How can automation can revive your business health?
Alternative Health* is a Canada-wide importer and distributor of high-end medical devices for in-home and clinical use. While the Alternative Health brand has been in operation since 2010, the parent company, Parent Health Ltd., have been distributors of quality health and wellness products for over 30 years. They have been clients since 2013.
The business model is primarily direct sales, and as the product is an alternative health modality, potential buyers require a lot of educational information to learn how the device works, what health benefits it brings, and how to use it.
Initially, this education was primarily provided through in-person seminars every month, and often required several follow-up calls to provide further information.
These seminars were well attended; with two or three sessions held in a single weekend.
Average attendance per seminar was 30 people, with average orders per seminar was 5. With the average price of the product being $4000, a single seminar event could result in $20,000 in revenue, making the weekend's total revenue $60,000.
*due to the sensitive nature of the information shared, the company name has been changed to protect it's identity.
The seminars were promoted exclusively via email and word of mouth, and over the years, Alternative Health had grown their list of qualified leads and customers to around 1,100 subscribers.
We regularly published monthly newsletters, educational content, and promotions to their list, maintaining a healthy, active - and profitable - list.
In late 2018/early 2019, there were manufacturing problems and Alternative Health was not able to import any product, forcing them into a year-long hiatus.
The manufacturing issues were resolved in late 2019, and Alternative Health was able to resume promoting the devices. However, this left us with the problem of a cold list that hadn't received anything in over a year.
In early 2020, we set out to re-warm the list.
As the list had previously been very warm, healthy and active, we were hopeful that we would be welcomed back into their inboxes, but after not communicating with them for over a year, we were also realistic about the results we were looking for.
I created a 3-email re-engagement campaign designed to explain the absence and welcome the reader back into the world of Alternative Health, and ask to be let back into their inboxes.
The recipients were asked to click on one of two links - Stay or Unsubscribe.
In total, 961 contacts entered this campaign, and we achieved a very respectable 27% open rate. (2020 average is 17.8%)
We achieved a click-to-open rate of 36% (2020 average is 14.3%) and an overall click-through rate of 10% (2020 average is 4.9%)
Surprisingly, only 45 people unsubscribed (4.7%), and a relatively healthy 179 contacts (18.5% of the original list) actively asked to continue receiving emails, giving us a list of really warm contacts, and leaving us with 738 contacts (76.8%) to try to warm up again later.
After the forced year-long hiatus, Alternative Health was emotionally drained and not 100% invested in re-starting the business. they also did not have the capital to invest in well-developed strategies, so bare-minimum tactics were employed.
But when Covid hit in mid-March and left the target audience without employment or income, the already-frustrated Alternative Health halted all efforts to further promote the business and products.
As Alternative Health has been a long-time client, I'm intimately aware of how draining but lucrative, the lengthy sales process is for the Alternative Health team members. Several times over the years I suggested webinars as a more time-efficient strategy, but as the main face of the business is camera-shy, it was declined over and over again.
However, when the idea of hosting online educational webinars was presented again in the middle of shut-downs, it was welcomed and strategies were immediately implemented.
A 3-email webinar registration promotion campaign was created and sent to the list.
181 contacts were invited to the first webinar via email.
The campaign achieved a 58% open rate, an 11% click-through rate and a 20% click-to-open rate.
46 people registered and attended the webinar, giving us a goal conversion rate of 25.41%.
The investment to create this campaign was $450. While sales data is not made available to me, I have (data-backed) confidence in Alternative Health's ability to close a sale. Even if they closed one sale for their lowest tiered offering, ($1625), they would have made a net profit of $1175, and achieved a 261% ROI.
Seeing the easy success of the webinar strategy, Alternative Health was once-again motivated to invest in promoting their products through webinars, though is still hesitant to promote to people outside of her main warm list.
As of this writing, 3 more webinars have been hosted and well-received:
Webinar 1:
182 Contacts received invite emails
Open rate was 55%
Click-to-open rate was 13%
Click through rate was 7%
Goal conversion rate was 19.78% (36 people registered and attended)
Webinar 2:
182 Contacts received invite emails
Open rate was 52%
Click-to-open rate was 11%
Click through rate was 6%
Goal conversion rate was 13.19% (24 people registered and attended)
Webinar 3:
182 Contacts received invite emails
Open rate was 50%
Click-to-open rate was 11%
Click through rate was 6%
Goal conversion rate was 15.38% (28 people registered and attended)
Hi, I'm Trina...
I'm a marketing consultant that's been helping entrepreneurs and small businesses improve their marketing and increase their profit using proven strategies for over a decade.
What you've read here is only one example of the results I achieve for my clients.
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