your courses, what's your biggest struggle, and what do you want to learn? Just hit reply to this email and let me know."
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to start collecting responses and pay attention to what it is that people say they want. A lot of times we create content, or we create training, or we create courses on what it is that we know, not what it is that our audience wants. So if you're just getting started or you're starting to grow your audience, and you're like, "This is great in theory, but I don't really know exactly what they're looking for," or you're having a hard time getting your offers to convert, that simple email can be a game-changer.
So once I'm clear on what my audience wants, I will start mapping out a low ticket offer. And to me, a low ticket offer is anything from like $27 to $47. And what I do is I create what I call my pre-launch assets. So that's a series of emails, a pre-launch sales page, and I'll mark it down. If I'm going to sell it for $37, I'm going to sell it as $27 before it's actually available. If I'm selling it for $47 when it's open, I'm going to sell it for $37 today. And what I do is I email my list and I say, "Hey, I've got this really great offer. If you want to check it out, I'm discounting it 10 bucks for the next X number of days," and I pre-launch my low ticket offer. My goal with this is to sell $1,000 worth of low ticket offers.
And just to clarify, if you have an offer of $37 that you do the pre-launch list, you only need to sell 27 copies. And at this point in the game, when you finally launch this, you'll have 600 to 700 people on your list, which means you really only need to convert 3%, 4% of your email list to actually get people engaging, like 3.8% to 4.1% of your list. Plus, you've been getting people to follow you on social media. So you don't just have to rely on your list. You can post on social media, you can post on your Instagram, you can tell people that your offer is available.
And what I then do, this is the magic, my goal is to make $1,000 worth of low ticket offers. To me that shows this is a good offer, it's fully validated, people are buying it, people are interested. So I pre-launch it with the goal of $1,000. Now that's not a magical number. If you're like, "Oh, I only did $800," or, "I only did $700," it doesn't mean it's bad, it can still be good. But I put myself at a goal of $1,000 worth of low ticket offer sales, which is 27 units at $37.
Now that you've pre-launched your low ticket offer, what you're going to do is revise that initial email sequence that you wrote to include your low ticket offer as an offer.
So I love this because what you're doing is you're basically spending $20 a day on advertising for about 60 days, and then you launch this low ticket offer, you make a lot of your money back, you integrate it into your sequence, and now what you've got is an automated flow that sells your low ticket offer and helps offset the cost of your advertising so your list is always growing.
So one thing that I want to say about this automation flow is that it's not just about, "Hey, how do I make as much money as possible with a $37 offer? How do I make millions of dollars with my simple automation?" The goal of this is to lower the cost of your list building and get your list growing all the time.
So that when you do have a MasterClass, like I've got coming up, when you do have a launch coming up, when you do create a new offer, when you do want one-on-one clients, you have an audience that you can just reach out to. And to me, that is the magic of this business, is that as you grow your audience, you don't have to stress as much about, "Where is my next sale coming from? Who am I going to talk to? How do I land a high ticket client?" You simply say, "Hey, I'm ready for another client, so what I'm going to do is email my list."
And so now when you do this, your list is always growing. You are always making offers passively. You are always growing your social media. You are always selling without having to be in sales mode, 24/7. So that's the 90 Day Automation Flow.
And let's just run through this one more time from the top so you know exactly how it works.
Stage one is your first 30 days, you're going to create your freebie. You're going to do your initial Facebook ads lead testing with the goal to generate 50 to 100 leads in five to seven days, you're then going to choose your most successful ads and spend $10 to $15 a day with the goal of getting 300 on the list by the end of stage one, or the first 30 days.
In stage two, you're going to set it up so that all of these new leads coming in get a really simple onboarding sequence that tells them, "Hey, here's what to expect, and here's how you can work with me." We also then set up our social media engagement strategy, where we're spending $5 to $10 a day on ads to drive people to connect with us over on Instagram and Facebook, depending on where our audience sits. So after stage two, you have an automated sequence and you have an automated engagement system.
Then stage three is about launching a low ticket offer. So create your low ticket offer pre-sale assets, pre-launch your low ticket offer at a discount, build the low ticket offer, and then integrate your low ticket offer into your email sequence that you've already set up. And then that's it.
All you do is fuel that machine. You can now continue to run ads, you can do joint ventures, you can do guest posting, you can do podcast spots, you can do guest podcasting. And what you're doing is you're setting it up so that you have a place to send people and that's your freebie. And if they get the freebie, they're going to join your list, they're going to get an offer and they're going to become customers potentially faster.
And the byproduct of this is that your list is always growing. So if you want to launch, if you want to grow your podcast, if you want to sell more, you want one-on-one clients, you can always just reach out and email your list, and they're going to connect with you and potentially take you up on your offers.
So that's the 90 Day Automation Flow. I want to throw this out there, if you're listening to this and you're like, "This sounds great Zach, but how do I implement this?" This is actually what we cover, your first 60 to 90 days in our membership, Not Your Average Membership. And we will link that up in the show notes. It's over at join.notyouraveragemembership.com. So if you want to check it out, you absolutely can.
And the way that we structure the first 60 to 90 days in the membership is we teach you how to set up those initial Facebook lead ads. We help you write your onboarding sequence, and we help you develop your low ticket offer so that you can do all of these pieces together in the next 60 to 90 days.
Our membership is $49 a month, and if you want to check it out, you can head over to join.notyouraveragemembership.com.
So as I start to wrap this episode, I just want to let you know that as always, we'll have a full transcript of the show over heartsoulhustle.com/NYAP033. Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/NYAP033, For Not Your Average Podcast, episode number 33. And this is going to walk you through everything that we covered today. I'll have all the links there. We'll have a full transcript of the show, and you can check that out at any time.
So I want to leave you with this thought, if you're thinking about putting automation into your business, the best [inaudible 00:21:45] you can do is start, start writing the emails, start making the offers, start running the ads. The best thing you can do is get started, because the magic happens when you take action.
So I hope you got mad value from this episode. Feel free to tag me over on Instagram @heartsoulhustle if you enjoyed it. I'm going to wrap up here, keep up the great work, and until next time, stay not so average.
