Gary Halbert is considered by many to be one of the greatest marketers who ever lived.
He often held lectures for copywriters. I read about one of those lectures in a book, and it shaped the foundation of this very exciting campaign I'm running for a consultancy owner client.
Here's how it went down:
There I was making my morning flat white when my consultant client's WhatsApp came through.
"There's something here, Jacques.”
The “demand test” LinkedIn post we'd put out the week before had pulled 11,000+ impressions and hunger for more.
Later that day, another message:
"We need to capitalise on this. Over to you Jacques. Thoughts?"
Almost the whole campaign was now on me.
If it flopped, I'd feel pretty dumb.
My first thought was:
It's great to have ideas but not every idea will make money. People have to want it. So the plan was to capture interest and sell later.
A free snack (webinar) to test demand, with a paid cohort as the upsell for anyone who showed up hungry.
On kickoff day, I did a final test on my landing page and welcome email with my client and their assistant. I scheduled the post, then checked back an hour later...
People were signing up.
I sent screenshots as the count as it climbed. "10 sign ups so far." Then 20. Then 35. My client replied with celebration stickers on WhatsApp.
On the Gary Halbert lecture:
What he taught was "The Starving Crowd Principle".
His point was that you can have the best burger in town, but a hungry crowd is a much better competitive advantage than a fancy product. Don't spend your energy customising the burger or building a fancy new product. Go where the crowd is already hungry and give them something to eat.
I used that mentality to build out this campaign...
3 LinkedIn posts (and another 13,000+ impressions) later...
- Nearly 250 confirmed registrations.
- A detailed, post sign up questionnaire with nearly 50 responses.
- A clear picture of what people will pay for the next step.
All before a single module of the paid cohort was built.
Pretty chuffed at this one.
Now my client and I can build a relevant offer, at the right price point, and sell it to the hungry crowd straight after the free event.
If you've got an idea you're itching to build, test the hunger first. Then build.
Not the other way around...
P.S.
We still have 4 weeks left of promotion so I reckon we’ll crack 500 leads and convert a small % for a high-ticket cohort.
Let’s go!
Thank you for reading.