An award-winning children’s book writer and coach, Brooke Van Sickle wanted to parlay her coaching business into a publishing house. But with little budget and no staff, launching an entirely new arm of a business was a challenge.
See how she used Leadpages to create the online presence that built her brand, filled her funnel with qualified leads, and boosted her revenue.
2X Leads | 4X Revenue | 77% Conversion Rate
Brooke Van Sickle has a gift for capturing children’s imaginations through books—and coaching others on how to do the same. It turns out she has a talent for spotting business opportunities, too.
Wanting to help other children’s authors find success, Brooke launched Journey To Kidlit, a program that shows writers how to turn an idea into a published book. When she saw her students endure the delays and disappointment of traditional publishing channels, she knew there was a better way. So, she leveraged her experience as a writer and coach to build Bibliokid Publishing, a publishing house that helps children’s authors bring their books to market faster.
Tapping into her own network of clients and peers, BiblioKid signed six authors within just a few weeks—a strong start. But Brooke had loftier goals; she wanted to launch BiblioKid to the world—with an initial goal of signing ten more authors by the end of her second quarter of 2021.
In order to focus on the growth of her publishing business, the income from her coaching business had to become more passive. Not only that, but she wanted to leverage the success of Journey to Kidlit to boost the success of BiblioKid Publishing.
To start, BiblioKid Publishing required a new website and a way to streamline her funnel for higher qualified leads. She wasn’t sure if her landing pages were as effective as they could be. She needed to test her pricing strategy to ensure that she wasn’t over or undercharging. And most importantly, she needed a more effective funnel to capture leads and turn them into sales.
Beautiful websites with the full conversion power of Leadpages
Experience the only online website builder that lets you easily create a high-converting website with code-free customizations.
While Brooke had the experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm required to launch her new publishing business, she lacked the time and marketing system to truly make it successful. Already stretched thin, she found that she was focusing more on marketing BiblioKid Publishing than she was actually building her business.
“I was starting to get tapped out and felt overwhelmed by all I had to do.”
How Leadpages helped
Optimizing opt-ins through split-testing
By creating multiple versions of the landing pages that promoted her free lead magnet, Brooke was able to continuously test for higher conversion rates with confidence. As a result, she had access to clear data that proved which pages were most effective at generating those leads. This meant faster email list growth with the same ad spend.
Testing checkouts on a thank-you-page offer
Using Leadpages, Brooke was able to test which checkout process converted better (spoiler alert: it was a separate, more-detailed checkout page vs. an inline form or pop-up). She was also able to test different price-points to determine the best ROI on her advertising spend and further optimize her funnel.
Creating a winning webinar funnel
Leadpages allowed Brooke to establish and continually optimize her webinar funnel to connect aspiring children’s book authors to BiblioKid Publishing. She qualified these subscribers by inviting them to attend three weeks after they had downloaded the original lead magnet. Those that watched were offered time with Brooke to discuss ideas and learn how the publishing services work.
Beautifully branded content
Brooke used the Leadpages Drag & Drop Builder to customize her branding, move page elements around, drop in her written content, and bring BiblioKid’s online presence to life. The template helped her identify what kind of content needed to go where, so she could get her site and pages up and running quickly.
The results
(Nearly) doubled leads
By testing and optimizing ads and landing pages, Brooke was able to determine which ads and pages were most effective. This allowed her to double the size of her email list from 9600 to 17,500 people in just three months!
Quadrupled revenue
Before BiblioKid Publishing’s hard launch with a more complete Leadpages marketing funnel, the organization was generating only $3,000 a month. Post-launch, the accumulation of all their marketing efforts led to monthly revenue skyrocketing to $12,000, $16,000, and $12,000 for February, March, and April, respectively.
2-4X social media following
Social media is important to helping Brooke grow the BiblioKid brand. By connecting her thank you pages to her social profiles she was able to grow her social media presence by 2X on most social channels—and an impressive 4X on Instagram.
77% conversion rate on webinar landing page
Using the Leadpages Drag-and-Drop Builder, Brooke was able to quickly spin up different landing page variations that she could split test and optimize, eventually achieving an impressive 77% conversion rate.
Goal met: 10 new authors signed to BiblioKid
Thanks to her new website, the ability to split test her landing pages, and create a more-structured funnel that allowed her to better qualify clients, Brooke signed ten new authors to BiblioKid Publishing in only three months.
How Brooke uses Leadpages
Leadpages Website Builder
Launching BiblioKid Publishing meant creating a new website. The Leadpages Website Builder provided Brooke with professional-looking, conversion-focused templates that were easy to edit and fill with content and images. This allowed her to build her brand, generate, and close deals—without designers or developers.
Split testing
Armed with the right data and real-time conversion guidance from the Leadpages Leadmeter, Brooke was able to compare what worked vs what didn’t and optimize her landing pages to achieve a 77% conversion rate.
Leadpages Landing Pages
Leadpages made it easy for Brooke to create high-converting sales landing pages that actually work. And with more than a hundred templates to choose from, finding one for her brand was fast and easy.
“It’s modern, user-friendly, and the best platform to get you the highest conversions on whatever kind of page you're hoping to build.”
Section Templates
Section templates allowed Brooke to quickly build FAQ, testimonial, and features and benefits sections without starting from scratch. This sped up the page publishing process and made her pages much more persuasive.
Chat Support
Even savvy marketers get stuck sometimes. Brooke used Leadpages chat support to address an issue she was having with a layout, and the customer support team made her a quick video on how to correct the issue.
Education and Coaching
Brooke didn’t have to figure out everything on her own. She implemented the lessons taught by her mentor Ruth Soukup in a webinar with Leadpages: Thank You Page Offers That Convert Like Crazy. She also received conversion guidance and strategic business advice from Leadpages’ Conversion Coaching webinars.
Click here to get free training on how to create high-converting thank you page offers.
What the future has in store for Brooke and BiblioKid Publishing
With a total of 17 authors signed (and even more in the pipeline), some impressive revenue numbers, and a nearly leakproof funnel delivering outstanding conversion rates, BiblioKid Publishing is well on its way to exceeding its Q2 targets.
In addition to those wins, Brooke’s consistent boost in revenue has allowed her to hire others to help with everything from copy editing to design and project management. She’s using her new team to build on these initial successes and help more authors bring their books to life (and to market).
Beautiful websites with the full conversion power of Leadpages
Experience the only online website builder that lets you easily create a high-converting website with code-free customizations.
