How Ryan Stewman Got 1000 Webinar Registrants For Only $1.74 Each

Tim: Webinars and Facebook ads go together like dead pool and cable. But as the usage of them together continues to proliferate, the cost of doing so, seems to get higher and higher So how can you use Facebook ads to fill your webinars without going broke? Ryan Stewman, the hardcore closer is here to share how he did it to the tune of only about a $1.74 per webinar registrant. It’s a pretty low cost for registering and the tactic he uses, well let’s just say you’ll be texting all your friends about it.

I’m Tim Paige, the senior conversion educator here at LeadPages and this is ConversionCast.

Hey Ryan, so before we dive into it, can you share with us the results you were able to get in this, creating this webinar?

Ryan: Yeah. So I ended up getting a little over a thousand people registered at $1.74 lead.

Tim: Yeah that’s amazing and was this a sales webinar? Were you selling some stuff on there?

Ryan: Actually, no. I was doing the old black hole trick right. I was selling how to sell. You know, basically I was selling the same way that I was getting the webinar registrants. I have a program called Phone Funnels and it’s pretty you know I was using, not testing my theory but putting my theory to work to be able to build this webinar. So I basically sold them what I did to get them there as weird as that sounds.

Tim: Nice. That’s interesting. Well I want to dig into that. First, kind of tell everybody who you are and what you do.

Ryan: Well I’m known online the hardcore closer. I’m the CEO of the company. I used to be like the face of the company. Now I’m more of a CEO. It’s bigger than me. We do sales training but futuristic sales training. We’re not that like pick up the phone and make a hundred cold calls type of place. We’re like how do you get somebody’s permission to contact them and make them love you when you do follow up with them kind of a deal.

We’re really good at it. As far as I know, we are second or third most profitable sales training company on the planet right now and I’m in the hunt for number one and number two. Don’t worry so.

Tim: Nice. [Laughs] I like it. Yeah, I was raised in that pick up the phone and make a hundred phone calls kind of world so. I think every sales team in the world is looking for what you guys have. So that’s awesome.

But this talk is more about the webinar and there’s kind of a lot of things that we could dive into but first off, tell us how you were able to get so many people for such a low dollar per registrant?

Ryan: So this is the key right and this is where I saw I was like selling them on how I did my bill. So with my phone funnels program is what I was selling right and basically what a phone funnel is a lot of people have squeeze pages and stuff like that and places to register but you see the musicians and Hollywood and stuff like that. They’ll say like text a certain word to a certain number code. So like you can get your apple by phone by texting closer to 44222, right? And that’s what I call a phone funnel. You just have to text the number from your phone. It goes through a whole process. It collects all your information, turns you into a lead right?

And so what I did was I ran ads on Facebook links to, clicks to website right was my targeted action that I wanted them to take. And then in each of my post, I would write that I ran ads on. I would write sign up for the webinar or skip the line, just text the word HC webinar to 44222 and register right from your phone.

Well guess what. If I had the campaign set up to be clicks to website and I only paid when someone clicked my link, but yet they’re seeing my ad and my ad is like hey just skip the line, which insinuates it’s something cooler than clicking the link right? Like skip the line and text the word HC Webinar to 44222. And I had out of a thousand…You know, it’s been a few months at this point because I don’t do a whole lot of webinars but out of like let’s say 1100 people that registered, 340 or so were actual text opt-ins. So basically let’s just call it a third of my traffic came from those text opt-ins which I got for free because they didn’t click the link which lowered my overall cost per lead.

Tim: Oh, that is brilliant! I love that and that’s using Lead Digits correct?

Ryan: Yes, actually, yes it is.

Tim: Yeah. So and for anybody who’s not familiar Lead Digits is the LeadPages text to opt-in feature. So you can set up the numbers, set up the short code along with your keyword. But I love that because it’s a great way to cater to how people are viewing it to cater to something that they’re already comfortable with. It means they don’t have to leave Facebook. All they do is they see the ad and they go oh, cool, there’s something extra special when I text and everybody loves to get to the front of the line. You know I was mentioning to you before we got started my family and I are big Disney people. We love Disney World and that’s one of the big things that they do. They give you the fast passes so you can get to the front of the line and get to the rides faster.

This is kind of like a way to bring that into your Facebook ads and at the same time they feel like they’re getting special treatment and you save money on the ad, right?

[00:05:03]

Ryan: Absolutely. And you know what’s even better right and the thing that I… we’re so… you guys are so ahead of the curve with this anyway but people when they go to a squeeze page, they immediately go, is this going to be worth unsubscribing for a list or getting an emailed every day. And I love squeeze pages. We drive traffic to them every single day. These are LeadPages right. But the same time, people are aware of what they are, right? So you have to have a truly irresistible offer. People don’t know that you know the way that you guys have it set up where you enter a code and then you set it to make a reply and then in my reply, I ask for their email so that they reply again with their email. Then I’ve got their name, their mobile phone number and their email all in one little sequence right there.

They don’t see that as a squeeze page. They don’t see that the same even though they are and it even tells them at the end you can opt out by doing this. They see that as okay, now I’m registered for this webinar or now I got this app on my phone and not, oh man, now I got to get a hundred emails a day of this guy trying to sell me a bunch of affiliate offers.

Tim: Right. It becomes something where it’s different from the experience that everybody’s used to and in exchange you’re growing your list. You’re getting people on to a webinar and this is for folks because I know a lot of people listening are using webinars to sell their products and services. what a great way to get somebody on to a webinar and show them an experience that’s unlike anything that they’re really used to. Bring them in and then show them that you’re different, that you can separate yourself from all the other people around you. I love this.

I’m curious if there’s anything around the way that you did this beyond just the lead digit that helped this be so successful for you?

Ryan: Well you know, I spent money on it obviously. I didn’t just email a list. We spent right out about 1700 bucks or so in total ad spend to get those people there. And we made, I profited somewhere around $70,000 from the webinar just like that I got to keep and stuff. So that was cool. You know it definitely 1700 bucks for $70,000 return.

Now obviously that’s full disclaimer. I’ve been building my brand. People know me. We ran ads obviously every. I have a hundred thousand fans on Facebook like we ran ads to a lot of people that know me. It’s not like I just came out of nowhere and put these numbers up. But at the same time, you know, it was obviously really profitable. And you know, the lead digits helped but more importantly we just promoted it right and we have, I have a bunch of good people and a bunch of testimonials at this point so they helped spread the word and stuff like that too. You know we have a sales group on Facebook that’s got $5,000 people. It’s called Sales Talk with Sales Pros. We got a lot of action back there too. We got a lot of hardcore closer fans back there obviously in the sales industry so a lot of them showed up as well.

Tim: Nice. So you did have that help but still the text to opt in or the text to register for the webinar in the ad made it so you didn’t have to pay for that per conversion charge that Facebook pays or charges and you didn’t have to pay for the click through because all they did was see the ad and send the text. So yeah I love this. This is brilliant man. Thank you for coming on the show and sharing this tactic. Really appreciate it.

Ryan: Oh man, you know what, I think more people should use it right. It’s one of those things where now we’re ahead of the curb and like I said people haven’t really quite figured it out yet. So now is the opportunity to take advantage of it like every single post that I make on the hard core closer fan page and on my hard core closer Instagram page I put text the word closer to 44222 and get my app on your phone. I have it set up to where when you text an opt-in it gives you a link to download, not from the app store but a web based app which is what I prefer to use. I’ve tested both. I prefer the web based app.

So I’m using that. I’ve got over 4000 people that have opted in on my and this is just in the last like probably less than a hundred days so I’ve got 4000 people that have opted in using my lead digit signups just texting that code there and getting that on their phone. Like I think this is the future of squeeze pages in all reality especially for quick options like hey, if you want a free video, text this number and then sending them the video. I think this is the future and for those of you out there listening that aren’t doing this, I mean it drastically cut my leads by 1/3 of the cost that they would have cost and times a thousand leads that’s a lot.

You know it’s a lot of money obviously. Another dollar per lead makes all the difference in the world in marketing and then in the marketing cost, you know you got to cut every corner you can and then like I said being able to catch the people that are savvy to squeeze pages but really haven’t caught up on the text deal yet. It’s a completely different experience that they’re still friendly with. You know only 14% of emails get read but 99% of text get seen, 92% get read so.

Tim: Yeah, that’s amazing.

Ryan: Some will go to the text.

Tim: That’s amazing and if somebody wants to follow up and check out what you have going on, if you they have a sales team or they’re in sales, how should they get in touch with you and check out what you’re doing?

Ryan: All right. You can go to hardcorecloser.com or really the best place to find me, let me take that step back is clyxo.com/closer. You’ll see all my social media sites there, all my websites. Anything that you need. It’s C-L-Y-X-O.com/closer and you can sign up for a free account while you’re there too. It’s a pretty cool software.

[00:10:05]

Tim: That’s  radical Ryan. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

Ryan: Hey, I’m just glad that I can help out and give a little bit of value Tim.