From Zero to $25K—Fixing a Broken Funnel in 90 Days
Client Overview
Our client, an online course creator specializing in personal finance education, had an incredible product but struggled to convert leads into paying students. Their courses, designed to help millennials save money, invest, and achieve financial independence, were highly rated by those who purchased—but sales were painfully slow.
Despite spending heavily on ads and generating traffic to their website, their revenue didn’t reflect the effort they were putting into marketing.
The Challenge
The client’s sales funnel was riddled with inefficiencies:
- Low Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rate: Out of 2,000 monthly leads, only 15 converted, yielding a dismal 0.75% conversion rate.
- Ineffective Lead Capture: The website’s lead magnet (a free budgeting template) had a low opt-in rate of just 2.8%, wasting traffic driven by ads.
- Lack of Nurturing: Leads who signed up weren’t nurtured effectively. The email sequence was inconsistent, impersonal, and lacked clear calls to action.
- Abandoned Checkouts: 65% of users who reached the checkout page left without completing their purchase.
The client was burning through $3,000 per month on ads but seeing minimal ROI, leaving them frustrated and unsure of how to move forward.
Our Solution
We took a comprehensive approach to rebuild their funnel from the ground up, focusing on lead capture, nurturing, and conversion strategies.
1. Optimizing the Lead Magnet and Capture Form
To increase opt-ins, we revamped their lead magnet and sign-up process:
- New Lead Magnet: Replaced the generic budgeting template with a free mini-course titled “5 Steps to Build Wealth in 30 Days,” which directly aligned with the paid course.
- Simplified Sign-Up Form: Reduced the number of fields to just name and email, cutting friction and improving completion rates.
- Exit-Intent Pop-Up: Added an exit-intent pop-up offering the free mini-course to capture visitors who were about to leave the site.
2. Creating a High-Converting Email Nurture Sequence
We developed a 7-email sequence designed to educate, engage, and convert leads:
- Day 1: Welcome email with access to the mini-course and a personal note from the course creator.
- Day 3: Value-packed email sharing a case study of a student who achieved financial independence using the course.
- Day 5: Educational email addressing common financial myths, with a soft CTA to explore the full course.
- Day 7: Limited-time offer email with a discount for leads who sign up within the next 48 hours.
- Day 9: FAQ email addressing objections, such as “What if I’m not good with money?”
- Day 11: Social proof email showcasing testimonials and success stories.
- Day 14: Final email with a “last chance” offer to create urgency.
3. Reducing Abandoned Checkouts
We implemented strategies to recover lost sales:
- Cart Recovery Emails: Set up an automated email series triggered within 15 minutes of cart abandonment. These emails included:
- A reminder of the course benefits.
- Testimonials from past students.
- A limited-time discount to incentivize checkout.
- Live Chat Assistance: Added a chatbot to the checkout page to address last-minute concerns in real time.
- Trust Signals: Included secure payment badges and a money-back guarantee on the checkout page to reduce hesitation.
4. Retargeting Ads for Warm Leads
We launched a retargeting campaign targeting leads who didn’t convert after visiting the site or engaging with emails:
- Ad Copy: Focused on the transformation students could achieve, such as “Start Building Wealth Today—Join 10,000+ Students Who’ve Changed Their Lives.”
- Creative: Used video testimonials from successful students and highlights of the course content.
Results
Within 90 days, the revamped funnel delivered impressive results:
- Lead Capture Rate: Increased from 2.8% to 9.4%, tripling the number of leads generated from the same traffic.
- Email Open Rates: Average open rate for the new sequence was 52%, with a click-through rate of 18%.
- Conversion Rate: Funnel conversion rate jumped from 0.75% to 4.3%, resulting in over 85 new students per month.
- Abandoned Cart Recovery: Recovered $7,000 in lost revenue monthly.
- Revenue Growth: Monthly revenue skyrocketed from $4,000 to over $25,000, achieving a 3,233% ROI on our services.
Visual Breakdown of the Strategy
We created a visual funnel map for the client to simplify the process:
This allowed the client to understand every step and how it worked together to drive results.
Client Testimonial
"I didn’t realize how much money we were leaving on the table until NHBK Solutions rebuilt our funnel. I went from struggling to pay for ads to making $25K in a single month. I finally feel like I have a system that works for me, not the other way around."