Episode #089: Challenge Launch BTS: $52k & 100 NEW Memberships
Challenge Launch BTS: $52k & 100 NEW Memberships
In this episode, I'm taking you behind the curtain to reveal exactly how my recent five-day challenge generated over $52,000 in sales from products priced at just $25-67.
I'm sharing an unfiltered look at what actually works in my business as you'll discover:
My complete financial breakdown—including $21K in ad spend, affiliate costs, and true profit margins
The "Three C's" framework I use for challenges that converted 17.66% of participants
My day-by-day content strategy that gets people results before they even see the sales pitch
Why I create themed challenges (like my Taylor Swift "Eras Tour" theme) for memorable experiences
The exact email and communication strategy I use to maintain 50%+ retention across all five days
If you're tired of launch strategies that sound too good to be true, this behind-the-scenes episode delivers the honest numbers and proven tactics you can actually implement.
Listen now to transform how you approach your next launch!
Links Mentioned:
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00]:
This is Not Your Average Online Marketing podcast, episode number 89. And in this episode, I'm taking you behind the scenes of our most recent five day challenge launch. So if you like the bits, the bobs, the behind the scenes, the insights, the profits, the losses, the revenue, the results, this episode is for you, so stay tuned. Hey. Hey. Hey. Not so average marketer. Welcome to another episode of the podcast.
[00:00:28]:
Now I am so excited to share this with you because earlier in the year, we actually dropped a blog post kind of taking people behind the scenes of one of our, best months in business. And the feedback has just been incredible that you guys love the transparency, the honesty, the insights, the intel, and just giving you a behind the scenes look at what is and isn't working for us. And so I wanted to record an episode this week specifically around how we have created a really profitable system that we use to run five day challenge launches and sell our membership. So what this episode is today is really kind of taking you behind the scenes of how we generated $52,000 in sales on products that were $25 to $67. And we'll talk more about that breakdown in a minute, but I wanna first start by talking really about why we love running five day challenges. And just for reference, we call ours a boot camp. But a challenge is really just three to five days of, like, content, focus, training, learning, education, and then a transition over time to a sales period, you know, cart open of your digital course, your coaching, your service, where people can enroll for a set period of time. And the reason that I love running a five day challenge is really what I call the three c's of challenges: connection, conversion, and continuity.
[00:01:52]:
So first and foremost, I'm not opposed to webinars. I do webinars. I think they're great, and I think they can work really well. But for a lot of people who are, you know, getting started or who are trying to sell their digital courses or products more efficiently, webinars can be hard because you really only get forty five to sixty minutes to, like, literally sell people on your offer. Right? Whereas when I'm doing a five day challenge, our five day challenge has a Facebook group element. It has email elements. It has live call elements. And that allows me to really build a connection with people.
[00:02:25]:
And, you know, we hear it time and time again. People don't buy products. They buy people or they buy from people. And so there is truth to that adage that when we support our audience and we build a connection with them, they're more likely to wanna buy from us, which leads me to my second point, which is conversion. We just get such incredible conversion on our challenges. I mean, I'm always impressed when we get our final numbers, but for example, our most recent challenge that we did, we converted over 17%, 17.66% to be exact, percent of people that signed up for our five day challenge went on to buy our membership. And so the proof is in the numbers.
[00:03:08]:
We know that when we do these, we get really incredible results and we've had challenges convert as high as 19%. So we have the data to back up that this is a really high conversion launch, methodology. And the last c, that continuity, is that we kind of call it the aftershock of a challenge. So after I run a challenge, especially my Facebook and Instagram Ads for Listbuilding boot camp, there is like a shock wave that kind of goes throughout, a number of different places sort of on the internet where people talk about our challenge. Right? Because if we're building a real connection with people and they're so excited that they're buying our products, guess what? They also talk. And so after your challenge, people will continue to talk about you. And so we call it, like, launch fallout where for two to four weeks after we finish our challenge, we see an increase in sales of our boot camp recordings. We see an increase in sales of our membership.
[00:04:06]:
We see an increase in people inquiring to work with us in our agency side of things and we just continue to see that. So I think there's so much value in connection, conversion, and continuity, which we call launch fallout, that I'm such a fan of running a five day challenge. And, you know, you might be wondering like, okay, Zach. This all sounds great, but, like, how does this break down? Right? So our challenge that we just ran in January was the Facebook and Instagram Ads for Listbuilding boot camp, and it's literally how to run Facebook ads to grow your email list consistently. Okay? And so the way it works is we charge $25 to join our challenge. Free and paid challenges both have pros and cons, but for this one, I've been doing them long enough. I've really built it up. I've got the ads budget to spend.
[00:04:53]:
So we charge $25 to join. Once you join our challenge, you can pay another $55 to go VIP. VIPs get extra live calls with me that are done Zoom style so they can ask questions. We have a contest. This is really cool. When you join our boot camp, if you go VIP, you get entered into a raffle. And one of our raffle winners, actually gets me to run their ads for them for the week of the boot camp. So the week of the boot camp, I'm actually running ads for someone as the training.
[00:05:25]:
So it's kind of like putting my marketing chops to the test, and, it's really fun incentive for our VIPs. And then at the end of the challenge, we have our membership, which is $67 a month. Yes, we have an annual option, which people do take, but it's cool to kinda say that, like, you know, we did $52,000 in sales on a $25 boot camp, a $55 upsell, and a $67 a month membership where some people go annual. And so I'm gonna talk about the profit and the numbers a little bit here, but I wanna first explain that the reason I think this boot camp does so well is, first and foremost, we've really refined our content. I've been running this boot camp for a couple of years now, and I've gotten really clear on how the content works and how to get people results. I think the biggest thing that we hear with webinars or challenges or any launch really is like, oh, don't give people too much results or then they won't feel like they need you. And I found the opposite to be true when done correctly.
[00:06:28]:
Getting people intentional results can lead to really incredible transformational experiences that make people want to buy your next offer. But it has to be done through the lens of what I call the PSP model, which stands for problem, solution, problem. Full disclosure, I've heard this from a coach, who heard it from a coach. I don't know where it originates. But the PSP model, problem solution problem, is your audience has a problem that they're aware of. You need to solve that problem before you introduce a a deeper problem that your core offer solves. So for example, my audience says all the time, like, oh, I just wanna grow my list. I wanna grow my list.
[00:07:08]:
And I like to say, well, Facebook ads should be part of, like, a launch strategy or you should wanna generate sales. But I know because I've studied my audience that they say, my problem is I don't have an audience. My problem is I don't have a list. My problem is I don't have anyone to sell to. And so I say, okay. Great. Let me solve that problem. SPS problem, I don't have a list.
[00:07:29]:
Solve it with Facebook ads. New problem, what do I do with all these new leads? How do I nurture them? How do I sell my products? That's where our membership comes in. And our membership is all about how to not only consistently grow your email list with ads, but how to market to those leads, how to sell to those leads, how to create automations for those leads. And so what you end up with is this PSP problem, solution, problem, and then my membership becomes the back end solution. So in terms of our challenge, here's kind of what we do. On day one, we talk about how to write copy and creative for your ads, and this is really important. On day two, we are actually setting up Facebook ads. Because by day three, four, and five, you will start to lose retention. People will stop showing up, posting in the group, doing the work.
[00:08:18]:
That's normal. But we know if we can get people with their Facebook ads up, or at least know how to set them up in the first forty eight hours, they are more likely to continue engaging in the process. And so day three, once we kind of have them do the heavy lifting of writing copy and designing images for their ads, then we have, like, a lighter day. And it's just a day where we're talking about our advertising philosophy, which I've talked about on the podcast in the past is like this holistic view of how advertising works. Then on the fourth day, we walk through the results that they should be starting to get in their ads manager. And in this case, I go into the VIP winner's ad account, and I'm like, here's the ads we set up Tuesday. Here's the results we have on Thursday. So I'm kind of like proving this system works.
[00:09:05]:
Right? And then the last day is kind of like wrap up, next steps, and really promoting the membership. But here's the nuance here. On day one, I talk about my offer. I say, hey, I've got this offer for a membership. It's at the end of the challenge. I'll talk more about it throughout, but you don't have to worry about that today. Let's get into the content. And then on day three, I actually talk more in-depth about the membership.
[00:09:33]:
On the third day, I really sell the opportunity. I spend about five to seven minutes telling people about the membership. I spend a little more time on day four, and by day five, I'm doing a full twelve to fifteen minute pitch for the membership. Why? Because if I consistently talk about the membership day over day, one, there's always different people attending, but two, I can kind of build on what I'm able to sell about the membership, what I'm able to talk about the membership, what I'm able to pass along that there's value in the membership by building that up over time. Right? But people know the offer is coming from day one, so no one feels blindsided. And because in those first forty eight hours, I have gotten them copy, creative, and they potentially already have ads running, everything now feels like gravy. Right? Everything that I'm doing at this point is just, here's the continued benefit of going through the challenge. Right? So the way that we position that, it's I I just I love that so much because people are already getting results before they even hear about the membership or they already see the the potential to get results.
[00:10:40]:
And if they're not getting results, guess what? We have a Facebook community where other people are posting, my ads are live. I'm getting results. I'm getting leads. And so as we're selling our offer, we're actually getting boot camp challenge wins posted in our community that's amplifying the value of everything we offer going forward. So that's kind of the structure of our five day challenge in terms of, like, content, in terms of price points, but here's what you probably want to know. Right? Like, what does what does this actually shake out to, Zach? Like, how what what what what are we what are we really getting at here? Right? So first things first, our top line revenue for the boot camp is $52,251 and that includes boot camp sales, VIP sales, and membership sales, including annual. That's cash collected. Okay? Advertising, we spent about $21,000.
[00:11:41]:
$21,048.79 to be exact, but I'm gonna round some of these numbers so as not to, make you go cross eyed with the dollars and cents. But in total, our profit was $21,021.05. K? Because we had some miscellaneous expenses, I'm gonna talk about some of those. But in total, we ended up adding $4,000 a month in recurring revenue to our membership every month in monthly subscriptions. We ended up adding about $2,700 in six month semi-annual subscriptions. And we also had an incredible take rate on our annual membership. We have 36 of 107 people who join the membership go annual, which was just over 33%. So essentially, one in three people also opted to go annual.
[00:12:35]:
Now I wanna point out that the reason I think that happened is that we do a small annual incentive in our our launch. It's like, if you go annual, you get a bonus, and people were really excited about that bonus. The other thing that people always wonder is like, okay. So you spent $21,000 on ads. You made $21,000 in profit, where's that missing kind of like $10,000? And there's a few different places that that went to be honest. Number one is we have affiliates. So part of this, over time, not from the jump but over time, has evolved to where our boot camp, like, people wanna share it. Right? And so we incentivize our affiliates to share the boot camp by giving them 100% of the $25 sale, which I think is really fun, because we don't make money on the $25 dollars. We make money on the membership and the recurring subscriptions.
[00:13:27]:
So why not just give my affiliates 100% of the front end revenue? We also send out, physical mailers to people who join our boot camp. We send out like a little postcard. And so we spent around $500 on postcards. We spent a decent amount on affiliates. I'm pulling that exact number for you. For the boot camp alone, we did over $4,600 in affiliate sales. And then we do other things. We have transcriptions for every day that we pay for.
[00:13:59]:
We give away prizes in our challenge, which I'm gonna talk about in a little bit. We have support staff that we hire exclusively to help us maintain the Facebook community and do reviews of copywriting. We also give away prizes to our affiliates. So there definitely are costs associated with this, but we now have new recurring revenue. People geeked up about us talking about us. And like I said, we also see an influx in sales after this. Right? So this $52,000 does not include that that launch shockwave, that that launch fallout, that continuity of people who have bought two or three weeks after. For two to four weeks, we see a bump in all of our sales, and that's not even accounted for in these numbers.
00:14:39]:
Right? So there's just some really cool stuff happening in terms of, like, the total affiliate commissions, we did pay just over $5,600 in total affiliate commissions, and we we just love doing that. It's it's so fun. And so we estimate that in about, six months, our profit will actually be over $42,000 as a result of everything we've done, which is really, really cool. So I think it's important to talk about what I call, like, the bits and bobs of the challenge, like the little nuanced things that we don't necessarily, like, think about, but they're really, really powerful. And the first one is that when we do our challenges, we do a theme. And y'all, when I do a theme, I do a theme. So our theme, this boot camp was In Our List Growth Era, because the Taylor Swift Eras tour has just ended, at the end of twenty twenty four.
[00:15:37]:
And if you don't know, now you know, I am a Swifty to my core. Let that sink in. To my core. And so I just I'm always listening to Taylor Swift. I love Taylor Swift. And with it being the end of the Eras tour, I was like, oh, it would be so fun to just lean into that for our our boot camp. And so I did all, I did all kinds of crazy stuff. But the the one thing I wanna talk about a couple of things I wanna talk about.
[00:16:05]:
One is that I bought, like, Taylor Swift is big on friendship bracelets from the Eras tour, and I bought friendship bracelets and put them up, in the background, like these giant friendship bracelets that said In Our List Growth Era. I got a giant cutout of, like a life size cutout, five foot tall cutout of Taylor Swift that sat next to me on the Zoom calls. And this is so unhinged, but I did it, and I have no regrets. In the opening of the the concert that she did, there's, like, a movie version of the concert. And I took the first, like, ninety seconds to two minutes of the concert intro, and I had a video editor transpose my face onto Taylor Swift. And it was, like, really it wasn't, it was bad on purpose. Like, this is not the video editor's fault. They were amazing.
[00:16:53]:
They did exactly what I wanted. If you guys remember Jib Jab from, like, the early two thousands where you would literally paste your face, like, just paste a static version of your face on someone else's body. We did that for the first two minutes of the tour, and that's how I started our first live training. I was like, the training will be starting soon, and I you know, Taylor Swift comes out of the stage, and it's my face on her head. I turn off the video, turn on my camera. The life size cutout is there. The friendship bracelets are in the back. And y'all, people just loved it.
[00:17:25]:
Not because it was Taylor Swift, although that maybe had something to do with it. But I really wanna get down to the core of this, which is like, I was showcasing who I am. I was having fun. I was keeping it entertaining. I was having a good time. And so I think people really like, you know, there's nothing...how do I say this? There's nothing special about Facebook and Instagram ads, like, as a topic anymore. You know what I mean? Like, you can go learn them anywhere. You can Google it.
[00:17:54]:
You can YouTube it. But like, we kind of put on a little show, and and we make it unique and fun. And I showcase my personality. And the Swifties in the audience have fun. And the non Swifties, there's always one or two who by the end of the week are like, I'm a Swiftie now. Like, this is great. You know? And the goal is not to become a Swiftie convert. The goal is that you get to showcase your personality.
[00:18:15]:
And so it's not always Taylor Swift themed. The one we did before, this was actually the theme was just, you guys, the theme was just cats. Like, literally like cats. Right? And so we had, like, paw prints on a lot of our images that we put in the Facebook group. And I bought cat clip art, and we gave away cat-themed prizes, because we do prizes on days two, three, four, and five. If you show up and do the work, you're entered to win a prize. And, then in '20 at the end of 2023, we did the iconic things of 2023. We gave away, like, Barbie themed because Barbie was big that year, Stanley Cups because Stanley was really big that year.
[00:18:53]:
You know? The thing is it doesn't have to be this elaborate, you know, show. That's what it's grown into for us because I've really, like, leaned into this, like, fun side of it. But the thing is, it should just be, like, showcasing your personality. And I think that having a theme in your challenge is so underutilized, underrated, and creates such a good time for everybody. Right? Because if you're having fun, guess what? Other people are gonna have fun too. Right? So, that's one thing that I just think we haven't talked enough about that publicly, is that the theme has made a world of difference in our challenges. The other thing I wanted to talk about was that we get help. And I also think that this is something that not enough people talk about.
[00:19:41]:
On day one of our challenge, we have, everyone can submit their copy, to go with their Facebook ads and we, like, review it. But after I did the first challenge with, like, like, 300 people in there, I was like, this is intense. Editing a hundred pieces of copy is intense. And don't get me wrong. It's intense no matter what. But we now kind of...not kind of. We do. We solicit help.
[00:20:09]:
I hire a copywriter for the week of the challenge to come in and review all the copy with me. And I have a, operations manager, Jessica. Shout out to Jessica if you're listening. She is, because she edits some of these notes for me. But, you know, we we have our ops manager on the calls, and they are watching the room and answering questions and dropping support links and responding to support inquiries. And then, you know, there's me running the content and the trainings and posting in the group and engaging with people. I, you don't have to start there. You don't need to start with a team of multiple people to run your challenge.
[00:20:46]:
But as your challenges and webinars and boot camps and whatever you use to launch I know this is a challenge podcast, but I don't care how you're launching. As you grow, you need support. And I think that was something that works really well for us. The other thing is we doubled down on ad spend. I mean, we spent almost...not almost. We spent over $20,000 on Facebook ads to get people into not only the challenge, but also into our membership. And I think this is the other thing that I know people know, but they don't do enough. And I know that because we have our membership, but I see people do it.
[00:21:19]:
They're like, I'm just gonna run ads to get people to my challenge. But then after the challenge, you have all these engaged people because you have that three c's, the connection, the conversion, and the continuity. Don't miss the opportunity to retarget those people. We see massive success by retargeting people in our challenges. And then the last thing is we really use email and live and Facebook group to create this kind of trifecta of connection engagement. I think when I do my challenges, to be honest, and I'm not somebody who really stresses about sending too many emails, I always find myself being like, ah, is this too many emails? Because we do a morning and afternoon and an evening email. And, you know, by day three, I'm like, I feel like we're sending so many emails. And I'm someone who's always like send another email, but I know that those emails, combined with the Facebook group posts, combined with the live calls that we're doing get people to show up.
[00:22:15]:
And I know they get people to show up because we track inside of our challenge, our retention. And, you know, we retain from day one to day five. Over fifty percent of people who were on day one will make it to day five. We retain, just to clarify, from day one we had in this particular challenge, we had 278 people on on the first day, 144 on the last day. Which means over five days, one out of two people will continue with us, which is really phenomenal for five day challenge retention. So, again, I just think there's so much value to send the email, post in the group, engage with your community, and stay connected to your people. So, yeah, I I hope you've gotten value from this episode. I'm just such a fan of, like, giving you the numbers, giving you the intel, telling you what happened, how much we spent, where the money goes, what it looks like, what's involved in running a five day challenge. Now I do wanna tell you that we are gonna be very soon promoting The Challenge Launch Engine, which is our signature program on how to run your own profitable five day challenge boot camp style launch.
[00:23:25]:
Now, if you wanna be the first to know when we open the doors to that, you're gonna wanna go to thechallengelaunchengine.com. Again, that's thechallengelaunchengine.com, and get your name on the wait list. We're gonna be sure to let you know as soon as it opens. We want you to get first dibs. We want to support you in getting incredible results with your challenge. And, yeah, we would love to see you on that list, and we'd love to see you in the training. Now if you enjoyed this episode, as always, don't hesitate to hop over to Instagram and DM me, @zachspuckler. We'll also have that linked up with the show notes over at heartsoulhustle.com/nyap089.
[00:24:07]:
Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/nyap089 for Not Your Average Podcast, episode number 89. We'll link up that wait list. We'll link up my Instagram. We'll link up all the good stuff that we always link up. And I just hope you got value from this. I think transparency in the industry is more important than ever, and I hope that, you know, sharing that, like, yeah, we had this massive, you know, subjective, massive $50k launch as a low ticket offer, but we created continuity and there were costs. Right? There's continuity and that's where our revenue comes from. And there's definitely costs. You know, we're around, 50 to 60% expenses on this launch, but we'll see and continue to reap the benefits of it ongoing.
[00:24:52]:
And so I just think there's so much value in this conversation. I'm gonna stop rambling. I hope you have an incredible rest of your day, week, month, year. And until next time, stay not so average.
