Episode #047: CASE STUDY: 915 Leads in 14 Days
CASE STUDY: 915 Leads in 14 Days
Hey Hey Not So Average Marketer!
In this week's episode of the podcast I'm breaking down how we had nearly 1,000 opt-ins to our new freebie in just 14 days time. Hint: We used a strategic freebie, and Facebook Ads.
If you wanna learn the process (and know how to duplicate it for yourself) you'll want to tune into this weeks show where I'll share...
The power of a strategic (and well timed) freebie
The specific type of Facebook Ad we run (and why) to get more leads
The importance of lead follow up
I can't wait to hear what you think of this episode, and if you want more - you can join us for Automation Week.
We're going to spend five days teaching you how to bring your own lead generation case study to life!
Links Mentioned on the Show From Zach:
Full Transcript:
This is Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, episode number 47. In this episode, we're breaking down a case study of how we added over 900 people to our list in two weeks time, leveraging a quality freebie, Facebook Ads, and a simple system. If you've been trying to grow your email list and feel stuck or stagnant, this episode is for you, so stay tuned.
Hey, hey, hey, not so average marketer, welcome to another episode of the podcast. Man, it feels like we are just cranking these suckers out, doesn't it? New one almost every week. I want to talk this week to you about how we've been able to consistently grow our email list, and some of the steps that we've taken in our business to really intentionally capitalize on different times and seasons to consistently grow our audience and get people engaging with our content. What I want to share with you today is a really cool case study, and this is something that we've done in our business.
We did it last year and we did it again this year, and we're just getting started with it, and I'm super excited to tell you about it. Just to talk numbers, the way that we've done this is we have a really quality freebie, and I'm going to break down the process and the freebie and the content for you on today's episode, like I always do. But just to give you some insight, we ran a Facebook ad for 14 days. We generated 915 leads over the course of two weeks, and we spent about a $1.26 a lead to do that. These are costs that we haven't seen with Facebook Ads in a really long time, to be honest. We generally pay two to $4 a lead, closer to three to $4 a lead. But we do this thing every year from about November to mid-January that really grows our email list pretty consistently. I should qualify, I say every year, but really we've been doing it about two years. We did it last year and we're doing it this year, what exactly is this thing that we're doing?
Well, first what we do is we create a really timely and relevant freebie. We have a freebie that is a 2023 planner to help you plan your goals for the new year. This works really, really well, and the reason it works so well is that it's timely. From November, December, January, people are really thinking about planning out their 2023. This is when people start thinking, what should I be doing? What should I be saying? What should I be preparing? We create a freebie that is about a 15 to 20 page planner. It's a little different from last year to this year, we made some tweaks and some changes. But overall, we have this really simple planner. Now, the reason that this works so well, I think, with not just Facebook Ads, but in general, is that people want to plan this time of year, but more importantly, it's simple, fast, and easy. We don't just throw together this 800 page planner and it's so jam packed that it's everything you could ever want and more.
No, it's quite simply a planner that you can get through in 30 minutes to an hour, because people want simple, fast, easy, quick wins when they're new to your email list. What I mean by that is not that we should withhold value or not support people or not lead with our best content. What I'm saying is people can be easily overwhelmed. And you have to remember that when people become a lead on your email list, at this point in time, all they've done is give their name an email, and that is what I call a low commitment activity. They can unsubscribe, they can leave, they don't even have to open the initial email to really feel like they're taking a step forward. What we want to be thinking about is for people who jump in, who take that initial step, how do we actually get them to jump right in? How do we get them a win? How do we get them moving forward? For me, it's to make my freebies fast, simple, and easy. Now, it doesn't mean that I'm not leading with my best content.
In fact, it's just the opposite, I'm leading with content that's so specific and so easy to get through that people are actually more likely to get a result. First things first, we create this really relevant, timely freebie. Now, this can be different in your business, and I just want to walk through how this could apply to you. Maybe if you are in the goal setting space, you focus on goal setting workshops in late December, early January. If you're in the education space, you could focus in the summertime around helping teachers. Because that's when they're going back to school, that's when they're thinking about lesson plans. It doesn't matter what space you're in, there is like a quote unquote hot season for every space that you could be in. We like to capitalize on those hot seasons by creating content that people want.
Once we've done that, we then go into Facebook land, Facebook Ads land, and we create what I call a lead ad. Now, if you're a listener of the show, you've heard me talk about these before. I'm such an advocate for lead ads, I can't get enough of them. I think they're ridiculously powerful and super easy to use. But a lead ad is where you have people opt in with their name and email on Facebook, these work super well because they convert at a higher rate. I'm actually inside my ads panel, my ads manager, I should say, not ads panel. My ads manager right now, and I'm looking at, when you look at the conversion rate, we've had... As of now, this is looking at everything over the last couple weeks, actually about 16 days at the time that I'm recording this, we've had 1291 people click on the form. 900 of them have actually given us their name and email, which means that our ad, from click to opt-in, is converting at 76.7%. We don't typically see results like that when we drive people to our own landing page.
We tend to see 30, 40, maybe even 50% on a good form. But it's not uncommon for us to see really high conversion rates with lead ads. There's two reasons for this, one is that it's a lower barrier to entry. It loads right on Facebook, there's less to read, there's less to go through. But number two, Facebook has an autofill feature. When people click on your form, it automatically fills in their name and email. I know what you might be thinking, you might be saying, "Zach, I don't want people's Facebook email." When I think about my Facebook email, it's an email I don't use, it's an email I don't engage with. I'm not opening, I'm not clicking, I'm not doing anything. Well, believe it or not, Facebook actually has generally, not always, but generally multiple emails for you, and they're paying attention to which email you're engaging with the most. You may not necessarily be getting people's Facebook login email, you may be getting a different email.
I actually tested this, I was very surprised to find that when I go into Facebook, my auto form fill is actually my best email. It's the email that I use personally to engage with content, to sign up for stuff when I'm not using my business email. The autofill feature means that more people are opting in, because it removes that barrier to entry. They don't have to type anything in, they don't have to go to a website, they don't have to wait for things to load. They just literally click, yes, I want this, yes, that's correct, it's just the click of a button. Because most people are on mobile, it makes it even easier for them to say yes, because all they have to do is literally just click the button. They're like, "Yes, I'm in. Yes, I'm in. Yes, I'm in." Now, a couple other things about lead ads that I really like is that they are what I call iOS proof.
Now, depending on how much you know about Facebook Ads and how much you played with them, you may have heard that iOS 14 made tracking and seeing the results of Facebook Ads much more challenging. That's true, it did. But with lead ads, because everything happens on Facebook, they are iOS 14 proof, because you don't need to worry about the pixel, you don't need to worry about tracking, you don't need to worry about anything to get the lead. You don't need to worry about anything to get the lead and to get the tracking. The other thing is that they are virtually 100% retargetable for 90 days. When somebody fills out the form, because it's happening on Facebook, we can retarget them. Retargeting essentially means we can take any piece of content that we want, whether it be a blog post, another opt-in, a paid offer, a podcast, and we can put it in front of the people who have raised their hand and said, "Yes, I want to be on your email list."
This is really important, because one of the things that we talk about on this show and that I talk about in my business is that I love to build and retarget a warm audience. So many people, when they go into a launch or a promotion, they want to really just run ads, generate a ton of leads, and then say, "Well, I'm going to make a ton of money off these leads." The reality is, warming people up first, getting people on your email list first, sending them content first is going to get you way more engagement, conversions, results. I really like the idea that I can turn this audience of people who are joining my email list into an audience on Facebook that I can run ads to. But here's the thing we need to talk about. Even if you do this, even if you love this idea, if you're like, "Okay, Zach, I'm bought in, I'm going to make a good freebie, It's going to be relevant, I'm going to make sure people can get through it, I'm going to run these lead ads."
What happens after somebody becomes a lead is really, really important. You want to make sure that after somebody signs up to your email list that you're making offers and you're pushing them through a series of emails. First things first, when somebody opts into our freebie, we offer them right on the thank you page, an option to join our membership. Now, full transparency, this does not convert super well for us. We're still refining the offer and working on the offer, and frankly, we don't have the best thank you page between you, me and the wall. But, for me, it's not necessarily about getting the sale right then and there. It's about seeding the offer and making it clear that they know what it is we have to offer. Then over a series of emails, I will make that offer a couple more times.
This is where it gets really cool, I think, but I'm a marketing nerd, so who knows? We also set up a series of emails inside our automation funnel that invites them to our newest launch. We don't do this all the time, it really depends on the time of year, the season, what's going on. But right now, we've got an upcoming launch where we're going to walk people through how to set this system up. Because people come through a Facebook ad, we basically have a series of emails where we say, "Hey, if you want to learn how to do this exact process, the thing that we just went through, the thing that you just went through, you can sign up for our free five-day automation week where we're going to walk you through how to choose your freebie, create your lead ad, set your follow up sequence." We invite people that go through our freebie and through our automation sequence into this upcoming launch.
We're doing two things, one, we're seeding the offer. Full transparency, I'm happy to tell you that when you sign up for our five-day training, the offer that we make inside the five-day training is that you can come in to our membership at the end and continue to get ongoing support with your Facebook Ads and your content. We're basically seeding that offer and we're inviting them to a launch where we're going to sell that offer. Two things are happening, they're seeing the offer initially, and then they're being invited to a launch where we're going to formally make that offer again. One thing that I do want to mention, for the sake of transparency and just giving you some clarity on what to expect, we see a 30 to 55% open rate on this follow up sequence, so really not bad. We get about 50 to 60% of people open the initial email, which contains their freebie, and then about 20... As of right now, 28% of people click over to the freebie. What.
Happens next is that 10 to 15% of people will unsubscribe over about a seven to eight email sequence promoting the launch. What that means is that our effective cost per lead through this process is a little bit closer to about $1.50. It's a little closer to $1.50. We do pay a little more per lead, in terms of unsubscribes, than you might traditionally with a conversion ad. But the flip side is you're never immune to unsubscribes, this is part of the process, it's part of the game. We have had about 990 people opt in at the time that I'm recording this, and we have about 875 that kind of stayed the course, that kind of stayed in the process, that didn't unsubscribe. Just know that you are going to lose people along the way, that is part of the process, and you don't have to panic, you don't have to worry, it's just something to be aware of. You are going to lose people along the way. Now, I do want to kind of acknowledge that that is, like I said, just part of the game.
Even if you write perfect emails and you talk to your perfect client and you have the perfect freebie, people are still going to unsubscribe. We lose a percentage of our email list every time we send out an email. It's just part of the game, so don't get wrapped up in that, don't panic too much. I want to make an invitation, if you're listening to this episode and you're saying, "Okay, this sounds great. I love the idea of the freebie, I love the idea of the lead ads, I love the idea of seating an offer and a follow up," then I want to invite you to come join us for Automation Week. Automation Week is a five-day training series that we are doing where we're going to walk you through how we create this process, how we choose a freebie, how we run lead ads, how we create a really simple follow up sequence that actually engages people and kind of sells our product or our launch on autopilot. You can head over to heartsoulhustle.com/automate.
Again, it's heartsoulhustle.com/automate. In that page, you're going to see the option to sign up for Automation Week. Automation Week, like I said, it's a five-day training series. We're going to go live every single day for five-days, and I'm going to just walk you through the process. If you stick with us for five-days, you will actually have Facebook Ads set up and running by the end of day five. Not just set up and running, but you will actually be generating leads within the course of five-days if you follow along. My favorite thing about this automation week is that we actually have people who post inside the Facebook group saying, "I got leads." Now, full transparency, it takes a while to nurture those leads into customers, but getting those leads and building the email list is the first step. If you want to check it out, it's heartsoulhustle.com/automate.
We would absolutely love to have you, and I think you're going to get lots of value out of it. Before we wrap up this episode, I wanted do a quick recap, we talked about the case study of how we brought in over 900 leads in 14 days. It really came down to this simple process, we create a really timely and relevant freebie that people want, that's high demand. We run lead ads to get people to sign up for the freebie. Then the really important thing that... It's not part of the case study in the sense that it doesn't have anything to do with the ads or the freebie or the leads, but it's having a follow up sequence. We really want to make sure that once people get on our list, we are following up with them through a series of emails that promotes something that we want to sell, that promotes something that we want to drive traffic to. Whether that be a low ticket offer, a launch, an automated webinar, it doesn't matter. The point is that we're promoting something that grows the audience.
Two big things, one, if you got lots of value, let me know over on Instagram. You can tag me @heartsoulhustle on your stories, you can tag me on a post, if you want. But let me know if you got lots of value, you can even just DM me. I love hearing from you guys when you listen to an episode and you get lots of value, I always love to hear from you. Number two, if you got lots of value from the show, consider leaving us a review. It helps us reach new people with the show, it tells us we're doing a good job, we always just love reading reviews from you guys. We will have the complete show notes over at heartsoulhustle.com/nyap047. Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/nyap047 for Not Your Average Podcast, episode 47. We'll have the show notes, the full transcript, everything you need, just like usual. Again, I hope you got lots of value from this episode. I'm excited for Automation Week, I hope to see you there, and until next time, stay not so average.
