How a Sales automation platform made $400K from Lifetime deals on AppSumo
Maker of TheBootstrappedWay
Growth Story #1: CLOSEM
MRR: $18,000 | Business type: SaaS
Description:
CLOSEM is a super-easy-to-learn-and-use software tool that helps entrepreneurs and small business owners automate the time-consuming work of following up with leads, prospects, and customers and increasing sales.
Growth channels and tactics:
1) AppSumo
2) Promote special deals mainly on Facebook
Another great success story with launching on Appsumo to get initial validation and paying users - made roughly $400K on Appsumo.
My insights:
Through AppSumo, they’ve been able to reach a much wider audience quickly and with zero marketing spend. They quickly got a lot of great reviews, although a limiting factor to AppSumo reviews is that they show the AppSumo user name, not the user’s real name, so it’s a little less “real” than social proof on other platforms.
The interesting part is that they launched the deal at $97 (avg. deal is $50-$60) and increased the pricing multiple times, to $197, then $297, and again to $397, and they'll still be getting many paying users.
Their main piece of content was a series of follow-up messages their customer could use within the platform.
Another upcoming project is a MasterMind group to share best practices.
As they were getting many "I'm not a techie" kind of comments, they offered a Done-For-You service to help folks get results quickly - another income stream.
Their upcoming growth plans:
1) Testing some new lead magnets. For example, “One simple hack to double your email open rate.” Of course, the call to action is the CLOSE free trial
2) Advertise on YouTube with a series of great instructional content to expand their footprint
3) Instituted a free trial offer - they only had paid plans
💡 Find out how much revenue AppSumo deals make:
👉 Revenue numbers from 890+ deals on AppSumo
👉 Top 10 best-sold deals on AppSumo
👉 Top 10 most expensive deals on AppSumo
👉 Top 5 most profitable deals on AppSumo
👉 Discounts offered by each deal
Check out The AppSumo Breakdown report.
Growth Story #2: AllAuthor
MRR: $15,000 | Business type: eCommerce
Description:
A book promotion platform focused on helping self-published authors to market their books.
Growth channels and tactics:
1) Cold outreach through social media - mainly Facebook
2) Posting and DM on Facebook
Their first growth machine to get early traction was to reach out to authors through social media.
My insights:
They spent several hours every single day talking with so many authors on Facebook. They never stopped until they got 5 new authors to sign up and at least one paid author. After that, they created a powerful, tight feedback loop to make minor corrections to AllAuthor based on their everyday conversations.
AllAuthor is also included in listings of some top author platforms like ALLi and Kindlepreneur, which drives a part of their organic traffic.
Right now, they have reached the $20,000 revenue mark and have over 13,500 authors, most of whom are from developed countries, and 333,000 readers on AllAuthor. They've grown to list over 56,000 books and have over 32,000 book discussions between their authors and readers.
💡 To analyze an audience and find influencers, you can use SparkToro
Growth Story #2: DXFforCNC.com
MRR: $6,200 | Business type: Digital Products
Description:
DXFforCNC.com is one of the most popular websites that provide 2D designs for CNC machines.
Growth channels and tactics:
1) Facebook page
2) Pinterest
3) SEO & Content Marketing - 10% of his designs are free
My insights:
Sharing free designs one by one, thus generating visibility and SEO-friendly content, was his main growth machine.
Publishing content on his Facebook page and on Pinterest are his main channels.
💡 Here is a list of Facebook Groups to promote your product, especially if you're selling a SaaS.
