What is the process for doubling revenue over 3 months?

Stage #1: Prep! 

We began by making and sorting the list.
We organised the long list of jobs, considering budget and time constraints. While we would have loved to throw it all at the project in the beginning, by taking it step by step, we were able to more closely measure wins and attribute them to specific activity, and then increase that activity accordingly. Sorting the list took us 3 hours, and from this we were able to create a structured plan for the next three months. The order of the list below, may not suit your business but if you work on these areas of your marketing over the next 3 months you too will see undeniable results!! 

We conducted a Social Media Audit.

 

We reviewed current social media activity and identified areas that needed improvement, and what was already working well. We developed a goal to post at least six sales-focused posts and eight reels per month, and five story updates per week. The audit took 3 hours and gave us data on what people engage most with via the social platforms. 

We performed Keyword Analysis & Meta Title, Image and Page Name updates.

We analysed keywords on search terms related to both single use and reusable products to create a list of terms and words we should be using when naming pages, images and writing on page copy and product descriptions, with the objective to enhance organic website traffic. We updated product descriptions accordingly, and also used this information to update the meta titles on the top 50 website pages. This process did take quite a long time, but SEO improvements are long term and wont stop when you turn off your Meta ad campaign. This process can take up to 20 hours for a website the size of MyCup's.  

We conducted a Cost per Customer assessment.

 

We calculated the cost per customer acquisition per month, for the last 12 months. Which is all of the marketing costs, and a reasonable hourly rate for time required to close a sale. We also assessed marketing overheads and ongoing fees and divided the total by the number of sales. It is good to do this per month so you can gauge seasonality as well as start reporting on annual growth broken down by month. Because all the data was at our fingertips, this process took 1 hour. 

Stage #2: Strategy 

We defined key messages.

We outlined key messages that aligned with our brand and product. Key messages take around 3 hours per client, and then there is some back and forth refining these into campaign messages below. 

We designed the campaigns based on the key messages.
We surveyed past customers to generate reviews to use in the campaign, and we went back to our search term analysis and used this data to help us guide the product posts and social topics. We also reviewed the questions and comments on social media from the last 12 months to identify opportunities to increase the general product awareness. Our key messages focused on: customer reviews, the problem we are solving (save money, save landfill, save time), the product specifics (swim, teen, specialty products), and FAQs, both search terms and questions our social users are asking. The total writing time on the campaign over 3 months was around 30 hours and included all posts, emails, blogs and reel spiels! 

We developed a detailed content plan.

We created a daily plan that covered social posts, reels, stories, blog, and email. We filled in the content plan using the key campaign messages. This takes an hour. 

We reviewed and addressed FAQs.
We used insights from the social media audit to address FAQs and improve conversion rates by driving home the messages we knew people wanted more information about. This was included in the campaign activity above so no extra time here. 

We used Google Analytics to track website traffic and conversion rates.

We monitored user behaviour on the website, we wanted to know the conversion rate for each phase of the purchase process; how many people viewed a product, how many people added a product to cart, how want people initiated checkout, and from there how many completed the sale. Each of these conversion rates allow us to determine where the site is performing well, and where further optimisation is required. This is also relevant for lead generation businesses! This process is like an extension of my inbox and I enjoy checking in on Analytics results daily, so while the reporting time is 1 hour per month, we used this data to determine marketing decisions weekly (and stories daily). 

We upped our Meta Ad Game
To prevent the need for duplicating work, we had a plan to add every reel video into ad testing as it was ready, which in this case was weeks in advance of the reel schedule date. It meant that we started the ad campaigns with 1 audience per campaign, and added 3 ad creatives, then every 2 or 3 days we would add the new video content. We were substituting out poor performing content all the time, and able to optimise the creative to get to a point we were happy with number of daily sales. We had a budget of $2000 per month and our objective was to get the cost per customer down, the general level of sales up, the average order value up and to build more data around our remarketing campaigns and list marketing. Meta ads is responsible for most of the successful campaign outcomes in terms of cause and effect, however the extensive testing of messaging and creative allowed us to optimise the campaigns to the point where they are costing less and producing more than ever before for this brand. Combined with organic wins, it was constant month on month growth. 

Stage #3: Content Creation and Implementation 
We made content one month ahead of time, we typically tried to capture all the reel content in one day so we could focus on editing and other social activity (stories!!) throughout the month.  We used relatable content from brand related pages to increase the ironic style social content and added product links to make it very easy for users to navigate to the product they are looking at on social.  

  • We increased blog content around common search terms related to period products and reusable products. 

  • We used stories to communicate with our audience and reinforce our content plan messaging.

  • We also produced informative and engaging videos.

Stage #4: Pricing Strategy 
We increased the price of core products. We knew that daily sales had reached a level everyone was really happy with, and the objective from the outset was to transition the pricing to be more in line with the current cost of supply. We sold 5% fewer core products in the final month but this was off a significantly reduced ad budget and the overall margin was far better than previous months! 

Stage #5: Optimisation and Improvement
It's no secret that our 'special sauce' is to move fast and test as much as possible, to achieve this level of campaign optimisation over 3 months. Speed of testing is important, and as such we do not start out with PERFECT! We start with good enough, and once we see some real data around specific activities and campaign wins, THEN we encourage our clients to invest further in things like photography, better video content and more strategic story and reel content. We created A LOT of reel content, and were able to identify the special features of reels that had more that 10k views on them. This information is then used for future reels, so we can reduce the overall number, and focus more on quality over quantity. The best advice I can give clients is to embrace the messy action and dont worry about it being perfect until you have data that the message resonates. 

  • We invested in photography to help us with social posting and creating email templates for marketing campaigns.
  • We segmented our email list for more targeted marketing campaigns. 
  • We continued A/B testing and optimisation efforts based on analytics data.
  • We reviewed and updated meta ads every 3 to 5 days. 
  • We kept engaging with our audience through stories and videos. 

This action plan outlines the steps we took when helping MyCup to double their monthly sales revenue between June and August. They have reached a new normal in level of sales, but the best part is that they have a system which can help them achieve this growth anytime they want to boost their sales revenue.