My 5 Thousand Dollar Mistake
I've made tons of mistakes in marketing and sales, online and offline, and made and lost a lot more than 5,00 dollars. This however was my most annoying mistake and my most time consuming one. And it may be one that you're making right now so if I can save you 5,000 Dollars, I'd be very happy.
I had a weight loss product, a great story, multiple success stories, before and after pictures, the whole shebang. But, I wanted everything. So I made a report for the opt-in, I made a trip-wire video series, I built out the product, the upsell, the downsell, and the upsell again. Page after page of content and information and sales.
Days into weeks of marketing.
Then it came, the release. Run traffic, 100 dollars later, three opt-ins no sales, cost per lead 33 dollars. I changed a title. 50 dollars later 0 optins. I changed the opt-in offer, instead of a report with multiple offers, I honed into what sounded the most interesting, new picture, new title. 100 dollars later, 30 optins, 0 sales. I went back to the tripwire, changed some of the copy. Sent more traffic. 100 dollars later, 48 optins, I was getting good conversion rate, and a very solid CTR about .90 cents a click. After running the offer for 1,000 dollars over the month, I had 0 sales. No one had tripped over the trip wire.
So, I decided to cut the trip wire.
I started sending traffic to the core offer, and another brick wall. Nothing was converting. I tried changing it to long form sales letter. My list was growing, my follow up was happening, but, I wasn't getting conversions. Not at all. Another 1,500 dollars spent that month cause my opt-ins were growing and a weight loss list would be solid. I was up to over 400 leads and 0 sales.
I had spent 2,500 dollars and couldn't sell a 7 dollar product or a 39 dollar product. I was annoyed, angry, sad. I tried long copy. And finally started to get conversions. Though I was spending 40 dollars per conversion. And when I tried to scale, my conversions went down and my cost went up, and suddenly I realized I'd made about 2,000 dollars and spent about 4,000 dollars.
I decided to try another program slightly more expensive, and to work the emails better.
4 months later when I came up to air, I had about 8K in ad spend and 3,000 dollars in product sold.
What did I do wrong?
It would take me more than two years to figure it out, in that time I would break down all the products put them on Udemy and get some passive income from there. Oh yeah, the list bought them up from Udemy and got my product in front page of weight loss behind only one other product.
So why wouldn't they buy from the funnel?
One, I had too much stuff untested and thrown all over the place. The idea of a multi-layered funnel with tripwires, main offers, upsells, downsells, cross-sells, and any other kind of sell is great, and these funnels are awesome when they start going. But, they require a great deal of testing and knowing which part converts so you know where people are falling off at. If you don't have a main offer converting but are sending everyone to a trip-wire that's not converting also, then you're doing a lot of work to fix one problem and end up with another one immediately after.
My opt-in wasn't honed and my avatar wasn't focused and perfect. So, my offer never caught fire until I really started speaking to my audience. I also didn't target audiences correctly instead of working within the avatar, I worked with the idea of fads, and that didn't work out.
Finally, since I didn't have a sound offer, all my work was constantly bringing me up to the wall and I didn't even know it.
So, what can you do to avoid this?
Launch a product quickly, even unfinished. You want to test your market as quickly as possible. It won't likely be as profitable as you want it to be, or even at all. But, know where the numbers are with your Primary offer and tweak the copy and see what people respond to.
Add pieces slowly. It's okay to go Opt-in, Main Offer, Upsell Thank You page... Then add in Opt-in, Tripwire, Main Offer, upsell, Thank You page... Then keep adding as you go, until you're maximizing conversions and Customer value.
The quicker you can get information on the things that matter and use them to adjust, the quicker you can be a success.
Testing is the magic word. It is key. Test everything, and record your results.
Finally, my major mistake was not knowing my audience, look, I know this time and time again is put into people's head, but it is of the most vital importance, you must know your audience.
I had a weight loss product, a great story, multiple success stories, before and after pictures, the whole shebang. But, I wanted everything. So I made a report for the opt-in, I made a trip-wire video series, I built out the product, the upsell, the downsell, and the upsell again. Page after page of content and information and sales.
Days into weeks of marketing.
Then it came, the release. Run traffic, 100 dollars later, three opt-ins no sales, cost per lead 33 dollars. I changed a title. 50 dollars later 0 optins. I changed the opt-in offer, instead of a report with multiple offers, I honed into what sounded the most interesting, new picture, new title. 100 dollars later, 30 optins, 0 sales. I went back to the tripwire, changed some of the copy. Sent more traffic. 100 dollars later, 48 optins, I was getting good conversion rate, and a very solid CTR about .90 cents a click. After running the offer for 1,000 dollars over the month, I had 0 sales. No one had tripped over the trip wire.
So, I decided to cut the trip wire.
I started sending traffic to the core offer, and another brick wall. Nothing was converting. I tried changing it to long form sales letter. My list was growing, my follow up was happening, but, I wasn't getting conversions. Not at all. Another 1,500 dollars spent that month cause my opt-ins were growing and a weight loss list would be solid. I was up to over 400 leads and 0 sales.
I had spent 2,500 dollars and couldn't sell a 7 dollar product or a 39 dollar product. I was annoyed, angry, sad. I tried long copy. And finally started to get conversions. Though I was spending 40 dollars per conversion. And when I tried to scale, my conversions went down and my cost went up, and suddenly I realized I'd made about 2,000 dollars and spent about 4,000 dollars.
I decided to try another program slightly more expensive, and to work the emails better.
4 months later when I came up to air, I had about 8K in ad spend and 3,000 dollars in product sold.
What did I do wrong?
It would take me more than two years to figure it out, in that time I would break down all the products put them on Udemy and get some passive income from there. Oh yeah, the list bought them up from Udemy and got my product in front page of weight loss behind only one other product.
So why wouldn't they buy from the funnel?
One, I had too much stuff untested and thrown all over the place. The idea of a multi-layered funnel with tripwires, main offers, upsells, downsells, cross-sells, and any other kind of sell is great, and these funnels are awesome when they start going. But, they require a great deal of testing and knowing which part converts so you know where people are falling off at. If you don't have a main offer converting but are sending everyone to a trip-wire that's not converting also, then you're doing a lot of work to fix one problem and end up with another one immediately after.
My opt-in wasn't honed and my avatar wasn't focused and perfect. So, my offer never caught fire until I really started speaking to my audience. I also didn't target audiences correctly instead of working within the avatar, I worked with the idea of fads, and that didn't work out.
Finally, since I didn't have a sound offer, all my work was constantly bringing me up to the wall and I didn't even know it.
So, what can you do to avoid this?
Launch a product quickly, even unfinished. You want to test your market as quickly as possible. It won't likely be as profitable as you want it to be, or even at all. But, know where the numbers are with your Primary offer and tweak the copy and see what people respond to.
Add pieces slowly. It's okay to go Opt-in, Main Offer, Upsell Thank You page... Then add in Opt-in, Tripwire, Main Offer, upsell, Thank You page... Then keep adding as you go, until you're maximizing conversions and Customer value.
The quicker you can get information on the things that matter and use them to adjust, the quicker you can be a success.
Testing is the magic word. It is key. Test everything, and record your results.
Finally, my major mistake was not knowing my audience, look, I know this time and time again is put into people's head, but it is of the most vital importance, you must know your audience.
rory singh TIKTOK