Behind the Scenes Numbers

On January 10, 2018, I launched a new e-course called “30 Days to Divine Power“.

This was new for me in that I created it as a paid product, but allowed folks to decide for themselves what they wanted to pay for it AFTER they had already gone through it.

I set it up this way for 2 reasons.

First, because I’ve done a lot of “pay what you want” live events here in the Grand Rapids area, and they have all inspired folks to pay a lot more than I originally expected.  My workshops tend to average about $50 per attendee.

My second reason for setting up the new 30-day program this way was because I felt it would be a good way to start growing my mailing list again.  Since one of my goals for 2018 is to grow my list to 50,000 subscribers, this was the most important result I’m after here.

BTW – at this time, my mailing list is just over 2000 subscribers.  I obviously haven’t spent any time on this for years.  Too much time on product development and goofing off.

At this time, 159 folks have completed the e-course, and I think sharing some behind-the-scenes data will help other online business owners.

What most folks will be interested in is how many of these 159 folks have paid for what they essentially got for free, and was the venture profitable.

As of right now, 17 of those 159 have made a payment for the e-course.  Right at 10.7%.

Total payments (so far) for the e-course are $649, making the average payment $38.18.  (Good thing this is just a side project.  😎 )

Average revenue per subscriber (within the first 6 weeks) sits pretty at $4.08.

If you have a mailing list, when was the last time YOU got $4.08 per new subscriber within 6 weeks?  I’ve heard Frank Kern say that his averages are lower than this.  Of course, he’s working with much larger groups of people, too.

Actually, I’ve made more from this venture because the numbers above don’t include sales of other products which have come in from these subscribers.  Not as easy to track, and I would prefer to keep the numbers “clean”.  If I did include extra sales, I think the numbers would be about 50% higher.

What this means is that I can spend $2 to get a new subscriber and double my money.  And that’s before I even start promoting my other products.  Spend $2000, get 1000 new subscribers, collect $4080, continue making money over time.  Great deal if you ask me.

Even if I end up spending $3 per new subscriber, I’d still come out ahead on the front end and essentially get to build my list for free.  There are plenty of places I can buy traffic in bulk at $1 per click, and I know I can get at least 30% of them to opt in to my list offer.  (Tracking stats are currently showing my opt-in page converting at 42.7%.)

Looks like I may hit my 50,000 subscriber goal in just a few months, especially if I open it up to affiliates to promote for 50% commissions.  Heck, with these results, I’d be happy to offer 75% commissions.  At current averages, affiliates would make $3.06 for every subscriber they send me, or about $1.30 per referral.

Time to start working on that.

With 50,000 subscribers, the next time I do a project like this, I can bring in $16,000 instead of just $650.