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Lesson Info

Boost Your Marketing With Paid Advertsing

So, I'm excited because the next example that I'm gonna show you is still out of my playlist, and it's a longer example. So most marketing goals are 30 days, especially with a product-based business, it's gonna be a 30-day marketing goal. But I'm going to walk you through what happens with Your Best Year 2016. Your Best Year, this is its third year running, it started in 2014, 2015, so this is its third year running. It is a repeatable season. It makes me sore the success that has come from this book. So remember, it not only has a season, it has a repeatable season. So this product will be null and void about six months into the year, even though people will buy it all year long, but by October, you're best year 2017 will be out, and then it will be an old file. So Your Best Year, having an experience with it, having its third year running, I can tell you that December through February is going to result in its strongest sales. It's really gonna take off, and it's, just because of the...

nature of the workbook, it takes off December through February. But the campaign starts in October. So December through February. So this is kind of a longer season, but this is something to know if you have something that has a season like that or you have a seasonal sale. And one of the things I love to do with my product-based business, is bring out a fall special, or bring out something to that effect. So you can see here, the goal is 10,000 sales of Your Best Year. And I want to promise you that when I wrote that goal, it was a huge goal to write. But because of the rate of the growth of the product, it was a stretch that I knew I wanted to make. And it was a number I wanted to get used to. I was willing to accept the challenge. If I had to think of what 2014 sold at, I would guess it probably sold 3,000 copies. But the year before that, it sold probably 750 copies, so the growth was rapid. And I wanted to give it a chance and really do the best I could for it. So I set that goal. It was a huge number to write down. It made me nervous, but it didn't make me scared. It made me think, okay, I can rise to that challenge. So I had good reasons to do that. And also, I knew its seasons. I knew its strongest sales times. I had a lot of data already on the product. And I knew the marketing that worked. I also knew I improved the product every year. This is so much better than 2014, and it's that much better than 2015. I improve it based on its feedback, and it's become a more valuable tool. It also now has things that I developed all over the year, because I study productivity so much of the year, that it has revolutionary goals, it has systems that I've used to create my own success. And I knew it had already lots of traction. Because if a couple of thousand people are using it, I knew there was traction there. And so the potential earnings, if this product sold 10,000 copies, was $7 per copy. That was the opportunity to be the most successful, the most money I've ever made in my career, the most successful launch that I've ever had. And those potential earnings were huge. And because of that, this is the first time that you'll see the advertising budget, because I'm going into this knowing that this has some traction, that this has a customer base, I'm willing to invest $2,000 upfront before this product has made a dime. And I actually adjusted that up $1, during its season, because everything was going so well. I was on track to meet this goal, and I'm going to show you exactly how that played out in advertising your creative business, where I added that money, why it worked, and what I was doing to make it work. But let's look at the strategies that I was gonna use. While I knew December and February, for the season of this product, was gonna have the strongest sales, my campaign starts with a launch in October, it always does. People know the year best year will come out in October. Number one reason I did this is because pins will take a good six weeks to three months to circulate, to become as popular as they can possibly get. So in October, I'm blogging all the time about Your Best Year and New Year Goals. It's weird, because it's October, but by January I'm the number one goal setting pins on Pinterest. So I also know that I want, oh, and then also, while I'm blogging, I'm doing very soft Facebook boosts. So I'm doing like where you can like boost $5 to $ to get in front of people. I want to make sure everybody sees those posts, because I want to make sure everybody knows Your Best Year is coming. And I also want to get this book into its ideal customers' hands as soon, and as early as I possibly can in this launch campaign. So I reserve $500 of the advertising budget, and it's not for ads, but it's actually to get the book into the hands of the clients that I'm already working with. So I have a membership club called the Luminaries Club. I open that up. I say I want to send this book out to you. And I'm not only willing, I'm buying the book and I'm paying the shipping. I shipped it internationally. Which I'll tell you what, folks, is not cheap, because I didn't even realize, when I set up the campaign, that it was gonna cost like $20 just to send the book in itself. But every time I knew, I had this $500 budget, it was well-used. And I loved, loved actually sending mail to my clients. It's the first time we had that physical exchange where I'm a service and informational based business. So I did the paperbacks for free, in exchange for their reviews. Because in addition to selling on Etsy, Your Best Year also sells on Amazon.com. So I send the book, and if you don't mind, leave me a review on Amazon.com in exchange. Which they were happy to do so. Everybody was happy to do so. So again, at the same time I'm sending these out, this is early, it's long before Your Best Year's launch date. I'm also boosting posts. I'm talking about how to create Your Best Year yet. I'm talking about how to make the most of 2016, and I'm doing little boosts here and there. I'm not spending much money. So this is similar to the pre-sale exclusive. This is something that I added to Your Best Year's campaign this year that I had never done before. I bundled an amazing offer for Your Best Year. It was a value of $117, with everything in it being full retail. It was a combination of the book, the digital files, the wall planner, books from Your Best Year 2015 was included. It was a combination of physical items and digital items, but it was everything that had to do with that particular theme bundled together. Retail value for that bundle was $117. I had it for sale in my Etsy shop for $39. And the week before Your Best Year launched, I emailed my list a 40% off coupon. And they got the digital file, the paperback copy by itself, or they could buy that bundle for $21. And already, that was a list-only promotion, but already in October, I have that book into all of its most interested customers hands. I requested the reviews and asked that they be in by October 20th, which was the launch date for the product. So that by the time the book officially launched, I'm well into the middle of the campaign, and the book is already getting five-star reviews on Amazon.com. It still holds five-star reviews today, well, like 4.7. Let me be honest. So right there, people think of the launch, or they think of the sale date, as the start of a marketing campaign. But you can see here, I'm deep into the middle of the campaign. In October, this book is already into thousands of my dream clients' hands. I probably have matched the sales of Your Best Year 2015, and the season has yet to begin. It was a great season for Your Best Year. And in December I got into the thick of online advertising. So I mentioned this before. What I did from December 15th to January 15th, was take about 16 pages, maybe 17 pages of the book, and bundle them as a free sample. Again, it's 150 pages long, so I'm giving away less than, I'm not gonna try to do the math, but I'm giving away a tiny bit. And I signed up with Lead Pages. I finally made that leap, so that I was getting instantaneously emails for the opt-ins. The total spend in that thick of that advertising campaign was $1,500, and it was the most I'd ever spent on a Facebook boost before. I took out several ads at about $250 each. So I was really going hard at a particular market. All things we're gonna talk about in advertising your creative business. But at the same time, with the opt-in and the sample of the book, I was also building my list, which was invaluable. I think I was, I more than doubled my average opt-in that month. So overall, with that opt-in, I think I've gotten about 4,000 new subscribers from that opt-in, let alone the sales. That advertisement, the opt-in in the thick of the advertisement there, was converting at a whopping 10%. And like I said, most industry conversions is two to three percent. But the fact that this ad was converting people at 10% was phenomenal. And that, right there, is when I decided to up the budget by $1,000, because you can't beat it. Like, I don't think that it gets better than that. So again, I'm gonna walk you through that ad campaign and how it all works in advertising your Etsy shop, or advertising your creative business. But I spent the last of my advertising budget on promoted pins. So again, I want to tell you about the exposure. That was a hefty budget for me to invest upfront. I was nervous every time I went to the post office with my free bundle of books and I walked out with a $300 receipt. I was nervous every time that happened. Did I know it was gonna work the first time I launched it? Did I realize that, did I think, did I know for sure I was gonna get the return on my investment when it came with Your Best Year? Absolutely not. Was I worried nobody would want it? Was I worried that while I thought it was a revolutionary tool, maybe it wouldn't relate this year? Yes, absolutely. But did it only get better? Yes. And the more you repeat a campaign, the more you have the opportunities to learn from it, and the better chances you have of improving it. I have a question, Lisa. Okay. When you gave away several copies of it to the people in your club, for instance, and you talked about the hefty mailing, do you have a formula in place on how many you were gonna give away? No. Okay. And with the membership, everybody is international, a lot of people are international, as well as US-based. And everybody would ask, does that apply to overseas? And I said yes, again, not realizing what it will cost, but now I'm not regretting it at all. Because it wasn't even about the reviews, it really was about the joy of getting that into their hands. Actually getting to mail them something physical, because they're not customers to my product-based business, I loved being able to just fill up the envelopes, which I hand-addressed myself, because I didn't have shipping labels for it. They weren't purchases. So I loved writing all their names. I loved putting them in the mail, and I don't... Yeah, please. Did you find that that initial boost of getting it into those people that cared about it the most, did that help? Did they kind of market it for you at that point, because they were such raving fans of it to begin with? Do you think that helped, like, to boost your ultimate sales? Yes, I do. First of all, there's a lot of social proof in it, and then for example, you were a Luminaries Club member, and you're talking about it, and you're growing your Instagram following it. So all of my clients are growing businesses at the same time. And if you looked at #yby2016, you would see how many people have that, you know, are using it and out there talking about it. So yeah, I think the fact that they were going through it. You know, the other thing is, I don't know it's a winning product until actually somebody else uses it and then tells me what they think. I can think it's great, but then at the end of the day, I've looked at it so many times, I am not sure. It could just be what I've looked at every day for the last, you know, two months. And so when I get that initial feedback, and now I'm starting to have testimonials that I can use, and I have five-star reviews, and it continues to have five-start reviews, about 4.7 on Amazon.com, then I know for a fact that, you know, that's helping. It gives me more confidence to go into its heavy marketing season saying people are raving. Oh my gosh, I had one review that came through on Etsy that said, "Oh, Lord Jesus, buy this product." And so I took that, and I needed to share that all over social media, because "Oh, Lord Jesus" was in all caps. She was screaming, "Oh, Lord Jesus, buy this product." So yeah, that really helps, it really helps. I'm picking up all caps review for your book. So Little Girls Pearls, in the online chat says, in all caps, YBY2016 is amazing, double exclamation point. A serious game-changer. There's nowhere to hide, there's nothing you can do but succeed if you use it and follow through. And Lindy Goto says, "No question, but just want to say, "you need to get," in all caps, "You need to get Your Best planner," in all caps. Best planner I've ever bought, seriously, it's a workbook and a planner, fabulous. Yeah, it says, "carry on." There's a couple of us in here that have gone through the process. And I think what I love about it, and what I loved getting feedback is, is that there's challenging parts in there. Sometimes it gets, sometimes it's not pretty, because you're really asked to look at things that aren't working in your life, or aren't working in your business. But that's the glory of it, because when you come out on the other side with improvements to make or ways that you can enhance, that's what was one of my favorite things about it. Yeah, it's fun. Great, so it sounds like an amazing book. Just as a follow-up, if you could tell people how to get it if they want it now? Oh, please, it is on end-of-sale clearance, especially with me, you can go to marketyourcreativity.etsy.com. That's where you'll find even paperback copies, because I have my own supply of them, and they are marked down to the season-end clearance. I'm actually doing a product haul, everything is on clearance there now. And so you can bring that book home. I believe the digital copy of it is $7.50, and the paperbacks run as low as $10. And I still have those bundles running, so you can get a lot of digital files, and the paperback itself, if you want to get that, as well. But excellent prices there, and five-star reviews, except for Amazon, which is 4.7, you can go get that book. Great, thanks so much, Lisa. And to follow-up on the question I had before, I just want to close that piece out. So you didn't have a formula in terms of how many people you gave the book free to, but can you give us an idea how many people were in your club that you offered that free book to? Sure, I think at the time of the offer I would estimate about 150 people in my club, and I believe about 40 of them took me up on the offer and asked for the paperback copy. A lot of people don't use the paperback copy. A lot of people like to print them out themselves. So they took me up on the paperbacks should they choose to use that one, and then had the time to review it, as well. Great, thank you. Yeah, and it was a great investment. I wouldn't do a thing differently about it. So using my Your Best Year example, and what I can expect from that marketing campaign, it not only brought me new customers, it also brought me new subscribers and it brought me repeat business. There was a lot going on in that. We say either growth or profit. It was a marketing campaign that brought me both things. And that's what a good campaign will do for you. It can usually do all three things at once, and when that is happening, then you know it's time to invest in it and believe in it, and boost it with paid advertising.