Saw an email last week that caught my eye.

It's a super unique way to promote a course or coaching service.

We're going to test it in our business soon, and I'm hoping a handful of people who read this will too so we can compare results.

This is how the email went:

  1. Emailed their newsletter
  2. Offered a 3-week online bootcamp (3 live calls spaced out a week apart)
  3. High-interest topic for the list
  4. Specific result: "You learn Y and get X result"
  5. All customers got the bootcamp for free
  6. "Buy our course now and you'll get it free too"

5 things I love about this promo:

Thing #1: It's not a hard sell

Super simple promotion. 1 email. Less than 400 words. Anyone could write it in under an hour.

You could also easily beef it up into a promo sequence.

  • Email #1: Announcement (outline above)
  • Email #2: Re-send to subscribers who didn't open w/ different subject line
  • Email #3: Expiration w/ a few more details on the bootcamp
  • Email #4: Send a courtesy reminder to anyone that opened but didn't buy the evening it ends

These 3 additional emails would have a low impact on the relationship with your email list and increase results by 30-60%.

Thing #2: It's easily duplicated quarterly

Every quarter you can run this promotion without hurting the relationship with your list.

  1. Ask your customers what they want to learn more about
  2. Pick a new high-interest subtopic
  3. Tell everyone about it (the email)
  4. Host a few Zoom sessions teaching it

Rinse. Repeat.

Thing #3: It doesn't create a splintered product base

Why not just make each quarterly bootcamp its own product and charge for them?

There are major downsides to that approach.

Figuring out how to promote new products alongside your existing ones becomes a mess fast. The new products aren't as awesome, scheduling the promos gets overwhelming, and your subscribers get confused about what they should buy from you. Unnecessary complexity.

With this approach, you avoid all of that.

Your core product remains the main attraction. All roads still lead to it. These small bonus bootcamps become "nice to haves" that serve as great mechanisms to attract new customers.

Thing #4: It gives people a reason to buy NOW

If something is always for sale, it's easy for people to put off buying it. That's one of the main reasons why so many online courses are only open for a handful of "launch windows" per year.

This style of promo gives you another easy way for you to compel people to buy up to 4 other times per year. Which is especially valuable if your courses/coaching services are always for sale.

Thing #5: It's a nice value add for existing customers

Getting something valuable for free because you're a customer is always a great feeling.

It builds more trust and goodwill. It reaffirms your original decision to buy. And, depending on the content of the bootcamp, it might even help you be even more successful with the product you purchased.

Plus, if the product is a recurring subscription (coaching service, course membership, etc.), there's a good chance these bonus bootcamps help reduce cancellations.

How we'll use this idea at Growth Tools:

First, we'll give it a try soon and see how it performs. I'm optimistic.

Second, if it works well, we'll repeat each quarter.

The promo emails can be near-duplicates of each other. The magic will be in finding the topic of high interest to people who haven't purchased our primary product yet. Things that capture their imagination.

Basic gist:

  1. Email newsletter quarterly
  2. Offer a high-interest bootcamp
  3. For coaching clients only
  4. If you want it, book a call and let's talk

..

Like this idea? Reply to this email and I'll share a screenshot of the original email I received, as well as share the results of our experiment with it later this quarter.

- Bryan