How I convert 28.64% visitors into email subs (without gating content)

[plumbing101mike]

@bkchristian Thanks, and yeah, we're B2B (keyword grouping tool, SEO/content folks are our audience).

I just focused on organic social on our road to $135k ARR.

In the next stage I did a bit of FB ads. Here are some stats:

- spent around $2,000 in total

- our LTV is around $550

- got free trial signups for $2-5

- 5-6 people converted into paying users (I was tracking this manually, so pretty primitive attribution model )

- I ran 2 types of campaigns: direct response (get a free trial) and demand gen (consume our content), both had pretty decent stats (clicks around 50 cents, 20-30% conversion to lead on the content page we were sending them to with demand gen ads)

Overall, it was efficient and ROAS positive, but I stopped doing it (for now) for a few reasons:

- I'm a one-man marketing team, so the lack of time to manage FB campaigns is a real pain

- I'd rather focus on stuff that compounds (organic social & organic search, so content in general)

- FB is so annoying. In two months when I've been actively using FB ads, our account got banned and then unbanned a few times, then the IOS update came, so the stupid admin stuff actually took more time then activities that actually matter

I will probably go back to FB ads once we get to $500k ARR or so, and when I add one more person to the team that will manage the 'annoying' bits.

But in principle, I'm really starting to dislike Google/FB ads (even though I've been in a few B2C businesses that generated millions from those) because... It's a platform you don't own, and the house always wins.

 

[bkchristian]

@plumbing101mike Thank you for the fulsome reply.

Can you give me a basic understanding of how niche your b2b is? All b2b is niche, but given your results I'm speculating where your org is on the spectrum. Eg, A soft serve ice cream machine manufacturer could get loads of views and engagement, bc yum, whereas nobody is engaging with an enterprise accounts saas unless they're specifically involved in that need. Granted ice cream manufacturer's delicious social posts aren't driving revenue, probably, but you get what I'm saying I'm sure.

Re your og post, you mentioned your podcast. Is that a personal project or specifically a company revgen one? If the latter, can you share your results, as in effectiveness in revgen Vs time input? 'Revgen' is a contraction I use for 'revenue generation,' to my knowledge that's a me word, which is why I'm explaining it. I've a hankering to do a podcast in my professional capacity, but at this stage have never been able to justify the time requirement. Justify it to myself, that is. I've never put a proposal up for that reason.

$2-5 conversion to free trial - may I ask what your conversion to paid looks like, in terms of % and also what additional ATL spend goes into it? I'd love to get someone else's experience on this, especially given your other stats that show your performance - yeah, you sound like you're doing very well, kudos. I'm too close to the start of our journey to have stats on this, our sub base is infinitesimally tiny.

FB Vs LinkedIn - have you tried LinkedIn for this SaaS? You talk about FB and not LI for a b2b, and that's interesting to me.

But in principle, I'm really starting to dislike Google/FB ads

Haha, HEY EVERYONE IN THIS SUB! If there's anyone here that isn't routinely or just persistently pissed at G and FB, please let me know that you exist and what your views are, I thought all growth marketers loathed these companies (while grudgingly approving the thousands per month spend). Seriously, I'm right there with you, however the path to not paying them is very long indeed, and paved with paying them to build your audience to get to that point.

Cheers, good to chat

 

[plumbing101mike]

@bkchristian Ok let's go

We're in the SEO/content marketing space, serving mostly agencies that produce a lot of content.

Didn't do much with the podcast yet, but we publish a lot of video content on our YT channel. YT traffic on your website has the best stats so far (conversion rates, dwell time, etc).

Conversion to paid is 12%. Pretty consistent in the last 8 months.

Haven't done LI ads, our LTV is around $500, LI ads cost a lot more than FB or Google, so it doesn't make sense with our LTV, it would make sense if our LTV was above $10,000.

 

[trevjelinek]

@plumbing101mike I'm a 1-man army myself. I'm nowhere near as productive as you are. Can you tell me how your workflow looks like and how you get so much work done in a day?

 

[plumbing101mike]

@trevjelinek I don't really have a consistent workflow, being a one man team and all

But here's an example of what I did today:

- did 6-7 thumbnails/featured images for our blog content (thanks to Canva)

- wrote 6 meta titles + 6 meta descriptions (also for our blog content)

- marketing meeting with my CEO (30 minutes)

- assigned the tasks and checked on what our community manager is working on (yeah, recently added one person to the marketing team), edited his content

- engaged on LI for 20ish minutes

- engaged in a few FB groups (15 minutes)

- posted on LI

- posted on FB

- posted in our FB group

- replied to several comments here on Reddit

- fixed some formatting issues on 5 articles of mine (blog content)

As a rule of thumb, I structure my day so I have the first half without much distractions so I can focus on creating (writing content, building automation, design etc).

The next half is managing, editing, engaging, etc.

I never work 8 hours in a row, but I usually work more than 8 hours combined.

I can give you one productivity tip when it comes to content (which is probably the most important thing a marketer will work on if you ask me).

Spend more time on a MAJOR piece of content (e.g. 7-email sequence or a long blog post).

Then repurpose that piece into 6-7 BIG pieces of content (good for Reddit, FB, LI posts, or even 6-7 shorted blog posts).

And then you can turn all that into 100 social media posts.

Plus, you'll always have a resource you can link to, copy/paste from, etc.

I'll post a more detailed guide on that soon, or you can read about it right now by signing up for my newsletter here:

https://strongerteams.com/marketing/

(see what I did here? ;D )

 

[613jono]

@plumbing101mike Awesome content! Thanks.