In this article, I’m going to share some advanced strategies that can be implemented easily in your education/course/membership type business to help you generate greater results. Whether you’re looking at capturing more leads, converting more sales or wanting to boost the efficiency of delivering your customer experience – well, we’ve got some ideas for you!
In this video, I speak with Bryce Christiansen to discuss advanced strategies that course creators and membership owners are using to grow and scale their business, faster and easier than ever.
We are specifically talking about tools that are available and easy to setup in PlusThis, so you can check out our special PlusThis partner pricing here that I can offer you, if you’re interested. But ultimately this interview is designed to give you ideas to boost your automation efforts to transform your customer journey no matter what system you use.
Check out the top 10 advanced automations we identified that can help boost and grow your education type business.
Top Tools
Here is the breakdown of the top 11 tools that we discuss in the above video, and where you can take advantage of these tools within your customer journey. Whether it’s on the front end collecting and nurturing leads in our Marketing breakdown. Whether it’s in the conversion stage of closing more sales. Finally, as you focus on fulfilling and providing services, you will see tools that are useful in that part of the journey. By reviewing this list below, not only will you get an idea of what’s possible, but this will help you prioritise which ones to focus on first.
| 1. Facebook Audience Triggers | |||
| 2. Scarcity Triggers | |||
| 3. Send SMS Message | |||
| 4. Smart Links | |||
| 5. One Click Upsells | |||
| 6. Zoom Connection – Zoom/GTW/WebinarJam & EverWebinar | |||
| 7. Calendly Integration | |||
| 8. Video Triggers | |||
| 9. Date Calculator | |||
| 10. Calculate Time Between Events | |||
| 11. Tags Associated Records |
Integration Tools Supported
Before we get stuck into the overview of each tool, it’s important to understand if they are available to you. To take advantage of this additional automation power with PlusThis, you must be using one of these CRM/Marketing Automation tools. If you’re not, or need one, and you’re not sure about which platform is the right for you, click here to chat to us today. Note the principles in the video still apply even if you’re not using a system listed here. Now, important to note, even if you’re using one of the tools below with PlusThis, not every idea may be available for you, so just check each tool to confirm.
Automation Tool Overview
Here is an overview of all the 11 automation tools we discuss in the video to help course and membership creators. We include a description for each, what stage of the customer journey you can utilize the tool for and which CRM/marketing platform the tool is supported in. Finally, I’ll share some specific examples how you can utilize these automation tools in your business.
1. Facebook Audience Triggers
The Facebook Audience Triggers allows you to sync contacts from your CRM/marketing automation platform and automatically update your Facebook Custom Audience for Facebook or Instagram. This is incredibly powerful to reach your target audience on your list on another channel to boost your conversion rates.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Marketing, Sales
Tool Example/s:
- One example of this tool in action is if I’m running a marketing campaign and I have a heap of leads that have signed up into your database. I know exactly who has not taken the next step to joining my program. This allows your marketing automation platform at the exact moment you determine to automatically add them to a Facebook audience so you can run some retargeted marketing to them on Facebook or Instagram.
- A second example is when someone buys, you want to make sure they get removed from your retargeting list. Let’s be honest, that would be awkward and a waste of your valuable marketing dollars to advertise to them. So once someone signs up, at that point in the campaign/automation, you can use PlusThis to remove them from a custom audience. You could also use them to create another audience of customers… there are a lot of possibilities here of course! ☺
Check out more details here on Facebook Audience Triggers >
2. Scarcity Triggers
Creating limited offers with Scarcity Triggers allows you to put together a special offer for just a certain amount of people. With PlusThis you can fully automate the management of limited deals. You don’t need to manually monitor or adjust your setup once the limited offer has been reached. Plus, with this tool you can help boost conversions and decrease the timeline to close a sale.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Marketing, Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- You may decide when you’re launching a new program, to offer a specific bonus, like a bonus course, just for the first 10 people who sign up. The Scarcity Triggers will allow you to automatically manage that, so once that goal has been achieved, the offer is no longer valid.
- Another example, you could launch a survey to your list, and the first 100 people to complete a survey would get access to a limited time special event with you.
Check out more details here on Scarcity Triggers >
3. Send SMS Message
Text messages are a powerful channel to reach your leads and customers. With the Send SMS Messages tool, you can automate a message from your CRM/Marketing Automation system and merge in details such as a contact’s first name.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Marketing, Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- If you’re running a free/sales-based webinar and you want to boost your show up rates, SMS messages are a powerful way to reminding registrants to join.
- If you’re running a flash sale, in addition to your email marketing errors, you could send out an SMS marketing message to further remind your audience of the high-level sale details.
Check out more details here on Send SMS Messages >
4. Smart Links
Smart Links allow you to customise where a contact goes once they click a link or fill out a form, based on specific information on that contact. Data such as tags, field information, email preferences, dates and tag scarcity can be used to determine where to send a person. This can be useful to create a more tailored experience, particularly when creating evergreen timed offers and custom thank you pages.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, HighLevel, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Marketing, Sales
Tool Example/s:
- Someone signs up to your signature course via an order form, and you want to redirect them to your upsell offer of a special bonus course. You can use the Smart Links to determine if they have already purchased or had access to this course already based on whether they have the tag or not. So, if someone signs up and they don’t have the tag, they get the upsell offer. If they already have the bonus course, then they’ll get redirected somewhere else.
- Based on a leads unique experience in a funnel, they will be able to sign up for a special offer, but only for a set period of time. If they try and sign up after that time, they’ll be redirected somewhere else (in which you specify). It’s a powerful way to create a unique scarcity experience in a funnel.
Check out more details here on Smart Links >
5. One Click Upsells
The One-Click Upsell tool allows you to make upselling easier for Keap customers. After purchasing an offer, a customer can simply click a button to authorise an upsell or downsell offer from purchases made with Keap, instead of having to re-enter all their details again.
Available For: Keap
Customer Journey Stage/s: Sales
Tool Example/s:
- Someone has signed up for your membership via a Keap order form, you can present a specific upsell offer that’s only available at that time on the following page, e.g. a printed version of a course guide. By clicking just one button, it will process the additional product automatically for the customer, without them having to re-enter any details.
- Someone didn’t take up an upsell offer of a one-on-one session, you may present a downsell offer, of a do-it-yourself course. By using the One-Click Upsell option, it will allow the customer to transact faster and easier to take up that offer.
Check out more details here on One Click Upsells >
6. Zoom Webinar Connection
The webinar integration allows you to automate registrations of a contact from within your CRM/Marketing Automation platform, plus track and pass attendance to tailor follow up depending on whether someone attends or not, and how long for.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, HighLevel, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Marketing, Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- You are running a free webinar to grow your list. You want to use your own landing page to align it with your brand and configure for best conversions. You setup your own landing page, and you automate registrants from within your system to automatically get added to the webinar in Zoom.
- Upon completion of a webinar, you will automatically tag contacts who have attended, and follow up with them specify about the webinar content and offer. For those who don’t attend the webinar, you can reach out to them to see if they are ok, and/or follow up with a replay if you wish.
NOTE – this tool description has focused on the Zoom integration, however PlusThis also supports GoToWebinar, WebinarJam & EverWebinar integrations.
Check out more details here on Zoom Webinar Integration, GoToWebinar Integration , WebinarJam Integration or the EverWebinar Integration >
7. Calendly Integration
If you use the third-party scheduling tool Calendly, you can take advantage of automating contacts to be created/updated in your CRM, based on their booking. You can also automate tagging when a contact registers or cancels their appointment. This can be used to start or stop automation in your marketing automation platform.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, HighLevel, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- As part of a marketing funnel, leads can book in a free sales appointment to answer any questions that they have. The contact books in Calendly, and the contact is updated in the marketing automation platform, and they get a tag applied, so it stops further reminders asking them to book, when they already have.
- You might offer monthly calls with your high-level members, by having an integration with Calendly will allow you to track when the last call was booked into a custom field, so you’ll be able to report and keep track of the last date in which someone had an appointment.
Check out more details here on Calendly Connection >
9. Video Triggers
Track how long a contact watches one of your videos with these Video Triggers. You can utilise this feature to apply tags to track, but also start or stop automation based on the duration of someone’s viewing time automatically.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, HighLevel, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- If you want to follow up with leads who not only watched a webinar replay but watched at the 68th minute as that’s when you’re presenting your offer. You’ll know exactly which contacts saw the offer and who didn’t based on applying a tag.
- If your members must watch an entire webinar to obtain professional development credits, then you may also wish to take advantage of this tool to automate the tagging of contacts who watch the entire video recording.
Check out more details here on Video Triggers >
10. Date Calculator
The Date Calculator works out a date based on rules you setup, for example adding 1 month to a date automatically, finding the first Thursday of the month and more. This tool not only calculates, but also stores the date for future use in automation and within emails.
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, HighLeve, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- For membership owners who have monthly membership, the Date Calculator tool will automate when the next renewal date will be and store it in a custom field. That way you’ll be able to automate actions related to that date (e.g. their reminder emails).
- As part of a marketing funnel, you may have an offer that expires in 3 day’s time, this tool will automate this calculation so that it gets stored automatically for you.
Check out more details here on Date Calculator >
10. Calculate Time Between Events
The Calculate Time Between Event tool automates the difference between two dates or events, so that it can be stored in a field for future use. You can use a contact’s creation date, today’s date, first purchase date, latest purchase, a date a tag was applied, a date in a field and more. The opportunities for uses of this data are endless!
Available For: Keap, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, Ontraport, Drip
Customer Journey Stage/s: Sales, Services
Tool Example:
- If you run a membership, you may wish to use this functionality to calculate the time someone started a trial and when someone became a paying member. For example, if you run a 7-day trial, knowing that a lot of people sign up on day 6, may help provide valuable insights into the performance of your marketing collateral.
- Calculate how long it takes someone to join your database then become a paying customer with their first transaction.
Check out more details here on Calculate Time Between Events >
11. Tags Associated Records
Have multiple contacts from the same company or other particular grouping that you need to update based on the actions of just one contact from that same company/group? This Tag Associated Records tools allows you to do just that and assign tags based on a linked information on another contact record. Tags can be used to find shared contacts but start and stop automation as required for all linked members.
Available For: Keap
Customer Journey Stage/s: Marketing Sales, Services
Tool Example/s:
- If a member from an organisation joins your membership, then you can automate that any other contact from that organisation can be tagged as well to stop promotional emails within a campaign.
- If an organisation member gets access to a new course, then other contacts from the same organisation can get access to the same material automatically.
Check out more details here on Tag Associated Records >
Wrap Up & REAL Results
I hope from the above examples, you start to see if the possibilities in your business to utilise these marketing, sales and service based advanced automations with PlusThis. You’ll be able to create a more seamless experience for your audience that saves time for you and your audience, allows you to convert more business, and ultimately create a more scalable and profitable education/ course/ membership type business.
If you’re interested in checking out PlusThis, feel free to use our link to access special discounted PlusThis pricing here.
