Right Strategy, Right Time?

Last week I talked about the importance of right message, right strategy, right time.

Today, I want to dive a bit deeper into the right strategy aspect and build off a brief interaction I had with a new LinkedIn lead last week.

The connection reached out to share that we were both in the same business — helping business grow and scale with digital marketing — and she asked me what growth strategy I used.

Strategy, singular.

The correct answer to that question is that there is no single growth strategy.

As with all things in marketing, it depends.

It’s the entire basis of the Solve to Scale model that Chris and I use…

Taking a deep dive look into individual businesses to evaluate their short-term objectives and long-term goals, what’s working in their business and what’s not, the existing audience and lead acquisition channels, and so much more.

Let me run through a recent example…

Case Study: Coaching Client Struggling with Profitability

The Client Who Shall Not Be Names is running a video sales letter (VSL) funnel where the call to action is to book a one-on-one call with a consultant.

This is a funnel you’ll see in various forms and by different names in both the information publishing and B2B spaces.

The price point for the product is in the the $5k to $7k range (sales team has flexibility on the offer.)

The problem is that as ad costs have increased and the market has gotten more saturated with similar offers, it’s become increasingly hard to find and close qualified leads.

Some weeks they scratch out break even or a small profits and then other times they’ll go weeks without a sale.

The marketing team blames the sales team and the sales team blames the marketing team.

In this case, there are a few steps in the process…

Step 1: Data Analysis

In my opinion, EVERY growth strategist should ask for and review existing data before they make a recommendation.

Not doing so is a huge red flag in my book.

In this case, we looked at:

• Facebook and YouTube creatives & data

• Video views and retention — how many people actually make it to the pitch?

• Open and click rates on follow-up emails

• Lead to booked call ratio, call show and cancellation rates, and final call conversion rates

Here’s one of the biggest mistakes marketers and media buyers make with high-ticket sales call funnels…

They chase lower cost calls which only delivers a lot of unqualified leads.

$50-$100 call leads that no-show on calls and almost never buy won’t help you achieve a profitable funnel.

But $300 per booked call or more (which sounds high) are typically higher qualified — if you’ve done your copy and creative correctly — and they’ll show up for their calls, be prepared for the call if you gave them homework, and they’ll pay attention and convert at a much higher rate.

Step 2: Evaluate the Strategy

Right strategy, right time?

That’s the big question with a funnel that’s struggling to be profitable.

And I’m seeing this a lot with high-ticket funnels right now (over $5k price point) where businesses are struggling with ad costs and conversions.

Right now, the economy is tighter for a lot of people and businesses…

And that means buying decisions aren’t as automatic as they used to be, especially for high-ticket purchases.

The economy is cyclical, so marketing strategies need to be too.

In this case, we ran the numbers on 3 different funnel strategies:

• Low-ticket ($100 or less) product with ascension

• High-ticket ($1k to $2k) product sold via a webinar

• Existing VSL funnel to a sales team

While I certainly think we can dial in the direct to sales team funnel better and make it profitable, I also believe the right path is to layer in a low-ticket ascension funnel.

In this particular case, we can carve off assets that already exist within the coaching program to create different products to test in the $27 to $47 range.

We can also carve off assets that teach key parts of the system without revealing the whole. This allows lower ticket buyers to see some measure of success and we use these in the funnels as upsells to increase our average cart vallue.

Here’s why this strategy is much stronger…

This client is hyper-focused on being profitable on day 1 because they can’t carry the ads costs for 60-90 days or longer.

With the low-ticket ascension funnel, we cast a much wider net while growing their list and we’re able to get close to breakeven (minimum) on ad spend without the calls.

When we then layer in the book a call option at the end of the funnel and throughout the nurturing process, every call booked is essentially free.

In addition, we can then use insights learned from the low-ticket buyers to create stronger hooks and improve the conversions of the direct to call funnel.

It’s a win-win.

But will it work for EVERY business? Not necessarily. That’s why I always take the time to learn the business first.

Step 3: Test

Full disclosure — I’m still building the funnel for this particular client, but I do have many other examples.

Not only that, but I also coach in a mastermind with over 100 businesses doing from $500k per year to upwards of $20M per year.

The data shows that, right now, low ticket ascension funnels are kicking butt.

It’s working for coaching clients, course creators, agencies, SaaS companies and more.

Now, I acknowledge that not every company can create a low ticket product.

I used to work for a $100B+ market cap SaaS company that primarily sold products at $20k per seat and higher.

But, there were definitely other strategies we could have tried in tight markets that weren’t always webinar or case study to sales call to $20k invoice.

I’ll explore some of those ideas in future issues.

If you’re enjoying Solve to Scale, please feel free to forward it to a friend or colleague and tell them to opt in.

And if you need help reviewing your data or dialing in your growth strategy, just let us know.

Jon and Chris