Design the whole funnel to “activate” people from the first click: target people who already care about your offer, meet them at their stage of awareness, then make the first steps conversational – small actions, a thank-you page that asks for a reply, daily emails early on. My campaign built this way got an 84.4% welcome email open rate and 251 replies to the first 2 emails.
A while back, I was invited to be a guest speaker in Brian Kurtz’s Titans Xcelerator Mastermind.
The topic?
Breaking down a NEW type of marketing campaign I had just validated that produced some truly ridiculous results.
How ridiculous, you say?
Well…
Take a look at the stats below (collected 30 hrs after launching the campaign), and you tell me:
– 815 clicks on the ad (8% CTR!)
– 588 opt-ins
– 72.12% landing page conversion rate
– 544 confirmed subs (After double opt-in)
– 84.4% welcome email open rate
– 43.4% welcome email CTR
– 0.9X ROI on the first day (despite not explicitly pitching them anything)
But the stat that I’m actually most proud of:
251(!) Replies to the first 2 emails!
(which I each MANUALLY replied back to 😂)
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Send Me the Rapid Lead Activator →That’s an almost 50 PERCENT reply rate…
(mainly because of a special type of thank you page I built for it)
Which – in addition to making people MUCH more likely to convert later on – also gave my email sender score a huge boost.
Now…
If you’re even somewhat familiar with email marketing, you know these results are just… well… NUTS.
So as soon as I saw how well this new type of campaign worked…
I immediately realized I should create a case study out of it.
Fast forward a few weeks… and there I was presenting it to about 50 of Brian’s best people.
So here are the TOP 3 biggest insights from my presentation.
Why do some campaigns get engagement and others don’t?
BIGGEST INSIGHT #1:
Never neglect “Market-to-Message matching”
What TF is “market-to-message-matching”, you say?
It’s actually pretty simple:
It’s how much your ideal prospect actually cares about your marketing message.
Because if they don’t…
You could write the best copy in the world (or hire the best A-listers out there)…
And it won’t make a difference.
Your campaign will bomb, end of story.
That’s why OG copywriters like Gary Halbert, Gene Schwartz, and Gary Bencivenga realized early on in their careers that the best way to succeed is to write for markets that actually cared about whatever they were promoting.
For example, if I were to ask the world’s best health copywriter to create a promo for a Keto cookbook that’s aimed at vegans…
He’d probably laugh in my face and tell me to get lost.
Why?
Because he’d know perfectly well that this project is a fool’s errand.
Those people will NOT gonna convert, no matter how good the promo is!
Why?
Because they just don’t care about keto.
Simple as that 😃
And no amount of “persuasion triggers”, “brain hacks”, “copywriting techniques”, or “no-brainer offers” will convince them otherwise.
And the same is true everywhere else you look.
That’s why you don’t wanna sell courses on “how to make money with TikTok” to boomers…
Or bond investing to starry-eyed 16-year-olds.
Because you can’t “convince” anyone of anything they don’t already BELIEVE.
(or it’s a very, very, VERY hard task!… as you probably know if you’ve ever tried convincing any of your loved ones of anything)
You can only tap into the already-existing problems, desires, and beliefs they have.
And that’s why – for this promotion – I focused exclusively on a single Ideal Prospect I knew would be interested in my offer.
How do you meet new subscribers where they are?
BIGGEST INSIGHT #2:
Meet people where they’re at
This ties back to good ‘ol Gene Schwartz once again.
More specifically, two ideas from his famous book, Breakthrough Advertising:
1 – Stage of Awareness
2 – And Stage of Market Sophistication
Now…
I’ve talked about these topics multiple times before…
(for example, HERE)
But the key idea here is that – since I was “leveraging” another copywriter’s audience for this campaign – I HAD to make sure I met them in their correct “Stage of Awareness”…
(Product Aware, in this case)
And I HAD to make sure to differentiate my offer as something different and superior compared to anything else they’d seen before.
(Because their Stage of Market Sophistication was at least a 4)
And that’s why I came up with the idea of:
“A Ludicrous Copywriting Giveaway that makes everyone else’s lead magnet obsolete in comparison!”…
…Complimented by a long-form landing page building up MASSIVE desire for this uber-valuable giveaway.
And surprise, surprise… it worked
In fact, it worked like Gangbusters 😎
And I created a huge buzz with it.
So case in point:
Never ever neglect your audience’s Stage of Awareness and Stage of Market Sophistication.
They’re probably the most important concepts in all of marketing.
What is lead activation?
BIGGEST INSIGHT #3:
I deliberately designed the entire campaign to “ACTIVATE” leads right from the start
Ah, yes.
I left the best part for last…
Because THIS is a completely new approach to skyrocket engagement (and conversions) with your new leads.
You see…
If you REALLY want to boost your conversions and sales with emails, it’s all about:
Optimizing the initial experience your leads go through…
“Activating” them so that it’s easy for you to identify the hottest ones… and get them into the offer that’s right for them ASAP…
And then priming the other ones who don’t convert right away to convert at a MUCH higher rate further down the line
That’s how you get incredible results…
…just like how I got incredible results with this campaign.
In my case, this is how I fulfilled all 3 of these requirements:
OPTIMIZE:
– Made sure the whole customer journey was valuable, entertaining, and polished
– Targeted the right people
– Gave those people an offer I knew they’d be interested in
ACTIVATE:
– Made people jump through hoops to increase engagement
– Designed the entire funnel to be conversational and full of “micro-commitments”
– Conditioned people early on to get even more value when they DO something
PRIME:
– Built lots of “Know, Like, and Trust” early on
– Teased what’s gonna happen after each step
– Kept people engaged by sending them daily emails
Now…
I know these strategies might seem like a lot…
And you don’t have to get everything perfect…
(unless you wanna promote in a REALLY competitive market)
But the reason I got the truly incredible results mentioned at the top of this post is that I successfully put them to work.
And you know what?
YOU can use them too!
How to activate your next new subscribers (this week)
1. Give your thank-you page a job. My almost-50% reply rate came mainly from a special thank-you page. Use yours to ask for one small action – like replying to your first email with a one-line answer.
2. Make the first email worth opening fast. Deliver what they asked for, then tell them what’s coming next – and when.
3. Give them something small to DO. A reply, a click, a quick choice. Every small action makes the next one easier.
4. Email them daily for the first few days. That’s when they’re paying the most attention.
5. Reply to the replies. By hand. It’s the best few hours you’ll spend all week.
The full system I use for the first few weeks after someone joins – activation, imprinting, priming – is inside my Profitable Imprinting Sequence training.
And if your welcome emails get opened but nothing happens after that, start with why your welcome sequence isn’t converting.
Free book + AI assistant
Turn the Leads Already Joining Your List Into Buyers – Faster
The Rapid Lead Activator reveals the psychology-based framework I use to write welcome sequences that sell – without hype. Normally $9.99 on Amazon, yours free. Plus a bonus AI assistant that writes your first 5 welcome emails for you – in minutes, not days.
Send Me the Rapid Lead Activator →-Csaba
