Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

“One more launch and I’m done.”

I knew I was about to disappoint my aunt. If the campaign I was working on failed again, I’d have to call her and tell her I couldn’t do it.

Yes, it’d make me feel like a failure and my family would probably think they were right about me choosing the wrong career.

But at that point, I was fed up. That was my fourth try in less than two weeks. I’d launched three campaigns earlier that all failed; nobody opted in.

The beginning

About two weeks earlier, my aunt called me that she needed my help with promoting her boarding school online.

Boarding school?

I thought about it for a second and wondered how that’s even possible.

I’d sold a lot of things online, but promoting a school? I mean, actually getting parents to enroll their kids in her school and make payment?

I wasn’t sure I could do it.

In fact, I felt it was impossible. Like…what kind of advert would make a parent take their child away from their current school and enroll them in a new school they learned about on Facebook – through an ad?!

But I couldn’t say NO. I probably would’ve said NO if it was a random person…because I believe businesses like that are better promoted organically…by building a brand online and attracting patronage over time.

But this was my aunt approaching me; NO was out of it.

Other than the fact that my reputation was at stake, our good relationship was also at stake.

I decided to, at least, try my best.

Lead generation

They were already running an ad that didn’t bring any good results. So, I went the lead generation route.

My plan was that I’d write great stuff about the school in an ad and then send people to a form they can fill to show interest in the school.

3 problems however:

  1. This was a rush project and there was no way to really plan for the campaign
  2. What the heck would be the lead magnet for a school?!
  3. How on earth do you target people in the market for a new school for their kids?!

I however worked with their web developer to build a landing page with an opt-in form and then a Thank You page.

Then I created an ad using as nice copy as I could create and used some pictures and videos I got from the school.

Launch(es)!

I launched the campaign and, unsurprisingly, it bombed. We didn’t get any meaningful result.

I killed the ad after a few days, changed creatives and targeting and a few other things. Relaunched the ad again, yet another failure. This continued till the fourth time.

Now you can understand why I was frustrated and ready to give up if that fourth launch failed. I really had tried my best, as promised, at that point.

Even though the fear of disappointment from previous launches was so strong on my mind, another part of me had some faith doing that fourth launch. I’d done a few things differently, and I was really hoping they make a difference.

Final launch!

Well… on 18th August 2019, we launched two new ad variables (testing them against each other).

And then things started to look promising.

One week later…one of the ads had generated 31 leads. And each lead was far less than a dollar.

Yes, it worked. Finally!

By the end of the campaign (just three weeks) we had over 92 leads and spent less than $100 total. (NOTE: Ads are cheaper in some countries, compared to others. In other words, results will vary from country to country.)

What did we do differently?

I realized that our problem, as at the fourth launch, was copy problem.

A lot of people were seeing our ads but no one was opting in.

We simply stopped everything we were doing and went back to the drawing board, then we asked ourselves a simple question (the same question I asked earlier): why would any parent want to change their kids’ school?

This time around though, we studied our target audience and really started writing out the various reasons we were able to come up with (I’m a parent myself anyway).

And then it changed everything; we went back to our advert copy and really had some heart-to-heart talk with our audience and addressed those reasons, positioning our school-client as the solution.

We also looked at our offer from a new perspective and even though we had no lead magnet or any gift to give them when they opt in, we still gave them a great reason to opt in. And they did in droves!

Finally, we didn’t bother ourselves with detailed targeting; we did zero targeting, except for location and age bracket. We allowed our message (copy) to call out and attract our ideal prospect.

And these were all we did to turn around the fate of that campaign.

New Record!

We’ve generated leads for several industries, but this most unexpectedly beat our past records and set a new one.

Because of this experience, we set up a separate website for servicing the education industry, and the results have been phenomenal for the schools we’ve worked with so far.

In case you were wondering if the leads became paid customers…well, the short answer is YES!

Long answer: even though most of the odds were stacked against them (many parents didn’t like one thing or another about the school – especially location) and the leads caller couldn’t really close well on phone till we gave them a script, albeit too late, 5 students were directly traceable to the leads we got.

But the JSS1 registration for that year doubled, and the only thing they did differently were the ads. They credited that, too, to us, but I chose to only take credit for the 5 students.

Think about it: education isn’t a low-ticket purchase, plus, students tend to spend several years in whichever school they choose.

So, that is 5 students who’ll pay them thrice a year for 3, 4, 5 or 6 years…for less than $100. I’d gladly pay more than $1,000 to get that!

I’ve said it severally, and I’ll continue to say it; knowing your audience so well can be the difference between a so-so campaign and a million-dollar campaign.

If you can know your audience so deeply, even more than they know themselves, creating offers becomes easy, creating persuasive messages and writing copy becomes easy…and in essence marketing and selling becomes easy.

Your business’ foundation!

This is why “Audience” takes foundational position in the Septuplar Sales System, and it is where my clients and students spend the most time and do the most work when installing this sales system into their business.

I believe in the Biblical saying that when the foundation is faulty, the righteous can hardly do anything. It’s true in all spheres of life, including business.

Your idea, your products or services, your team, your capital and other assets, are not the foundation of your business. Your audience is. And once you mess-up that crucial part of your business, you’re bound to struggle!

If you need help with ensuring you perfectly nail your audience, and also create great offers, powerful messaging, high-converting funnels, persuasive copy and cash-churning ads, then you should consider enrolling into my coaching program.

Simply send me a DM and we can discuss to see if you’re a good fit for this coaching program.

Talk soon,

Oludami

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