Online turnkey marathons: sales through audience warm-up

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What is an online marathon?
An online marathon is a small, interactive course (3-5 days or more) that gives you the opportunity to sell a service or product through a benefit, rather than "head-on". It is important that the topic of the marathon is interesting for the audience and the speaker is an expert in it.

For the audience, a marathon is an opportunity to obtain a specific practical skill, to attend several lessons, to gain theoretical and practical knowledge on a particular topic.
For you, it is an opportunity to extend your reach, increase audience loyalty and sell even the most complex product.

By participating in an online marathon, a person tests the product, gets to know you as an expert and develops trust. After a marathon, it is easier to make a purchase decision.
Who will benefit from marathons
  • An infobusiness scaling tool
    Usually, webinars have low returns and the audience does not have time to warm up and feel loyal to the author. Whereas in marathons, participants interact longer and more actively with the speaker. This makes them feel more trusted and better warmed up before buying the target product.
  • Promoting and earning your own brand
    If you are already an expert in a particular field and have your own blog, then a marathon is a great opportunity to share your knowledge with the public and earn money from it. Moreover, by running an online marathon, participants share their results with their friends, which attracts a new and loyal audience to you.
  • Test a new info product
    For example, when launching a fresh course, you can significantly reduce the risk by using a test online marathon. Also, you'll be able to gather feedback from participants quickly to improve the product even before the full version is released.
  • As a way of warming up your audience to buy more expensive products
    Selling "head-on" hasn't worked for a long time. Consumers are very cautious and fastidious, and will not buy something they are not 100% sure about. An online marathon will help warm up participants, close their pains and objections, and only then sell. Of course, the effect of such sales will be much higher than on a "cold" audience.
Types of funnels for marathons and carathons
Content funnel
The content funnel is designed for 6-9 days and allows you to gradually warm up and prepare a person for the sale. Thus we remove the annoyance of the user, when they try to make him buy right away. By the sales stage, he becomes loyal and open to the offer.

We first analyse the target audience, their pains, and create content based on this information.

The funnel for marathons is divided into 3 stages: reach, engage, sell.
  • Day 1-3
    Day 1-3 we reach as much of the target audience as possible by offering them a free lead-magnet and engaging them in the theme of a future marathon.
  • Day 3-6
    Day 3-6 - offer free useful material, but with a mention of 'more you can learn/get/see at our marathon' and a story about the speaker. Give you a link to a webpage with a registration form. At this stage, 20 to 40% of requests for the marathon come in.
  • Day 6-9
    Day 6-9 - sale. We give a third lead magnet with a practical exercise and once again promote the marathon.
  • A marathon funnel for 3-5 days to test the niche.
    It is needed to test a niche quickly and with a minimum budget. Only a Telegram channel is created, where people subscribe and we interact with them there.
  • Free marathons
    We use it when we need to introduce our audience and sell our expertise or a simple product. In this case, the marathon is used as a marketing tool.
  • Paid marathons with a free portion
    We use the marathon as a tripwire. We give participants the first couple of days of the marathon for free, so that they feel the interest and benefit. The rest of the marathon days we already sell. This marathon helps to close on a more complex/expensive product.
  • Paid Marathons
    A fully paid marathon is a full-fledged tripwire in itself, with value built in. Such a marathon allows you to recruit the most relevant but also the most expensive audience.
Do you want to use online marathons for your promotion?
For each of our marathon funnel options, we have ready-made, tried-and-tested solutions! Submit a request online and we'll get back to you!
Funnel automation
The marathon funnel can be automated down to the last detail. It all depends on your goals and budget.
As standard, we create and configure:
  • 1
    A welcome message and a message about the essence of the marathon
  • 2
    A quiz survey for audience segmentation
  • 3
    Broadcast reminders
  • 4
    Mailing of useful warming content
  • 5
    Sending out homework
  • 6
    Segmentation of the audience after the marathon
  • 7
    Reaching out after the marathon to sell the course and other useful products
You can set up gamification in the bot. For example, automatic checking of homework, scoring and prize drawing.
What happens to users who did not buy the product in the marathon?
  • Option 1
    Option 1: If some of the participants have not bought the product we want, the bot segments them and sends them to the booster funnel. Users receive useful content and offers to buy the main or down-sell product within a few days.
  • Option 2
    Option 2. If even after this funnel the purchase doesn't happen, a re-segmentation takes place and the person is signed up for the content funnel.
We don't forget about the people who bought the main product during or after the marathon. To them we offer an up-sell and sign up to the content funnel with notifications of future courses, trainings, etc.
Creation of a turnkey marathon by 4Limes
Foundation work
  • Business niche.
  • Competitive environment.
  • The portrait of the target audience.
  • Development of the funnel strategy.
  • Customer journey design.
Content creation
  • Copywriter's work on texts for the landing page, funnel, advertising creatives.
  • Designer's work on the landing page, creatives for the funnel and advertising.
  • Assembling chatbot.
  • Message chain testing.
Packaging
  • Assembling landing pages, connecting domains.
  • Setting up application forms.
  • Setting up an email chain.
Automation
  • Automation of the process of collecting contact information.
  • Welcome email chain.
  • Segmentation of customers by means of a quiz.
  • Warming up before the marathon according to the segmentation.
  • Reminder chain.
  • Automation of homework delivery.
  • Automation of homework verification.
  • Up-sell offer for the course.
  • Up-sell/Down-sell offer.
  • Re-segmentation and offer of social media subscriptions.
  • Subscription to the content funnel.
Launch of the content funnel
  • Assisting with live events.
  • Publication of content on social networks.
  • Advertising activity.
Traffic
  • Targeted advertising on FB/Instagram or VK for a marathon.
  • Traffic from YouTube, Tik-tok, Google Kms, Yandex Ads and other sources.
Why choose us
We're not afraid of complexity and are ready to create a bespoke turnkey marathon funnel for you. Having run around a hundred funnels, we know what kind of difficulties can be encountered in any given niche. And most importantly, we know how to solve them.

You can get a free consultation from our specialist to ask all your questions in person! Fill in the application form and we will contact you.
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