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[Case Study] 3-Day Live Event, 50 Seats & $169,152 in Sales Revenue
If you’re running live events (or considering it) to fill up your $10k+ coaching programs or masterminds …

In this case study, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of how we generated $169,152 in sales revenue from a 3-day live event.

Now to be totally transparent, this was our FIRST live event that we’ve promoted.

We did quite a few things wrong and there were a lot of holes in our process.

But at the end of the day, we were still able to make this a win for us and our partners.

This event was done in partnership with Jason Lucchesi and his awesome team at No Flipping Excuses, along with Larry Gill & Marishka Pilch who are some of the nation’s top note investors.

Most of the credit goes to these guys for delivering a kickass event that gave attendees a bullet-proof action plan to add 6 figures to their real estate business with bulk packages & notes.

And in this case study, I’m going to break down the entire campaign we ran ...
  • To put butts in the seats
  • Sell the $25,000 coaching program at the event
  • And the money-making follow up email sales campaign
Alright, let’s dig in.
$169k+ Marketing Campaign Overview
At the time, we were selling a $2,500 front-end training course very successfully (case study coming soon), but we didn’t have a higher ticket backend to increase our revenue per customer/lifetime value.

So the idea was to do a 3-day live event, primarily targeting our $2.5k customers and roll out a new $25,000 coaching program.
Side note: Typically, we’d test out a new offer over email. However, we didn’t have the time to test the offer prior to the event. 
Here’s a high-level break down of the campaign numbers:
  • # of Leads Generated: 366 
  • ​# of Event Tickets Sold: 53 
  • Total Front-End Revenue: $17,152 (event ticket sales + up-sells) 
  • Total Back-End Revenue: $152,00 (coaching program sales)
If you’ve been running events for a while, these may not be the most exciting numbers you’ve come across?

But knowing that this was our first run at this model and we’ve generated close to $170,000 without spending a penny on paid ads tells me we’re onto something here.

With that said, here’s how we’re going to break up the sections in this article:
  • Front-End Campaign: Putting Butts in Seats (aka Selling Tickets) 
  • ​Event Warm-Up & Sales: Getting Them to Show Up & Buy Into The Program 
  • ​Post-Event Email Follow Up Campaign: Where the Money is Made (or Lost)
Aight, enough foreplay.

Let’s dig in, shall we …
Front-End Campaign: Putting Butts in Seats
The goal of the front-end campaign was to fill up all 50 seats and break-even on the event from ticket sales & upsells.

So let’s break this down ...
Front-End Campaign Flow
We used our T3 system over email to fill up all the seats.

Here’s how we’ve set up the enrollment flow & sales pipeline:
  • We sent email broadcasts, published FB posts in our group and announced the event on the podcast with a call to action to send us an email for the details 
  • ​Once we received an email from a lead, we’d reply back with 3 questions to qualify them 
  • ​If they were qualified, we’d then send them all the details over email (more details on this in the copy section) 
  • ​When they say they’re IN, we’d send me a link straight to the check out page to pay & lock in their spot 
  • ​We had a VIP Day up-sell in place to increase the order value
We decided to handle enrollment over email and didn’t send traffic to a sales page on our website for the following reasons:
  • We wanted to make sure we’re in close touch with the market so we can collect feedback fast to iterate on our messaging and offer 
  • ​Handling it over email gives us the opportunity to connect with our prospects 1-on-1 in a leveraged way so we can close more sales (hence the 14.4% lead-to-sales conversion rate)
Live-Event Offer Details
We were targeting two segments separately for the live event: our $2.5k buyers and everyone else (prospects + customers who bought other products).

We wanted to make sure that we will fill up the event and didn’t want to take any risks.

We only wanted BUYERS at the event.

So even though we promoted this publicly, we priced the stand-alone event ticket @$1,000 to only attract high-quality buyers (that would probably convert on the back-end)

Let’s break down the offer for each...
Offer to our $2,500 Customers
This was a straightforward offer where they need to make a $100 refundable deposit. 

They got the ticket for free as part of the training course they bought for $2,500.
  • Pricing: $100 refundable deposit
  • Deliverable:
        - 3 Day LIVE Event 
        - Facebook Group
        - Swag: Notebook + Pen, No Flipping Excuses T-shirts & 2 Books
  • $50 Starbucks card: for Fun Activity/Roleplays
  • Digital Access to Slides
Then we had a VIP Day Upsell: 
  • Pricing: $299
  • Deliverable:
        - 2 Drink Tickets  
        - Appetizers
        - Hangout with the Guru 
  • Bonus: 60 Days Free Access to DistressedPro.com (we had negotiated a JV deal)
Offer to Prospects
What we wanted to do here is 1) Fill up seats and 2) Increase transaction value.

We did that by asking for a $100 upfront and then 3 monthly payments of $299 (first payment of $299 kicks in AFTER the event is over).

This helped us to lower friction selling the tickets and then create a nice small cashflow on the back-end (people place a lower value on future money).
  • Pricing: $100 upfront, then 3 monthly payments of $299 (first payment of $299 kicks in AFTER the event is over).
  • Deliverable:
        - 3 Day LIVE Event 
        - Facebook Group
        - Swag: Notebook + Pen, No Flipping Excuses T-shirts & 2 Books
  • $50 Starbucks card: for Fun Activity/Roleplays
  • Digital Access to Slides
  • ​Guarantee: Attend the event and if by Day 3 you don’t feel like you’ve gotten 10x value, we’ll refund your $100 and you won’t have to pay the remaining balance.
Then we had a VIP Day Upsell: 
The way we positioned the upsell is that you can save 50% on the ticket if you upgrade now and also get access to the V.I.P. day + all the bonuses.
  • Pricing: Get the ticket @50% discount ($500 instead of $1,000)
  • VIP Day Access:
        - 2 Drink Tickets  
        - Appetizers
        - Hangout with the Guru 
  • Bonus #1: 60 Days Free Access to DistressedPro.com (we had negotiated a JV deal)
  • Bonus #2: Direct Deal Profits Course (Only pre-recorded videos)
Copy That Sells
Instead of writing 2,000-3,000+ words breaking down our copy strategy and how we positioned the offer, I’ve recorded a video going over how we outlined the entire messaging.
Traffic: Filling Up The Sales Pipeline with Leads
We used organic channels to drive leads and fill up our sales pipeline. We didn’t use any paid media because we knew we could fill up the 50 seats without it.

And since this was a test, we wanted to keep expenses to a minimum (since we didn’t have any idea how this would perform, which turned out to be good!)

Here’s a quick breakdown of each channel …
Email Broadcasts
  • This was by far our biggest channel to drive leads to our sales pipeline 
  • ​We sent over 70 unique emails promoting the event 
  • ​We used long-form email copy to make the sale in the actual email
Facebook Group Posts
  • We had built the group a couple of weeks ahead of kicking off the campaign to about 800ish members 
  • ​It served the purpose of “nurturing” our prospects and gauge interest in the overall idea/theme “Asset Manager Millions” 
  • ​We mainly used the group to mirror our email messaging & do a couple of FB lives to drive leads into our sales pipeline 
  • ​Whenever someone locked in their spot, we had them publish a post in the FB group which created a good social proof 
  • ​This also created a sense of community where people felt left out if they didn’t join on the action
Podcast
  • Our partner Jason had an established podcast called “No Flipping Excuses”
  • ​So it was a no brainer to leverage this channel to drive listeners into the Facebook group and create a buzz around the event
  • ​We dedicated 4 podcast episodes to promote the event
Event Warm-Up & Sales: Getting People to Show Up & Enrolled in our $25k Coaching Program
In this section, we’re going to cover how we warmed up our attendees to have them actually show up to the event and then pitched the $25,000 offer.

Let’s dig in ...
Event Warm-Up Strategy: 90%+ Show Up Rate
It’s one thing to get people to buy tickets, and it’s a whole nother thing to get them to actually SHOW UP.

The biggest “sale” we had to do is getting our attendees to leave their family, business and comfortable lifestyle …

Hop on a plane, rent a hotel room and sit in their seat for 3 days.

That’s a big ask!

So here’s what we did to get over 90% of attendees to show up to the event ...
  • We created a Facebook group for members so we can keep them engaged and create a sense of community. 
  • ​We were posting regularly every week with updates and giving people behind the scenes look at how the event is all coming together.
  • ​We had 3 pre-event FB LIVE calls all designed to future pace them into the experience, engage members and create a sense of FOMO . 
  • ​We tied each call to one of the event days where we revealed the agenda, asked for feedback/questions on the agenda and focused on the BENEFITS they’re going to get as a result of the content and how would that show up in their life.
  • We set up follow up automation to remind members to book their hotel, tickets and print out the event details. 
  • ​We created a survey for members to fill out with their time of arrival, where they’re coming from and the hotel they’re staying at. If they didn’t fill it up within a week, we’d get notified and follow up personally to make sure they’re all set.
  • ​Every week we’d send emails to our members updating them on how things are coming along and tease the content & activities we’ve got lined up for them.
This strategy worked out great as we had over 90% of people show up to the event.
Event Sales Strategy: Pitching the $25,000 Coaching Offer
We took a very different approach to enroll clients in our program than most people do.

We’re not a sales organization, we’re marketers.

We don't “hard close” people into our programs.

Instead, we rely on our marketing to do a lot of the selling for us and lean on our irresistible offer to close the sale.

So let’s breakdown the sales process flow, offer and copy.
1. Soft Pitch from The Stage
On the 2nd day of the event, just before breaking for lunch Jason announced that we’re putting together a small group of investors to help them with getting notes & bulk packages.

And if they wanted to get the details, we already have an invite for the attendees they can claim by going to the registration desk.

Then throughout Day 2 & 3, Jason kept reminding attendees to grab their invitation and schedule an in-event strategy session.
2. Hand Over Invite & Schedule Strategy Session
We had an invitation (aka sales letter) prepared for each attendee and placed in a regular white envelope with their name on it (we’ll dig deeper into the letter in the copy section)

Then once they picked up their invitation, we asked them if they’d like to schedule a quick strategy session to discuss their situation and see if we can help them reach their real estate goals with the program.
3. Conduct Strategy Session to dial in the offer & close the sale
Since this was the first time we made this offer …

The goal of the strategy sessions was really less about “selling”, and more about collecting feedback and market research to dial in our offer and messaging.

Meeting face to face with prospects and having a conversation with them about their pains/needs and how the offer helps is the fastest feedback mechanism you can put in place to dial your offers.

Not only you get to hear what people say, but also watch their body language for signals (a lot of people tell you what you want to hear out of politeness, but their body language never lies)

So we did 30 mins strategy sessions. It was laid back with no sales pressure.
$25,000 Coaching Offer Details
(Image Credit: Growth Tribe)
This was a new offer and we had no idea how it would perform.

Because there was only 1 offer sold on the front-end (@$2,500), the customer lifetime value was relatively low.

We wanted to test the offer in person so we can collect feedback LIVE and pivot fast on the offer.

Here’s the offer breakdown …
  • Pricing
        - One-time payment of $18,000 ($7,000 discount)        
        - 3 payments of $7,500 ($2,500 discount)
        - 10 payments of $2,500 (We gave them 60 days before the next payment hits)
  • Deliverable
        - Our entire training library of over 6 training programs
        - 2 Weekly Group Coaching Calls  
        - Access to a list of pre-qualified Virtual Assistants
        - Private Facebook Group
        - Direct email access to the Guru (emergencies only)
        - 12 months of access to software
  • Guarantee: Get 10 tapes in the next 12 months or we’ll keep working with you for free until you do, as long as they’re contacting 5 sellers/day and attending coaching calls. 
  • Exclusivity/Scarcity: Only 10 spots available at the founders’ price and payment plan
Copy That Gets People Handing Over their Credit Card
I’ve recorded this quick 3 minute high-level overview of the letter we wrote …
Post-Event Email Follow Up Campaign: Where The Money is Made (or Lost)
Had we stopped promoting the offer after the event was over, this campaign would have been a flop because our messaging/offer was off and we only made a few sales.

We probably only closed around 20%-25% of the overall sales at the event. We had more than 70% of our sales close on the FOLLOW UP.

So we ran a 2-week follow-up email campaign to those who registered but didn’t buy.
Pivoting With The Offer Positioning for More Sales
One of the biggest insights we’ve uncovered doing the strategy sessions at the event is that our prospects were more interested in pursuing a NEW opportunity, rather than an IMPROVEMENT.

What I mean is …

On the front-end, they bought a product that helps them get bulk packages from Asset Managers.

So we thought “why don’t we help them get MORE bulk packages with our $25k program and improve on what they’re doing, that will surely get them signing up!”

Well, that wasn’t the case.

People didn’t want MORE bulk packages, because they’ve already learned how to do it and felt that they have all the help they need to get more bulk packages with our front-end product.

So the initial positioning didn’t really move the needle.

On the other hand, at the event, one of the key topics we were talking about was buying performing/non-performing notes.

That was something NEW that we never had covered before.

And our prospects were MUCH more interested in pursuing a NEW opportunity (buying notes), rather than getting more bulk deals.

So the insight here is …
People are more likely to buy into a NEW OPPORTUNITY, instead of an improvement.
With that in mind, we’ve completely pivoted with our offer positioning by focusing on how we’ll help them acquire notes to create passive income and focused our messaging on that and our unique plan to get them there.

So we rolled out the follow-up campaign with the new positioning and messaging, which lead to a 400% increase in sales.

That was a big breakthrough for us and we ended up bringing in over $100,000 from the follow-up campaign alone.
$100k+ Email Sales Campaign Flow
What you see above is the flow of the email sales campaign all the way from generating the lead to closing the sale.

We send what we call “T1” emails, which are broadcast emails with a Call-To-Action at the bottom of the email to reply back for details about the offer.

After someone replies to the T1 email, we have a sales rep manning the sales pipeline who then sends them 3-5 questions in order to qualify the lead and find out their currency and pain points (we’ll cover this in more detail in the copy section).

Once we qualify the lead and make sure they’re a good fit for the program, we then proceed to send them all the details over email.

Yep! We do not send people to a phone strategy session, webinar, sales page, etc.
We close the sale over email!
Email Copy That Gets The Sales
Since we had the audience’s trust and they know we’re experts at what we do …

The main focus of our messaging was around overcoming objections around the offer & showcasing case studies.

Let’s quickly breakdown the email sequence messaging …
Pre-Sell [2 Emails]
The goal here is to position our unique way of doing note investing as a NEW opportunity that investors can tap into (based on the insights we’ve uncovered at the event) and create demand for our offer.

The big idea here was that Zillow and the other iBuyers are gobbling up all the distressed/off-market properties and they’ve got billions of dollars in funding.

So trying to compete with them is probably not the best strategy.

So instead of playing the same game, the opportunity is in going into a whole another direction where they’re NOT competing with the iBuyers.

And then we positioned note investing as the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Open Enrollment [1 Email]
After 2 days of pre-selling, we opened up enrollment for the remaining spots while highlighting that they’re getting the “Founders” price when they enroll this time around and that we’ll be increasing the price the next time we make this available.
Benefits & Option Killing [3 Emails]
The focus of these emails was to highlight the benefits of buying notes and its advantages over other ways of investing in real estate (flipping houses, rentals, lending etc.).

The goal here was to sell against the other options available to them as investors aka “Kill Options”

We’re primarily trying to appeal to the “emotional” side of our prospects and intensifying their desire.
The Plan [1 Email]
This email was all about showing how our plan to buy notes is CLEARLY DIFFERENT than all the other plans/programs out there.

We wanted to create a “category of one” so that our prospects perceive our solution as the ONLY way to solve their pain point.
Case Studies & Overcoming Objections [8 Emails]
Showcasing case studies & overcoming their objections made up the bulk of our email messaging.

These were buyers of our program and have already attended the event. So we knew they were interested in the outcome we were promoting and they trusted us.

So all we needed at this point is to prove to them that this works and address their main objections.
Deadline [4 Emails]
Nothing gets people off the fence and taking action than deadlines. We always try to engineer as many deadlines as we can in our campaign because that’s where the bulk of the sales come.

In this campaign, we only ran a deadline on the enrollment and did a 48, 24, 18 and 6 hours deadline countdown.
Conclusion
As our first time running a live event, this was definitely a solid win and we learned a lot about what to do/not do.

With over $160,000 in sales, we’ve now got a solid validation of the offer and process to upgrade folks from our $2,500 front-end to our $25,000 back-end offer.

If you’re doing live events right now and would like us to consider running a turn-key sales campaign to enroll more clients into your $10k+ programs …

Send me an email to yassin@soldwithemail.com or ping on Facebook (click on the messenger icon) and let’s chat :-)
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