[Case Study] How We Grew Our Client’s Revenue To $1,100+ Per Day For An Untested Info Product
I’m Mariana, Growbo’s quality assurance (QA) specialist.
Have you heard about Tesla? I mean, of course you have. But do you know just how much it’s grown lately?
Think about this: in 2008, a measly 11 years ago, Tesla was worth about $15 million. That’s chump change when it comes to car manufacturers.
But today? Tesla’s valued at $47.2 billion. That’s a 314,566% growth in just over a decade.
Tesla as a company is booming. And it’s clear that they are masters of growth.
So my question to you is...
What does Tesla’s Model 3 and an online Master Class have in common?
Seems a bit out of left field, right? And at first guess you’d think, “uh, nothing?”
But surprisingly, both the car and the class were sold before even being created and were generating LOTS of sales in the first days of pre-orders.
Tesla generated just shy of $14B in sales before they even began manufacturing the vehicle.
(That’s “B” as in Billion by the way… and sales as in pre-sales)
And this month, we at Growbo generated over $1,100 in sales per day for one of our clients–all in less than 7 days of marketing an online class that didn’t even exist (and with limited social proof for that reason).
Not too bad, right?
And since there’s nothing better for credibility than a real-life case study, in this article I’ll show you what we learned from the simple launch of an untested info product that turned out to be highly successful. And hopefully the lessons we learned from building this sales funnel can help you launch your own and boost your sales.
Let’s dive in…
Key Ingredients That Made This Case Study’s Funnel Work
A recent client of ours (we’ll call him John since he prefers anonymity) signed up for our Done-For-You Sales Funnel Service. He wanted us to do a test launch for a new online class he and the other co-founder were coming up with as part of the funnel that we’d built for them.
Their business was doing really well already–think 7-figures in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).
We had no idea how well their audience was going to respond to the class. And given the time constraints, we didn’t have enough time to conduct any significant market research.
The client just wanted a quick and solid funnel. And they wanted it fast.
So we sold and LAUNCHED. And it turned out better than we could’ve hoped (*cough* $1,100 per day in sales *cough*).
But what’d we do to turn this toss up into a resounding success?
Let me show you. Below, I’ll walk you through some of the key ingredients and elements of the funnel we created for John’s business.
I’ll use Growbo’s The Inbound—Actually Gets Results—Info Product Sales Funnel as a reference, a funnel that’s proven to convert. This will help you visualize the steps and tactics we used prior to launching John’s funnel.
These are some of the key ingredients that made this case study’s funnel work:
- Inbound Traffic: We decided that the primary traffic source for this funnel would be the client’s email list to begin with, and then Facebook ads.
- Lead Magnet: This marketing tool is a surefire way of getting people into your email list. But in this case, we were launching the funnel and selling the class (lead magnet) to the client’s existing list (149,000+ contacts). We started by framing the online class as an event and then promoted it via email. For the first of the 9 emails sent, 5 people enrolled and the first sales came in—$995.
- Sales Page: Another key ingredient that made this client’s funnel work when we launched it was the sales page. A landing page is what makes or breaks a funnel. And in order to get the most conversions possible, we rebuilt John’s from the ground up.
We added scarcity to the sales page by prominently saying that the doors to join the online class were closing soon. The scarcity tactic works because people naturally have a fear of missing out on things and we fear losses more than potential gains.
Adding scarcity can even translate to a 24.5% revenue boost just like it did for one case study from the 313 analyzed in the Proven Sales Conversion Pack, all by just adding the expiration date into the copy...
We also included a very specific and very powerful animation in the sales page: a countdown timer. As a matter of fact, timers on landing pages can uplift sales by 10 and even 300%. People simply don't want to miss out on events when you make the date, time, and time remaining clear for them.
Introducing scarcity makes potential customers pay more attention to your offer, especially when that expiration date is right around the corner. 34 people enrolled in the class in less than 7 days, and we actually saw a conversion spike closer to the deadline (more on that later).
- Checkout Page. This is a key point of leverage. A well-written and well-designed checkout page is key for solidifying the sale. And even though we didn’t create a new checkout page, we used the one the client already had and it converted.
- Upsell. An upsell is an offer on top of an offer that has already been made and accepted. The upsell page we set up for this class wasn’t great and had WAY too much text—problems we could’ve corrected with more time.
But it was a last-minute add-on, and we even added a random video redirecting customers to another website as part of the upsell. But despite it all, it actually BOOSTED sales by 7% and it only took us 30 minutes to set it up.
- Solid, Audience-Focused Copy. For writing the copy, we had to get the right tone for this business’ audience. It was a very specific market. And as any successful marketer knows, the first rule of conversions is knowing your audience. It seemed pretty difficult to get the right tone at first. But luckily our copywriter nailed it and the client loved it.
- Empathetic Web Design. Web design amplifies the copy and the website as a whole. And the more well-designed your website is, the lower the likelihood that your audience will click off the page. To help boost design quality, we used real photos of the client—not stock photos. Photos of him and his family (including his baby daughter) brought a lot of authenticity to the page.
In this example from one of the 313 case studies analyzed in the Proven Sales Conversion Pack, you can see how by removing the image of a webinar host and adding one where he is holding a baby, sign-up rates for the webinar jumped by a whopping 66%. The lesson here: Personal photos sell.
In a study conducted by the University of Winnipeg in Canada, up to 90% of a person’s assessment on your website is based on color alone. And that’s another tactic we used for John’s sales page design—high contrasting, eye-catching colors.
- Email Sequence. A recent article from HubSpot noted that 35% of email recipients open an email based on the subject lines. With that in mind, we made sure that subject lines communicated urgency—“the class begins tomorrow”, “enrollment ends soon”, “doors close tonight at midnight”.
We also filtered out the people who didn’t open the emails and sent them only to the ones who had opened the previous ones. And that helped qualify the leads that did come in while keeping the client’s email list pristine at the same time.
Finally, we appealed to people’s fear of missing out because fear of loss is powerful. See in the example below how FOMO increased the number of people opting in for this website by 38.25%.
- Quality Assurance. For us, quality always wins, and that’s why we offer to clients a triple check guarantee for our Done-For-You service. For this client, we made sure everything was polished and ready to be launched. Everything was perfect until… an error went live. Huh! Accidents happen, but still—so annoying!
The last email sent reminding people to enroll in the class said “15 hours left until the Master Class closes” and there were really 3 hours left. This error went live because there was a last-minute change in the subject line and the email was not QA’d. But we took that “incident” into our favor. There was actually a spike in last-minute sales on that day, especially in the morning. So, since we said there were 15 hours left, we decided to keep the doors open longer and there was a rush of extra sales. BOOM! 8 people enrolled and $1,592 came in.
- Use of Video (Interviews). We sent out 2 more emails promoting 2 interviews. These were video conversations that highlighted some of the finer points of what the Master Class was really about. Adding in these videos helped connect the audience to John on a much more personal level. And it helped too! These emails were a brief reminder that the offer was ending soon and 8 new sales came in—$796.
- Use Of Webinar. As part of our funnel strategy, the client offered a free webinar to the people interested in the online class. It was mainly for answering frequently asked questions about the Master Class—something to help influence those on the fence to sign up right now. We promoted the webinar through one email and voilà! 4 sales came in again—$796.
Check out our
Lessons Learned
- Quality Always Wins. We learned from the error in the email sent out that EVERYTHING needs to be QA’d because quality assurance can boost your conversion rate instantly. Even though we took advantage of that tiny error that went live, we won’t let it happen again for sure.
- Sell, Launch, Build. Sell your info product, launch it, and then build it. The most effective way to find out if a product has a real market is to pre-sell it first, launch it, and build it.
- Set Up Measurable Goals. If you are planning to launch your info product, set measurable goals and aim for them. Ours was always to sell and launch. Next time we launch a product, we will focus even more on LAUNCHING.
- Launch To Your Email List. No matter how large your email list is, just LAUNCH your info product. There will always be time to grow it later.
- Set Up a Deadline. Creating a realistic start and end date with a launch calendar helped us achieve our deadline. Don’t make time an excuse to stop yourself from launching.
- Keep Your Audience Niched. Your info product should be crafted for a specific audience. As I said before, there is nothing better than a real-life case study. And for this one we’ve been studying, we didn’t know if the Master Class was going to be well-received by the audience, but we knew who we were selling to.
- Set Up Your Email Automation. Each email you send should reveal a little more information and tease the reader for what’s coming. Build up excitement and anticipation around your upcoming product. Just remember not to give it all away.
Conclusion
If you really want to move people through your sales funnel, SHOW them why you’re the best. You can grow your revenue with an info product even if you haven’t tested it or done market research.
Keep in mind that there are high money-points of leverage on your funnel that you can tweak to BOOST your sales. John’s case study proves it and that’s why real-life examples are so powerful. You just need to know where they are and what to do with them.
Go step-by-step through your sales funnel—landing pages, solid copy and web design, email automation, quality assurance—all play an essential role in your business.
And if you need help launching an untested info product, just reach out to Growbo.
I hope this article encourages you to LAUNCH, and to launch right.
Now tell me something, which key ingredients of your funnel do you think will work best for boosting your sales and why?
Let me know in the comments below.
And by the way, congrats! I’m confident that after reading this article, you will be launching your own info product soon.
And if you don’t want to lift a finger, just let Growbo do it all for you!
Keep funnelin', stay focused,
Mariana
