How Kira and Rob sold 39 spots for a $2,000 program
in the summer of the lockdown (#2020)
— Scoring a 15.65 ROAS
Kira and Rob are copywriters who train other copywriters on how to run a successful business.
After launching their $2,000 program — The Copywriter Accelerator — in April 2020, they wanted to do an even more profitable webinar launch four months later in August — right smack dab in the middle of the pandemic.
Game on.
By this time, Kira and Rob already had a well-proven history of working with Alvaro:
Alvaro came to us highly recommended by one of the top FB ad managers in the industry, Rick Mulready.
Once Alvaro invested a substantial amount of time in researching our customer and industry, he jumped into our first launch and helped us dramatically increase our
membership over a few weeks.
From there, we quickly jumped into another launch, and even though we raised our price on our program significantly (by $1000!), we increased our membership by roughly 35%. In that same launch we achieved a 1000% ROAS while earning $54 for every lead generated.
And since our two recent launches, Alvaro’s already helped us jump into list growth with our new lead magnet so we can continue to reach new ideal customers, grow our community,
and scale the business.
The thing we love the most is that our working relationship is “set it and forget it” in a lot of ways. I’m never worried that Alvaro isn’t looking out for us and our account. And while I
suspect we are among his smaller accounts, I feel like we get the same attention he gives his larger clients.
– Kira Hug and Rob Marsh, Founders of The Copywriter Club
Now, let’s get started on how Kira and Rob were able to sell 39 spots for a high-ticket
program during the pandemic. But first, they had a few issues getting in the way…
Tech problems. Oh the joy.
Kira and Rob’s first webinar was on a Wednesday. For max results, Alvaro likes to start running ads anywhere from 7-10 days before the webinar.
But because of a string of tech issues out of everyone’s control, the ads couldn’t start running until Friday.
Not ideal.
Also, you want to run ads for at least 72 hours before making changes. (After 72 hours, the algorithm starts to optimize and you get a clear picture of the winners and losers.) But because the webinar was four days away, Alvaro was forced to optimize the ads almost daily. This caused the cost-per-lead to inch up higher than it otherwise would’ve been.
Also not ideal.
Plus, the sales page was having issues, which meant immediately after the first webinar was over…they couldn’t even start running cart-open ads.
Even worse.
In fact, Kira and Rob had 272 fewer people sign up for this webinar launch than they did four months earlier.
BUUUT…
more people bought and they were more profitable with this launch than they were last time — even with fewer registrants. Without raising the price.
Why did more people buy this time around?
Well, that comes down to a little solution called a super active pop-up Facebook group.
After all…
$2,000 is a lot of money to convince someone to spend after a few ads and one hour of listening to you talk.
The majority of people registering had never heard of Kira and Rob.
And Alvaro has seen time and time again that when you interact with people for a couple of weeks before your webinars, you get FAR more sales than relying on the webinars alone.
That’s where a pop-up Facebook group comes into play.
But for it to powerfully effective — Kira and Rob had to:
1. Convince registrants who barely knew them that their group was well worth joining.
You can have the best pop-up FB group out there, but if people aren’t joining — it’s useless.
The ads Alvaro ran caused 82%(!) of the people who registered to join.
And for everyone who registered and didn’t join, Alvaro retargeted them with an ad letting them know the party was going on over here, people!
2. Convince registrants their group was worth spending lots of
time in.
Kira and Rob needed this to work.
To get as many conversions as possible, Alvaro gave them a guide with several pointers on how to stay in front of their group and be present as much as possible.
Pointers like:
- Post questions that get people to respond
The goal of a pop-up Facebook group is to get people to interact with you.
The more active it is, the more you’re going to be in front of people in their newsfeed.
Posting questions gets the job done.
(And for all the silent stalkers reading other people’s comments, it builds social proof and motivates them to be more active too.)
- Go live. A lot
Hosting as many FB Lives as possible — before and after the webinar — makes people know, like and trust you so much more.
So Kira and Rob did multiple lives, from getting people to introduce themselves to talking about their offer’s bonuses to reminding people the webinar was about to start.
HOT TIP:
One of Kira and Rob’s best FB Lives was when Kira gave people direct feedback on an “assignment” they were given during the webinar (which was to zero in on what makes their business unique). Offering value like that before people have even bought is a fantastic way to nudge people closer to that “Buy Now” button.
Also — the pop-up FB group unexpectedly built extra social proof and FOMO. Without being asked, people who went ahead and joined The Copywriter Accelerator started posting about how excited they were — which worked to make the non-buyers NOT want to miss out.
By giving people so much direct access to Kira and Rob before and after the webinar— Even though their ads only ran for four days before the webinar…
Even though they couldn’t immediately run cart-open ads after the webinar ended…
And even though their cost-per-lead wasn’t as low as it could’ve been…
The pop-up Facebook group was the biggest reason why they were able to score a 15.65 return on ad spend (ROAS).
By the way, their cost-per-lead was still only $7.50. So even though it wasn’t as low as it would’ve been if they’d had more time, it was still solid. Especially considering their earnings-per-lead was $149 (so for every $7.50 lead, they got back $149).
Now.
Even though following Alvaro’s guide on how to best leverage their pop-up FB group was one of the biggest reasons why Kira and Rob were successful, there were a couple of other sidekicks to their success:
1 What Alvaro calls Credibility Ads. These are ads with links to well-known websites where Kira and/or Rob were featured, like Inc.com. They’re fantastic for cold traffic.
After all, if you’ve never heard of Kira and Rob but then you see this ad in your newsfeed showing they’ve been featured on Inc.com… i
t’s an instant credibility boost.
2. Running two specific types of cart-open ads: on-going testimonial ads and special bonus ads
This created a much more powerful campaign than just running regular cart-open ads. Five ads were testimonials from Kira and Rob’s past students. These ran from the moment the cart opened till it closed. These made registrants go “That person got their first 30K a month mostly because of the Accelerator? I want that.”
And then there were specific ads talking about the bonuses. They only went live when the fast-action, mid-cart, and cart-close bonuses were available, shining the spotlight on all the extra value people would get if they buy NOW.
3. One particular (recycled) ad
The first time Alvaro worked with Kira and Rob, he did extensive research into who their target audience was. Using that research, he wrote the bones of this particular ad. Like the incredible copywriters they are, Kira and Rob then added their magic touch to it.
This ad deeply resonated with their audience. And even after recycling it for this August 2020 launch, it beat out the new ads, remaining their highest-performing ad.
From day one, Alvaro’s felt like a member of our tiny, yet growing, team. His high level of professionalism elevates our work and team. It truly feels like he wants us to win at everything we do.
We wouldn’t be where we are today without Alvaro on our team. And I know for a fact that anything is possible for us because we’ve got Alvaro by our side, strategizing with us, and helping us grow.
If you want to work with a true professional who understands the online marketing space, funnels, and Facebook ads based on what’s working today, I highly recommend you work with Alvaro. – Kira Hug