Paid Workshops: The New Strategy That Will Reinvigorate Your Email List

Paid Workshops: The New Strategy That Will Reinvigorate Your Email List

If you have been building an email list for some time, even if it’s small, I want to share a strategy with you that has REALLY been working for us. If you’ve been list-building for a few months or more, there are likely subscribers on your list that have already consumed your free content, have already seen your lower-priced offers, and have already been presented with your higher ticket paid offers. But for some reason, these customers didn’t convert. 

Maybe the timing wasn’t right or your customers just didn’t quite know, like, or trust you enough at that time to pull out their credit card and make a purchasing decision. Or maybe you have a list of people who HAVE converted to your lower-priced offer, consumed and implemented that information, but just have not upgraded yet to your full program or booked your consulting or coaching services.

So the million dollar question now is this: HOW do we get them off the fence and into your program? Follow up: How do you leave them feeling reinvigorated and EXCITED about their next steps?

It probably isn’t going to shock you that I am going to suggest that you put a NEW offer in front of your audience. What is interesting about this strategy though, is that to implement this you actually do not need to create any NEW content.

In this post, I am going to walk you through exactly how I repackaged some of my current content and combined it with a live workshop to offer something new and exciting to my list. This ended up being my MOST successful strategy for this course to date. (P.S. If you’re an auditory learner, you can hear more about this strategy on the Digital Brand Envy Podcast.)

If you’ve been following us at TCG for a while, it won’t surprise you that I tested this strategy out with one of my own courses Play Cafe Academy (PCA). PCA is a course that I created to teach prospective indoor playground owners how to get from daydream to opening day in less time and with less stress than they ever imagined. I own an indoor playground and have even been licensing the brand locally. I like to use my own course to test out new strategies before using them with clients because I don’t mind failing with my own money if I have to if that's what it takes to eventually find a home-run plan.

A home-run strategy is what I came across here, especially for online educators. If you are a one-on-one coach or consultant though or anyone who offers services to their clients this WILL be able to work for you as well, so keep reading!

Here are some quick facts about the strategy:

1. I only spent $30 in ads TOTAL for the entire “launch”
2. I did not create any new content and instead repackaged current content
3. The conversion rate into my full PCA program from the new offer was higher than any other training I’ve done
4. The process is highly repeatable and highly scalable, meaning I can take all of the work I did for this particular offer and repeat it several times a year and likely see the same (or better) results
5. I was able to form a connection with my new students which ultimately lead to sales

What exactly did I put in front of my email list? 

I want to get really specific here, I only presented this offer to my email list. I did not target any new customers, only people who had already consumed my free content and who I had been nurturing on my email list for quite some time.

So the ad spend I mentioned? Even when I ran Facebook and Instagram ads, I specifically targeted my email list, meaning that I exported my email list from Active Campaign and uploaded it into a Facebook custom audience. 

If you are looking for exactly how to do this or need help with your Facebook ad strategy, you can head over to Digital Brand Envy and learn these strategies in the group.

In terms of the actual offer, I started with something I already had.

Everyone on my email list, even if they had subscribed a few days back, had already seen my $27 business plan template offer. When someone goes to download my cornerstone lead magnet, which in the case of PCA is a 44-page ebook, they immediately get offered a chance to upgrade to the $27 business plan template. If they purchase the plan, they get added to one list in Active Campaign. If they do NOT purchase, they get added to a different list and they get a few more chances the days following their subscription to grab the $27 plan.

This offer wasn’t going to be surprising or fresh at all to my list. So what I did was add a 90-minute live virtual workshop to sweeten that offer.

Since I already use and pay for Thinkific for my course, I created a mini-course inside Thinkific for this offer. In just a few minutes, I uploaded my business plan template there along with the 70-minute video training I had accompanying it. Then, I recorded the live workshop and uploaded the video and workbook into the mini-course I had created inside Thinkific, which took a few quick minutes to upload it after the workshop. The key here is that people who purchased this offer did NOT have to attend live.

I chose 90 minutes because whenever I host a workshop it tends to go about one hour, and I knew that if I wanted to answer everyone’s questions, I would need that amount of time. This ended up working perfectly and I will be using this amount of time again.

The workshop was Q & A style. So basically, I answered any and ALL questions about the business plan. The idea was that people could prepare in advance with the business template and training and be able to come live to ask questions. 

So to recap, the $57 offer in total included the following:

• A Proven Business Plan Template ($27 value)
• A Pre-Recorded Business Plan Walk-Through (Included with template)
• LIVE 90-Minute Workshop on June 20th (A $300 value)
• Lifetime Access to ALL Materials
• A Chance to Join Play Cafe Academy at a GREAT Price!

Why this offer? Why this price?

I was getting TONS of questions in both my inbox and my social channels about creating an indoor playground business plan because much of it is industry-specific and you really need to ask someone who’s been there in order to get it right.

I was getting these questions both from people who had only consumed my free content AND people who had purchased my business plan, so I figured I would offer it to both groups. Now, normally when I get questions I write them down and add them to my list of ideas of free content to create. However, I was really starting to notice that when I replied to the people asking questions and gave a really thoughtful response-- they appreciated it and were much more likely to purchase my paid program.

I did NOT make this workshop free because, honestly, I’ve done it before for this audience and the conversion rate wasn’t as high as I would have liked. Adding a pay way not only ensures that an audience will show up, but also that they will pay attention. I originally got this idea from Tyler Mcall who uses paid workshops to get people into his membership, Follower to Fan Society. However, he charges a pretty premium price for it. (Last I checked his workshops ran about $157 for the LIVE version.)

The price I decided on was $57. I came about this price because it included my $27 offer, which I knew was a great value already since it converts like crazy and gets really great feedback, and I felt like $30 for 90 minutes of my time was definitely worth it as an upgrade from just the pre-recorded materials. 

While I am currently the only one putting out digital training for indoor playground ownership, there ARE tons of people doing consulting. And considering they charge between $100 and $200 an hour to answer questions, I really felt like $30 for 90 minutes of my time was a great value.

What were the results?

I had 57 people register for the workshop itself. I was actually hoping for at least 100 people, which is what I had capped it out as but only advertised it for one week. Next time I will set the date further in advance and likely up the ad budget a bit now that I know I will get my money back.

Of those 57 people, 20 bought at $57 which resulted in $1,140 in revenue. I had 37 registrants who had already purchased the business plan join at $30, which resulted in $11,00 in revenue.  That is $2,250 there just in the workshop sales, which I was actually happy with considering I had created the sales page, written the email sequence, and created the bundle offer in just a few short hours.

And don’t forget, these are people who have ALREADY seen my full paid offer and passed at least once. I was thrilled, and the good news continues… 

During the training, 12 customers purchased the full PCA course, 10 more purchased within 24 hours, and another 7 joined after the fact. That’s 29 new students and $11,513 in revenue in addition to the $2,250 made from the workshop itself. When totaled, I was able to get almost $14,000 from a seemingly dormant email list. Woo hoo!

To hear more about how the workshop itself went, listen to Episode 9 of the Digital Brand Envy Podcast, where I break this all down.

Your future students are excited and ready to tackle your course, they just need a little reinvigorating. If you have an email list, you need to put this strategy to work now!