I started my first online business (subscription box) in 2016 with no prior experience
Since then, I’ve…
- Scaled to 10,000 monthly subscribers
- Sold over $10M online
- Taught my techniques to over 100 other founders
- Made a ton of mistakes along the way
If I can do it, there’s no reason why you can’t too
If I had to go from 0 – 10,000 again, here’s what I’d do:
- Optimise My Website to Convert
This part is easy to skip because when I created my site initially I was at the beginning phase of my business
I (along with my co-founders) wanted to get the site made, get some sales in and make improvements later
This fails ❌
…Because if my site is not optimised to convert
It WON’T convert…
I’d end up wasting my time money and energy on driving traffic and still, no one would sign up
To optimise it I’d start with these:
>Clear high-res imagery
>Good quality site design
>Emotion and benefit-driven copy (what result do you sell?)
>How it works
>What exactly do I get
>Social proof & good reviews
AND the most critical part…
>A strong offer
- Get serious about my Email Strategy
Relying solely on Facebook or any ad platform to send me buyers who are ready to buy is a quick way to lose my money
People may come and look but most are not ready to buy right away
Some hot prospects do buy – but not many
My goal is to capture the warm people to follow up with them later
I will do this using email and SMS capture points or even better use a signup flow to capture both
Join my Newsletter
Now I have got 2/3 sales channels instead of just one, and the cost to reach the email and SMS list is also tiny compared to ad traffic
I would then create 3 AUTOMATED email sequences:
- I’d create an email automation to remind people to buy
- I’d create a customer welcome survey to find out who my buyers are and why they buy (so I can refine my marketing messaging)
- I’d ask non-buyers what kept them on the fence (so I can further optimise my site by busting these objections)
Next the final step…
- Master my Traffic
The mistake I and most people make is they continue to focus on this part without doing the previous steps
So I ran more ad tests and lost more money, eventually got discouraged & contemplated quitting many times
I would now know not to focus on traffic until I did the previous work that leads to conversions
Once I have the first 2 steps in place I have a high chance the ads I run will work
I’d go to the Facebook ad library and research the top players in my industry
I’d model my ads off the best competitors in my niche (hooks, creatives, copy, CTA, offers)
I’d focus on my OFFER in my ads & emails
The better the offer, the more interest and traffic I’ll generate
If I still struggled to get results, I’d improve the offer and try again
I hope this helps!