She made $500k with one launch. Here's how.
Sam Vander Wielen Podcast_FINAL
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Sam Vander Wielen: [00:00:00] The thing that is kind of funny to me is that it's a literal copy and paste job of my everyday evergreen funnel. So yeah, this was a four-day $500,000 launch. What's so crazy about it is that I had just had a $400,000 launch- ... not even, like, two and a half months earlier. I started treating my ads like they were their own social media channel, essentially.
And so putting the same amount of effort and energy and consistency into creating content for it- How much did you spend on Facebook ads? $24,000. Okay. To make half a million. Five hundred. Yeah. That's a good ROI.
Dylan Redekop: What do you think most people do wrong with product launches that you've, that you've seen, like, "Ah, they're not doing this right," or, "I would do it this way"?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, I just wish people would focus on-
Chenell Basilio: All right. Well, today we are excited to have Sam Vander Wielen back on the show for the second appearance. I think she is the first official repeat guest that we've had on the show, which is super exciting, but, uh, she's a good time, knows her marketing stuff, so we had to have her [00:01:00] back on because Sam had a $500,000 launch a couple months ago, and we wanted to talk all about the nitty-gritty details of it.
So we're having her back on. Sam, thanks for, thanks for joining us again. Thanks for having me. I'm... What
Sam Vander Wielen: kind of trophy situation- ...
Chenell Basilio: am I getting out of this?
Sam Vander Wielen: We're talking, like, big, small. I have my fantasy football trophy down there- Yeah, yeah ... if you want it. All
Chenell Basilio: right. All right. I'll take it. Whatever y'all- Don't tell Jay, Chanel.
I'll take it. Yeah. I know, right? I don't think he would like- No ... like that very much. But no, we're, we're excited 'cause you've always done things pretty large, but I don't know, what was this? March? April? I think it was April. It was in the end of February- Mm-hmm ... into March. Mm-hmm. End of February, okay.
Dylan Redekop: It's still April, Chanel.
Time flies.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Um, I remember, like, get- It's still April. I remember getting, like, live updates from Sam. You were like, "I think we just hit 11,000 webinars registrants." And I was like, "Hold on. What? This is crazy." So I wanted you to come on and just, like, break down how you did it, all of the things. Um, if you are listening to this and you have not [00:02:00] listened to our first ep- episode with Sam, go do that.
It was highly impressive what she's just built throughout the years, and so that's a great starting point. But, um, yeah, Dylan, where do you wanna start with this one? Oh, man,
Dylan Redekop: I've got, I've got so many questions. Maybe, maybe Sam, if you could give us, like, a- ... just like a, an overview of sort of what you launched and, and how it went, and then maybe we can just, like, start- You know, um, firing questions your way because you've done a podcast recording about this launch, and you've written about it a bit.
So maybe just tell, tell everybody kind of what you did in February and March and, you know, what, what came of it.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. Okay. So I'll- Mm-hmm ... set the stage for everyone. So basically, in my business, I only sell two things. I sell individual downloadable legal templates, like contracts that you need, and then I sell a package of those templates called the Ultimate Bundle that also has a series of video trainings that teach people how to legally start an online business, like from A to Z.
And so two times a year, I put the Ultimate Bundle on [00:03:00] sale and run the sale live. The thing that is kind of funny to me is that it's a literal copy and paste job of my everyday- ... evergreen funnel. So I have an everyday evergreen funnel running of this 365 dol- 365 dollars, 365 days a year. And I'm... That funnel alone generates six figures a month.
So, you know, y- the, the assumption there is like, "Oh, well, if it's doing that well, how are you gonna run it live? Like, how's that going to be that special?" So I've learned a lot over the years about, like, how to inject some, I don't know, specialness and, like, urgency and get people to actually take action on something.
And so essentially these two times a year, I just run this four-day sale, um, literally teach the same webinar that I teach in my evergreen webinar word for word. Um, and then I have pretty much the same emails except that we change the dates and add some urgency with the bonuses. Um, and over these four days, the bonuses are kind of descending.
Like, the most amount of ear- bonuses that you get are on the webinar, and I did something kind of cool [00:04:00] this year- Mm-hmm ... that we can talk about on the webinar that I've never done before. Then you have, like, the next two days you get the most amount of bonuses, and then at the end of the four days, um, all the bonuses expire, and so people have to take action.
Um, so yeah, this was a four-day, $500,000 launch, and I think that what's so crazy about it is that I, I think what's, like, important for this conversation too is that I had just had a, like, $400,000 launch- ... not even, like, two and a half months earlier. So a lot of times people are like, "Oh, but then that's, like, your one big thing."
Like, I would love to just, like, dispel all the myths off the top. Like, it's like, "Oh, well this is your one for the year." Nope, just did it. I'll do it again pretty soon. Um, two, didn't spend that much on ads. No, this was not all from ads. Three, not all bots, uh, which I was convinced while the numbers were ticking up.
I was like, "Someone's- Hmm ... punking me, and these are all bots." Not bots. They were real people. So I can dispel those myths off the bat. I
Chenell Basilio: love that. Yeah. So when you say a four-day launch, it's like, is it starting from the webinar and then four days after [00:05:00] that? Or how does that- Window of checkout Yeah, it
Sam Vander Wielen: starts, essentially things kick off, um, so I have my webinar on Monday at 3:00, but essentially by the time that the cart actually opens, it's almost 5:00 PM Eastern, and it closes on Friday afternoon.
So it's, it's just those four day- it's like Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Okay. So
Dylan Redekop: I've, I've got a- That's awesome ... back the truck up question a little bit because you had 11,000 webinar registrants to this recent launch. Most people don't have 11,000 people on their email list. So maybe give us, um, context to how big your email list is, and then also, like, was this 100% organic web- uh, webinar registrants or were you running ads and stuff?
Like, give us a background to kind of how you, how you got to 11,000 webinar attendees. Or not attendees, but registrants.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. So I have 66,000 people- Okay ... on my email list now, but I'm assuming when I ran this launch I was probably in like the high 50s. Um, probably hovering around 60. And so, um, a lot of it actually does come from my own email list.
[00:06:00] That's the biggest. So it was essentially split like 60 organic-- or sorry, 60, uh, ads and 40 organic. Okay. And so of the 40% of organic, most of them actually came from my email list. We also see people sign up from social. What's always a little bit weird about this from attribution, like we obviously try our best, and I use HighRose and pay a ton of money for it, uh, to be able to track like where people are coming from.
It, people are on my list and they get attributed to coming in from an ad, and it's like this whole messy thing. So I kind of don't, I don't fuss about it too much because we do tend to see that people tend to be on my email list for a long time before they convert- Okay ... um, even if they get attributed to coming in from a ad.
Um, so yeah, we had, we had a good percentage of people come in from those ads, but I think it was thanks to a last minute ad strategy that I thought of like within weeks, I would say, before, uh, before the launch.
Dylan Redekop: Oh, well you gotta tell us what that ad strategy is now. Well, yeah. It's like don't leave us hanging.
No, I'm not gonna tell you. I'm
Sam Vander Wielen: just gonna let it hang. I don't wanna tell you what it is. No, I'm just [00:07:00] kidding. Um, no, so basically, I mean, long story short, I think I had a mindset shift probably within the last year about ads in general. Like I've, I've run Meta a- so when I talk about ads, I'm talking about Meta.
That means it runs on Facebook, Instagram, all the various platforms. And I run them since, uh, very late 2019, early 2020, and my ads have always been successful. I've basically never had a down period with ads. Um, but I did start to see, I would say, like less success about a year and a half, two years ago.
And- One of the things that I think shifted me out of it was the shift in mindset that I had that I started treating my ads like they were their own social media channel, essentially. And so putting the same amount of effort and energy and consistency into creating content for it, really, like scripting out concepts, thinking about visuals, thinking about hooks, like all of the things.
So there was that, that part of just like treating it a little bit differently. The second thing I [00:08:00] started doing differently was when I would start recording organic content for social media, like Instagram, which is my, my biggest platform, I would-- When I had an idea that I was like, "This, I bet you that this reel will probably do pretty well," like I can kind of tell, then at the end of it when I would record it, I would record a call to action for an ad ahead of time so that I didn't have to go back and reinvent the wheel.
Because when you run ManyChat, for example, so like when I record a reel for Instagram, I'll say, "Comment 'sidebar'" for people to get my sidebar newsletter. You don't wanna do that for an ad because you can get shadowbanned if too many people are commenting the same word. Oh, okay. And so often we'll say like co- um, "Click the link to sign up for my newsletter instead," or something like this.
So just ahead of time, I started getting in the habit of recording those, and then when we would post a piece of organic content on a platform like Instagram, if it went well, we then downloaded the video and got it into an ad set on Facebook through Meta. So not just boosting it as a piece of content, but actually turning [00:09:00] it into an ad so we could control the audience.
So we were almost like doing it two different ways, where I'm creating content for social media and as like a test market and seeing what goes well, plus I'm creating things directly for ads that I have a feeling will go well.
Chenell Basilio: Hmm.
Sam Vander Wielen: And the, the last thing I'll say too is that I left wiggle room this time for something timely, which I have never done before.
I always like batched and created my ads and everything way ahead of time, but there's been so many things going on in the online business industry in the past year with like AI and ADA lawsuits and all this other stuff that we essentially left a hole on the calendar, and we're like, "We're gonna plug in something and see how it goes if something pops up."
And thank God it did. Something happened, and it was like I jumped right on the trend. I literally sat on the floor of my office where I am now, nothing fancy, not- no frills, recorded just a direct face-to-camera thing. It took off as a piece of organic social content. We turned it into an ad, and it brought in- Wow
thousands of signups.
Chenell Basilio: Wow.
Sam Vander Wielen: Are you using trial reels to see what's gonna do [00:10:00] well, or are you just posting them on your main feed? We are using them right now for some of my organic social, but that w- I don't think we were doing that at the time that this launch was going on
Dylan Redekop: Okay.
Sam Vander Wielen: Okay. So interesting. And then so
Dylan Redekop: when you were running the ads to this, um, to the webinar, that, that's what you're running ads to?
Was that specifically to get people to sign up for the webinar, or is it to get onto your email list?
Sam Vander Wielen: These ones that we're talking about are all, um, sign-up ads. Okay. So they're all invite ads, as we call them. So they're just getting people to- Okay ... sign up for the webinar, and then record like a separate set that are all sales ads.
Got it. Okay.
Dylan Redekop: Just walking through kind of this launch process. So you had 11,000 people signed up for the web- or the, the webinar, for your launch webinar. And then, um, maybe talk us through just a little bit of how that webinar goes and what the feel is like when it comes to actually finally, you know, pitching your product, because I know some people it's like a hard pitch the whole time, some people give away quite a bit and then, you know, pitch sort of the extended version at the end.
So what did, what did your webinar... how was it structured and, and how was it, um, what-- like what was your CTA at the end?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. I think the [00:11:00] way that I do my webinar and the way that I handle sales has so much to do with why we- Yeah ... make so many sales, and I think it's really unique in the industry, um, based on what I've heard back from other people, I can tell you in like the survey data that it, it, it works.
So essentially, right off the bat, I, you know, I'm obviously welcoming people to the webinar, and I set the stage really early on about who this webinar is for and who it's not for. One of the most important things in that part of a webinar is that the language that you're using, like you're not literally saying like, "This webinar is for creators."
Like not that. I'm talking more emotional language of like, "This is for the person who's been googling at 2:00 a.m. and is ready to rip their hair out because they're finding, you know, they're finding more answers or questions to their answers than when they started." Like stuff like this where you're really painting the picture of how they feel, like painting a specific moment- Okay
of frustration. This is very, very, very intentional and a lot of time on my end, speaking their language, using their exact words, their exact [00:12:00] phrases, everything that they're going through that I hear. I literally rip examples from DMs and, um, things in my inbox that are perfect examples that I just know other people can like translate and relate to.
So there's that. But then there's something in there that I think is absolutely crucial to getting people to buy at the end, and that is that when I tell people, "This is who this webinar is not for," I have a couple throwaways about like, "This is not for people who want legal advice and not for me to be your lawyer."
But then I also say at the very end, "This webinar is not for you if you're going to get mad that after the next hour I deliver all this valuable information, but then at the end I'm gonna share with you about the ultimate bundle." First of all, that is my first signal to just like put them on notice that that is happening, and I don't talk that much about the bundle throughout.
It's really just like, "Hey, I'm gonna deliver," and I always do, but you're-- in exchange, you're gonna sit there and you're gonna listen to this- Right ... at the end. So it gets rid of any stragglers who are just there for that or whatever, or people who might get mad at the end. It also presents me with my [00:13:00] first opportunity to talk about what the ultimate bundle is.
So when I say, like, if you're gonna get mad that at the end of this valuable training I share about the ultimate bundle... Oh, by the way, that's my signature program where I give you 10 le- legal templates plus all the trainings you need. And so I set it up, and I'm already explaining what it is and how it's gonna fill the very gap that I know that they came there with.
Right. Um, I then start d- then I do something that I think is, like, the nail in the coffin, which is that I ask them for their consent.
Chenell Basilio: Mm.
Sam Vander Wielen: So in the comments, I say, "Can you tell me in the chat? If that's good with you, just put a yes. Um, and I... if you're good with that, we can move on." And, like, the, the chat lights up with, like, thousands of yeses, and I think people really like that kind of mutual exchange.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I think that's really important.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. I really like this, because I think most of the time when you get on a webinar, people almost, like, skirt past that issue of, like, "Hey, I'm just gonna teach for the next hour." And, like, then at the very end, it's like this surprise. Like, "Oh, by the way, I have this thing."
And I think that's why so many people have started [00:14:00] to get annoyed when people are running webinars, 'cause they're like, "Well, I know- Yeah ... it's just a sales pitch." But for you, you're actually saying, like, "Yes, I am gonna give you an hour of my time for free. But also, I have this thing on the back end that's super helpful."
Um, so I really love that you're, that you're doing that and you're calling it out immediately, because I think you're just kind of saying what everyone is thinking, of like, "Is there gonna be a sales pitch at the end?" Mm-hmm. And you're like, "Yeah, there totally is." Like... Yeah.
Sam Vander Wielen: But then I do- Yeah ... I think, like, there's a way you could mess this up by saying that, but then being too salesy throughout.
And I think it's, like, by setting that stage early, you're kind of... You're making a pro- I mean, it's your first opportunity to build trust with someone. So I've just told you that I'm gonna deliver for an hour. I better go out and deliver now. And I really leave it on the table. And, like, you know, people always test me in the chat.
They think I'm, like, a robot and it's not actually live, and all this kind of stuff. And so I answer their questions as I'm going along. I make little comments about their comments. Like, I make sure, and I really, I really deliver, and I ask for examples of what they're doing online and, and I try to [00:15:00] relate back, like, specific examples and make it super valuable.
I mean, my webinar, people would have to pay thousands of dollars to get that information- Right ... from a lawyer. So it does have a lot of value. And then it's like, yeah, at the end I should be able to talk about my product.
Dylan Redekop: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, you've earned it.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: Wow.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. And by that point, honestly, I've done so much along the way that they- Yeah
really need it. I've, I've... I know now how to dribble it, you know, throughout, where I'm setting it up and I'm talking about it as we talk, and the... By the time they get to that point, they're just like, "Okay, uh, I need this thing." So
Dylan Redekop: with 11,000 webinar registrants- Yeah ... you've got, uh, I think your note said you had a 5% conversion rate.
So from atten- Is that attendees? Yeah. Or is that registrants to, to sal- sales? Or is that attendees?
Sam Vander Wielen: Oh, we had a 5% conversion rate on the webinar. Okay.
Dylan Redekop: Okay, for attendees that, that showed up.
Sam Vander Wielen: Mm-hmm.
Dylan Redekop: Wow.
Chenell Basilio: So, like, attendees to sales. Wow. Yeah. Huge. I, and I remember, so 11,000 people is a lot, and if you're technically thinking about this, it's like, okay, you probably have one of the higher Zoom plans.
And I remember [00:16:00] trying to log in- Right ... like a minute after, and it was like it sent me to YouTube Live, and I was like, "Whoa, I thought this was on Zoom." And then it was like, "We're sorry, the room is full, but here you can watch it on YouTube Live." And I was like, "Sam is brilliant." Did you set that up or was that like an automatic Zoom thing?
I did set that up. I did set that up. That's awesome.
Sam Vander Wielen: Um, despite my best, uh, like my ... I mean, Chanelle knows me pretty well that like I'm, I'm sitting there being like, "No one's gonna show up. Like I bet no one's even coming to this." And then I was like, "Something tells me I should just..." As the, as the number kept ticking up, I was like, "I think I should do this."
So in, in your Zoom settings you can actually go in and have it so that first of all you're streaming live to YouTube at the same time. And so that's something I've always done because then we have, first of all if there's ever a problem with Zoom, then my team has the link and can start- Right ... sending it to people.
But also so that then there's the recording right away, so you get it way faster than you do with Zoom, that's another thing. Um, so that we can pop it in the email and send it out to the registrants who [00:17:00] didn't attend. Um, but also I then SEO-ify it and leave it on YouTube so that I continue to get leads forever.
So there's, to me is like no downside. And then it's literally the click of a little button that's like, "If your room is full, do you want us to automatically send people there?" And I was like, "Well, that'll never happen." "But sure. I'll,
Chenell Basilio: I'll click it."
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: I've never, ever seen
Sam Vander Wielen: that before,
Chenell Basilio: and I was like- Me neither
"This is
Sam Vander Wielen: awesome." I couldn't believe it. Although can I share a lesson- Please ... that I learned- Yeah ... that I did not know because I didn't think I was the kind of person who could break Zoom? Um, in the future I will not allow people to bring their- Mm ... AI note takers, because I did not realize that AI note takers take up seats.
And so we had something like 100 AI note takers in there, and that I don't think is fair to people who wanted to be there and who had signed up for it. So because then I couldn't see the chat, and so it, it, you know, it was ... That I won't allow happen again. Yeah. That's so smart.
Chenell Basilio: Sign of the times, huh? Who knew?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, I had no idea that was a thing, and I didn't know they [00:18:00] took up a seat. I wouldn't have known. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. And
Dylan Redekop: so there is a setting in Zoom that you can like block those?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. In the future we're just not gonna allow them in. Uh, that's, unless somebody lets us know ahead of time that there's any sort of accessibility and I'm happy to make an accommodation.
But just for people to come- Mm-hmm ... no. I think it's actually something people should think about in general. Mm-hmm. Uh, I think this is an important thing that I haven't talked about yet, that, you know, as we do webinars, different trainings, whatever it is, like people have AI note takers in there, and then I'm like, "What are they doing with this information?"
And then this information's going into the system that now becomes public knowledge. And what if it writes down something that I'm saying incorrectly? So like especially for what I do, I'm like, I don't want their AI note taker being like, "Sam said that an LLC should always be-" Right ... X, you know? And, and then it's like, but I didn't say that, but it misunderstood.
So it's like I'm giving you the information. I'm showing up. I'm just asking you to listen, and I think it's actually an important point moving forward that I will make. That's actually a good point. Which-
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. [00:19:00] 'Cause I often see like transcripts mess up what I'm saying 'cause I mumble a lot or I just like don't fully say a word, and I'm like, "Oh, that's not at all what I said."
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. And you know me, I'm so sarcastic. I'm like half of what I say could end up on the internet, and it'd be like, "That's not, I didn't mean that literally." Don't cancel me. Like that's terrible. So, um- Yeah ... yeah, exactly. So I was just like, no, that's not, that's not happening anymore. Yeah. So do you,
Dylan Redekop: would you consider putting that even in like your webinar emails, like your, your li- your sequence that would go to people?
Like, "Hey, by the way, this is a webinar and, and if you register you'll get the replay, but I'm not letting your note takers come in" kind of thing?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. I'm gonna integrate it into the show up sequence- Okay ... moving forward. So people will register like fine, but then we will tell them when they have the link and they get the all the kind of finalized details, I'm gonna put, um, "Just so you know, we're not letting AI note takers in at this time."
Like please just come and pay attention. It feels very like 2026 to just be like- Yeah ... "Can I just have your attention?" Like I just sit there and listen. You don't need to do anything. That's funny. That's it. Yeah, and you get a recording too. That's the other thing. I- it's been a huge [00:20:00] boost by the way, like another strategy that I've integrated that's worked really well is that I, uh, in the fall last year when I ran the launch to like a $400,000 one, I started sending out the replay as a podcast, and I saw a huge bump in, uh, people actually watching the replay.
Mm-hmm. Because my thought process here was like if you can't show up, I mean, I only hold this live webinar one time. I used to do it three- Yeah ... times and that was exhausting, so I only do it one. And so like, you know, some people just can't make the time, fine. But the, some other people can never, they could never make the time because they maybe have a 9:00 to 5:00, or they have a little one, or something's going on, and having an audio replay totally changed the game.
I can't tell you how many people I get emails from that are like, "I did this while I was cooking." Yeah. "I did this while I was driving the kids to soccer," and then they bought the bundle. So they literally wouldn't have listened before.
Dylan Redekop: I, the, I am that person because I, I love sh- Yeah, same ... I, I do try to show up to live webinars or workshops or whatever when I can, but I'll often find like they're scheduled right in the middle of the workday and I'm like, I got other stuff that's, you know, higher priority that I need to do.
I'll [00:21:00] watch the replay, and guess what? Chanelle, you can relate. Do we ever watch the replay? No, we don't. We don't.
Chenell Basilio: No. But if it was a podcast- Exactly ... I would listen to it, especially on like one and a half speed- Exactly ... or whatever. I'll throw that in my earbuds
Dylan Redekop: while I'm- I also post it ... while I'm doing dishes, while I'm cleaning, while I'm going for a walk, and then, and then, um- Yeah, much more likely to have my full attention then.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. It's so smart. I-- The more it worked, honestly, the more I started integrating it. Like, we used to only kind of mention the replay once. Mm. And now it's like I'm including the replay in a few emails. I'm even including it when we get to close cart and being like, "If you didn't have a chance to listen, go back, start at this, um, timestamp, and listen on one and a half speed.
Like, here's the part you really need." You know, we're really directing them to it multiple times, and I also post it on my public podcast feed. Right. So although we, we kind of advertise it as a private podcast, it's, it-- we've gotten like thousands of downloads just from posting it- Yeah, why not? ... on the podcast feed.
Why not? Yeah. Yeah, why not? Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Oh, that's so interesting. Okay, so backing up a little bit. So you, [00:22:00] 11,000-ish people registered. Yeah. How many people actually showed up to the webinar?
Sam Vander Wielen: We had a 25% show-up rate, which I was- Geez ... so happy about because that is-- I've been working harder on that than I have in my gains in my gym.
Because I, show up, show-up rates are hard. Show-up rates have been bad. I don't know if people here quite know or appreciate how bad they've been. And so my show-up rates weren't great before. And yeah, at first we were just like, "Okay, well, I guess we have to change, like, the show-up emails." And it was like, that's not really working.
And then I started doing add to calendar buttons, uh, which start, really boosted it. That, that did help. That was kind of like the first initial thing that boosted getting people- Yeah ... to show up. And then I started using VideoAsk, as Chanelle knows. And so, like, I started integrating VideoAsk into the show up sequence, and I think that's when it just gave us that, like, boom, extra boost of- Question
of
Dylan Redekop: people showing up. You gotta talk about VideoAsk. So- Oh, sorry, Chanelle ... VideoAsk. You, you knew I was gonna ask. I was
Sam Vander Wielen: just gonna say, yeah. Yeah. So do you want me to say- Do you wanna explain what that is? ... what VideoAsk is? Yeah. So VideoAsk [00:23:00] is a platform. It's actually owned by the same company as Typeform.
And so VideoAsk is essentially like a way to send little video clips, audio voice notes, or text, um, to people. And so you can do it for whatever you want. Some people, I use it in three different ways in my business, which I'm happy to talk about. But in this promo, in this funnel in general, I used it on the front end.
And so essentially when people signed up for my live webinar, they got their confirmation email, and in that confirmation email just saying like, "Hey Dylan, thanks for signing up for my webinar. Like, don't forget, this is the day, this is the time. Add it to your calendar. But hey, real quick, what's one thing that you want me to talk to you about in the webinar?
Like, click here to let me know." And when you clicked on that, it opened up VideoAsk, and you could either send me a video, a voice note- Okay ... or a text. I then sat down and I personally responded to every single person who sent me a VideoAsk with a customized video until the very last day when I hit select all, and I replied to all of them because there were like hundreds outstanding, and I couldn't, I couldn't [00:24:00] do any more.
But, uh, up until then, that, that was really my primary job in like the lead up to, um- Into the webinar, and I had a very, very specific strategy in my response in those videos that I think is what led to so many people not only buying, but showing up. What was the strategy? Okay, I'll tell you what it was.
Yeah,
Chenell Basilio: well, well real quick. So you said the, the video ask, um, you had mentioned this before, that the people who got a personalized video ask converted at some crazy percentage.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, we saw most of the people who I sent these back to, you know, were, were the people who, like the super high percentage of them actually attending the webinar, first of all.
So like that, it was clear. I mean, that was my kind of first goal, to be honest, was like getting them to show up. Because the way that I do business essentially is that I'm okay, this is very radical and, and controversial in our industry. I'm okay if people don't buy right away. It really doesn't bother me.
I take a very long-term approach. I know. Hold, hold the for the gas. Um, so I'm okay for, I'm okay for this taking time and this being like a [00:25:00] nurtured relationship. So I know that just even having a touchpoint with them is going to be valuable. I know that maybe that would make them stay on my email list.
Maybe that will make them come to the webinar. Maybe they'll buy down the line. I have people send me emails that say they came to my webinar five years ago. Wow. Um, it really doesn't bother me at all. So it's obviously working fine. I think I definitely saw more of that increase of people coming, and then yes, as we were coming in, we were all like tracking like, "Oh, I sent that lady a video," or like, "That guy sent me a video ask from a plane."
No jo-no joke. This one guy sent me a video ask while he was flying on a plane, and so like I remembered him, and I saw his name come through. I was like, "That's the guy on the plane." So we were, we were tracking it and having fun. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay,
Chenell Basilio: so now what's the strategy for your res- your replies in the video ask?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, so I think that people would assume that this is, uh, probably automated, and so the first thing off the bat is that obviously I used identifying details. So I would s- I would say their name. Obviously, if they had their name, I would comment, like the guy who was on the [00:26:00] airplane, I was like, "Where are you going?"
Like, "Tell me where you're flying." Like, so I was making sure that I was using some sort of like, I don't know, connection point with them in that. Um, I would thank them for their question. I would restate their question. I would not answer their question. I would simply, um, like validate that their question was really important and why it was important.
If it was, depending on the type of question, like this is actually something people get wrong all the time, or this is something that can go really badly if you don't do it right, like something like that, if it, if it was true. Um, and then saying whether, if that was going to be something I would talk about on the webinar.
If they asked me something I wouldn't talk about on the webinar, I told them that. I said, "This is not something we get into." Um, like for example, some people would ask about like, "Will you go over S corps?" And I'll be like, I said in my thing like, "That's actually just a taxation status. People get confused.
But what we're gonna talk about is how to actually register your business." So I kind of like recenter it, and I think even that showed them like, "Oh, there's this like knowledge gap that I don't know. Like, I better go to this thing." Um- And then at the end, I said to them, "Don't [00:27:00] forget the webinar is on this day at this time.
Can you just let me know, will I see you there live or are you planning to watch the replay? And if you're planning to watch the replay, do you plan to watch it by Monday night, like by the end of the day? Can you commit to me about that? Like, just let me know, don't leave me hanging. And if you are coming, make sure you add it to the calendar."
And it was so funny how many people would respond back, first of all, and freak out that they had gotten a personal reply, and they were like, "I can't believe you got back to me," and like, "That was so cool." They thought the technology itself was cool. Um, but also they would get back to me and be like, "Yeah, I'll be there, and I just added it to my calendar."
So I just think it was like a great personal follow-up.
Dylan Redekop: Wow.
Chenell Basilio: And I love that, 'cause someone like me, and I'm sure you might have done this in the past, but like if someone's sending me a question, I usually will just answer it, and then I'm like, "Man, that was really draining." But it's like- Hmm ... you're just saying, "Actually no, I'm gonna go over this for everyone on Monday, so make sure you show up live."
I love that because it's just like, I don't know, it's less mental bandwidth for you to be able to reply to all those- Mm-hmm ... 'cause you're not necessarily
Sam Vander Wielen: answering those questions. That's super smart. It also gave [00:28:00] me a ton of voice of customer research, so I understood- Right ... how they're asking questions, what questions they're asking, the way they're phrasing it, what things they're worried about.
So there's that, and that helps me a ton across my entire business. But there were trends of things that I saw questions about too, and it actually made me update the webinar topic. So I actually added in some things because I was like, "I got so many questions about this, I wanna make sure I address it."
Was it like what, about those ADA lawsuits or the AI stuff, or- Yeah, a lot of it was about ADA lawsuits, and then about people were asking for AI disclosures. A lot of people wanna have some sort of like AI disclosure on their website that says that the, like LLMs can't crawl their site to use the content- Right
on their site for building the model. So they're asking for those kinds of things, um, or they're a- asking about likeness, uh, kind of like the cloning, AI cloning stuff. Um, people were asking about that, so I addressed, I addressed that in the webinar 'cause I wanted to make sure. Like that, that's actually been, I think that's been how I've started to grow this webinar so much, [00:29:00] where, you know, so many people, Chanelle hears people say this to me all the time, is like so many people are like, "I don't get it, like you just do the same thing over and over."
And maybe I undersell it a bit in that sense of like I do, but I've figured out how to keep it fresh, and I think one of the ways is like there are a lot of new issues. And so with the live webinar, I've made that more of my like State of the Union address, and so that's given people the, like a, maybe a little bit more urgency to sign up for this one versus like, "Oh, I can take this webinar any time."
If I say like I'm, "There's all these things going on with AI and clones and ADA, I'm gonna go over it all in my webinar," it adds a little bit of newness,
Dylan Redekop: I guess. Mm-hmm. And it's like you better pay attention 'cause this stuff is like- Are you updating- ... happening right now.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, for sure. Are you updating
Chenell Basilio: your recorded webinar to include some of that stuff too?
Sam Vander Wielen: I, this launch went so well that I just updated my recorded webinar for the first time since 2021. Wow. Wow. Mm-hmm. Interesting. 'Cause it was going so well that I was afraid to change it, to be honest. Mm-hmm. So we were kind of like, "Don't [00:30:00] touch it." Uh, I don't think... Like, I don't wanna break it. And we had updated emails and things, but the webinar itself had stayed the same.
But this went so well, and when I walked away from this live launch, I thought, "There are a lot of things I'm doing in this live launch that can be easily converted into an evergreen webinar." And so I essentially stole those strategies and put them into my evergreen webinar, which has started converting way higher ever since.
We are doing- Yeah ... like gangbusters ever since this live launch. Yeah. It's been, like, nonstop.
Chenell Basilio: Shoot. That's
Sam Vander Wielen: awesome. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. Wait. Okay, so quick sidebar. So all this voice of customer research, I know- Mm-hmm ... I think we talked about this last time as well. I know you're a huge proponent of, like, getting people's exact phrases and words.
Do you, like logistically, do you just have, like, a Google Sheet, a Notion database? Like, what is... How do you keep track of all this stuff?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. So we have a couple of different things. So for one, now I have, uh, I hire a copywriter on, like, a project basis. I don't have anybody working for me regularly 'cause I write all the [00:31:00] copy outside of sales emails.
And so, um, I have her w- uh, two times a year meeting with a group of customers. So basically, once we go through, like, a huge live launch like this, we will then send out an email and be like, "Who volunteers to do an interview for 30 minutes?" They meet with, um, her, and then we record that, with their permission, of course.
And then we have all those transcripts, and we run those transcripts through AI, and we are pulling, like, common phrases, trends, patterns, like mindsets, all the, the problems that they had, the pain points they had, like all those things. Um, I mean, before I was literally just doing this all myself. Um, but I still, I am still pretty bullheaded about reading.
I read the transcripts of the interviews, period. I don't really want to read the summaries 'cause I actually feel like I see a lot in between the lines, and so I, I read those myself. Um, we have a tagging system in my inbox when we get an email from somebody. Like, I get emails almost every day from somebody who are like, "Oh, I didn't, I didn't think I needed this because I didn't think I was quite [00:32:00] ready for legal yet, but I knew if I didn't do this, I would not bet on myself," or whatever.
So we have, like, a little tagging system, and I go through and I read those regularly. Um, and then we have, like, a screenshot system that we have in Google Drive. We- then some of those go into Senja if they're more, like, testimonial-based. Um, and that's a whole tagging system. So we have, we have a bunch of little systems on the back end.
Very cool. Yeah, I was just curious how you kept
Chenell Basilio: track of all of that stuff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, so backing up a little bit. Getting people signed up for the webinar, 11,000 is a huge number. I know you said around 60-ish percent, maybe that number is off, where it came from ads and stuff. But how many emails were you sending to your list prior to the webinar to get people excited and signed up?
And like- Mm ... what does that pre-launch look like?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, so I have a really, really specific p- like pre-launch, uh, kind of like a schedule, I guess. So basically, the way that I do this, uh, is in my head, I pick the live date. So whatever date the webinar's gonna be, that's kind of like my stake in the ground calendar thing.
From there, I back [00:33:00] out two weeks of invite period. So that's two solid work weeks of inviting people, both on my list and social and wherever else. Two weeks before that are what we call teaser, and so it's letting people know that this thing is coming. And as time has gone on, like now in 2026, this, this teaser period is much more, um, like upfront.
Like we're telling people like, "The thing that is coming is a live webinar, and you're going to be able to start signing up on Monday, January 19th at 10:00 AM," or whatever. We almost act like it's like doors open for a Taylor Swift ticket launch, you know? That, that's kind of how I think about it. Um, because the...
Back in the day, we used to be very coy about like, "Something's coming." Mm-hmm. "I'm working on something big," and like we wouldn't tell people. I just think the more time you have, the more repetition, the better. So in those teaser weeks, we're sending out two emails per week letting people know that this is coming.
It lets people also know that I'm gonna talk about the ultimate bundle at the end. So we're already laying the groundwork early, and it's telling them what the ultimate bundle [00:34:00] is, what it includes, what the sale might even look like. The doors open, quote unquote, for signing up for the live webinar on a Monday.
We do like an all-out sprint for those signups for two weeks straight. Uh, and so on those weeks, I think the first week there's two emails inviting, and I think in the fi- in the second week of invite, there were three. Uh, sometimes we sprinkle in a fourth if we feel like we, we can push it. Um, but that's, yeah, that's the invite period, and then obviously the sale kicks off on that Monday, and then there's just a ton of emails- Yeah
after that. Are you treating your
Dylan Redekop: organic- Yeah ... versus paid, um, subscribers differently the way, the sequence they get? No, they all- No ... kind of get the same thing, eh?
Sam Vander Wielen: No, they get everything the same. Yeah. Um, we do really well with cold, quote-unquote- Yeah ... cold traffic. I, I've always converted okay with cold traffic, which may or may not be the same for everybody else.
But like, uh, I think that maybe I would hope that those cold people would come to the webinar more because I would need like some touchpoint with them. But I hear from people [00:35:00] all the time, uh, we send out a really good survey right after all this, and I hear from people all the time that are like, "I literally just had no clue who you were, no offense."
Mm-hmm. "Got served your ad, signed up for the webinar, bought the bundle, and now I'm here."
Dylan Redekop: Wow.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. Damn.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Yeah. So I know a lot of people are on your email list for a while before they actually buy, but when a launch like this happens, does it like cut that in half or like drop
Sam Vander Wielen: that at all or? So our average time on email list to purchase is six months.
Um, and- Okay ... uh, so it's interesting. But it... I don't know if it cuts it in half so much as I, as much as like I would say it, it like gives them a catalyst to like actually do something. So maybe it disrupts the pattern like that they would've just waited for a bit. Because the way that I think about it is like people sign up for my evergreen webinar all the time, and they've already said no if they're on my email list, right?
They're hanging out. And so essentially I think the live webinar just takes them from having bopped along, like they would've just continued to bop along, to being like, [00:36:00] "Oh yeah, I kind of wanted this thing back then, but I either wasn't ready or I couldn't do it or whatever, and now I can. The bonuses are sweet.
Let me jump on it." Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah,
Dylan Redekop: it makes sense that it's six months 'cause they probably would've seen one, gone through a first launch phase, been like, "Uh, yeah, not the right time." Mm-hmm. And then bought. Hmm.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think so, too.
Dylan Redekop: So since you-
Chenell Basilio: So this might be a s- You know, well- Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was just gonna address
Dylan Redekop: that you've got this list of subscribers, and you've got one product that you sell.
Is there, like is there any reason for somebody to buy again, to become like a repeat purchaser? Mm.
Sam Vander Wielen: No. Uh, the only thing that they could do is refer, which is I, I mean, in my opinion, it w- it was probably like a dicey, um, strategy, like call on my end that- I didn't, I didn't frankly ha- like I, as usual, I'm always completely honest.
I don't have any more ideas for any more legal products 'cause I literally gave it all- Yeah ... in the bundle. So that was like a good and a bad thing. I mean, there's a couple of like additional legal [00:37:00] templates they could buy or whatever, but if I'm safely staying within my scope of practice and not offering legal advice, I can't meet with people.
I don't want live calls. I don't wanna live that life either. So I, it's like there's kind of nothing else for me to do. So early on I had decided that instead of getting the same people to like open up and keep buying, that if I made them really happy in terms of like my product works, it delivers, they got a change or got what they needed, um, they're gonna tell other people.
And all of my people are business people, so they're in masterminds and courses and groups, and they have a business coach- Mm-hmm ... and everything comes from that. So it's like, to me, that's kind of how it's paid forward versus like them being repeat customers. But they did show up big when my book came out last year, that's for sure.
I mean, my customers were like the first to purchase. They're the biggest podcast listeners for me, my podcast- Yeah ... On Your Terms. Um, they're, they're definitely very- Yeah ... loyal. That's awesome.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So with those people who have bought, do you actually, in the launch, do you still send them email? Like, I'm just [00:38:00] curious 'cause I know sometimes your biggest fans will show up for you big.
So I'm curious if you even like let them know there's a launch happening or if you hide all that messaging.
Sam Vander Wielen: Mm. Oh, so you mean like do I withhold any of the people, any current customers from the live launch? Yeah. Yeah. We, we do, uh, exclude all Ultimate Bundle customers from the live launch emails, but I very purposefully let them know on the back end.
So they all, Ultimate Bundle members get an email from me. They get a monthly newsletter from me anyway, and so for usually like the two cycles before it, I let them know that the sale is coming, remind them that they can sign up as affiliates if they want, and they can share the link. 'Cause they can share the link for people to come to my free live workshop and still get the credit if people purchase.
So I really use that as an opportunity to get them to spread the word. Um, but so many of them come actually just to watch me do the webinar, which I think is really funny. Um, and then I'll like recognize the name and be like, "Judy, I'm not asking you, I'm not answering your question right now. We're, we're in for other people."
So it's a [00:39:00] whole, it's a whole thing, but the, it's a, it's a blessing and a curse. Wow. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: What were the bonuses that you offered for this? Um, like if someone came to the webinar and signed up for the ultimate bundle
Sam Vander Wielen: One of the things I think is really helpful in a live webinar or live launch of any sort is using some sort of live bonus in order to get people to take action, because it's something that if they don't take advantage of it now, it goes away.
Mm. They miss the window. Not just in terms of the urgency. Like, people only ever think about this in terms of urgency of like, um, money, like expires, right? Like, your $500 discount expires. But what about creating FOMO of a experience or something that can go on that now if they don't get it, they completely miss it.
So I started playing with this a couple years ago. I see that it works really well, and so this time around, we were getting close to the one-year anniversary of my book, um, "When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy" coming out, and I thought, "You know what? My book is all about how to market an online business, all about the stuff that we're talking about now.
It's about funnels and email marketing and all the things I've [00:40:00] done to build a multi-seven-figure business." And so it's a perfect complement to the bundle. Like, they're gonna get the legal stuff to get started, but then I'll teach you how to actually grow this thing too. So on the live webinar, anybody who purchased while we were still on the webinar got a hardback copy of my book that I personally sent, and they also got an invite to a live book club call with me that's actually later this week.
Dylan Redekop: Oh, that's pretty cool.
Sam Vander Wielen: That's super fun. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was really popular last year. When my book came out, I did a four-week book club, and we had, like, thousands of people sign up for it. But then now people have discovered the book, obviously, throughout the year, and so everybody was like, "Oh, have you ever thought about doing it again?"
And I'm like, "I don't wanna do a book club again." Like, that's a, it's a whole thing, and I wrote the book. I've read the book a million times. And then when we sat down to create the bonuses, I was like, "I have an idea." Like, people loved the book club, and it's basically like a business coaching session, and people are always asking me for that.
I don't offer it anywhere, and so this is perfect. So I think it was like, you know, knowing my people, knowing what's always missing. Like, that's, that's [00:41:00] kind of, like, what they always ask me for is like, "Could you help me with this, like, email thing," or, "How do I do a funnel like you?" Sure, come to book club.
All you have to do is buy the bundle now. Oh. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. That makes sense, though, 'cause if somebody was on your... If your customers are showing up live to the webinar, it means that they want some more of your- Yeah ... experience that you offer, but you don't necessarily have that in the bundle. So that makes total sense that you could give away a book club and it would do well.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, it was all around just a helpful strategy. It boosted the book, um, and the book's visibility, which helped grow the book because then the people we sent it to were like, "I loved it so much that I bought a copy for my friend." So we started seeing an uptick in book sales even though we were sending the book.
Like, just all around it, it was a good, a good idea.
Chenell Basilio: I love that.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: If people don't have it, I don't know where the book jacket is, but I have the book. Here, here. Here. It looks pretty cool when it's out of the book. It's a good one. Yeah. It does. Yeah, thanks. There you go. Thanks. Uh, yeah, it's a good one.
We'll put links in the show notes too if somebody wants to go check it out. It's a good buy. [00:42:00] Um- So
Dylan Redekop: I've a, I've a last question. Or not a last question, but a question. Yeah. Go ahead. Most people don't do $500,000 product launches. No. Um, so what do you think most people do wrong with product launches that you've, that you've seen like, ah, they're not doing this right, or I would do it this way?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. It's so much about the groundwork of the product itself. So like, if we were able to like rewind the clock, um, I'm actually doing a podcast episode tomorrow for, for my podcast On Your Terms about the, um, must be nice, uh, statement- Mm ... that I have started to hear more and more and more, which is not something I used to hear before.
And I'm finding it really interesting as it relates to this launch because I'm like, you realize that, like I, first of all, had a lot of big launches before this launch, right? And when I was by myself, and I created this funnel when I had nobody working for me. I created the bundle when I had nobody working for me.
I was making really good months when I had nobody working for me, and it was all that stuff that allowed me to like each time, right? It's just like bankroll and bankroll and bank- it just kept getting bigger. [00:43:00] And so if you look at a launch like this and you're just like, "Well, I can't do a $500,000 launch," well, you could do one to start, right?
You have to start somewhere and you have to get this started. You also have to create a product that is a no-brainer, that people want. And I think something that people don't focus on enough in our industry, which just seems to like me to be the most obvious thing to focus on, is to create a product that actually works.
If you create something that's actually good, then people will use it- If you know how to get people to complete it, right, that's really helpful 'cause then that means people will, uh, have a, have a result of some sort from it, right? So, like, working hard to get people to actually, like, complete it, have the result from it.
When people have good results from s- like, do you know how many people I've told about my vacuum cleaner from Costco because I love it so much? It's like, when you have somebody or have something, right, in your life that you're like, "This is the thing. Like, you have to go buy this thing," right? And so I just don't think people think about that enough.
And when people ask me about, like, "Aren't [00:44:00] digital products dead?" And like, "What do you think about the state of the industry?" I'm like, I think that it's like somebody took it and shook it up, and all the bad stuff fell out of the bottom, and that's what, that's, to me, what has gone on. Like, you can't get away with anymore just selling some crap product that says that you're gonna make 10,000, people $10,000 a month, right?
And like, "I'll teach you how to build this business off of X, Y, and Z." If it doesn't actually work, people know that. They can smell it. They see it in the results. You're, it's going to eventually just run out because the people who are using it aren't telling anybody else about it, or they're asking for their money back or writing bad reviews or whatever.
So yeah, I just wish people would focus on really learning about their customer, finding out what they really want, creating a product that they want, not that you want, and then making sure it actually works. And by doing that and then just building out the system that we've talked about now for the last hour, it's like, that was easy, right?
'Cause the product was so, just so easy to [00:45:00] sell, right? Because it made sense, and I understood what they needed. They needed it, and I just learned and got better over time about how to deliver that to them. Does that make sense? Yeah. Mic drop. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause you did, like, hundreds and hundreds of free calls with customers to figure out- 1,200
what they wanted. 1,200. 1,200. Yeah. Yes.
Sam Vander Wielen: 1,200 calls and, you know, built out this funnel, and a- as you guys know, you know, I was just in a, a personal situation where my dad had leukemia. I was taking care of him, and I was like, everybody at that time was saying, "The only way you can do a funnel is by doing it live first," right?
"You can never, never go straight to evergreen." I was like, "Well, I'm in a hospital room, so that's gonna be a little awkward, so I'm gonna go straight to evergreen. We'll, we'll see how this thing works." And it was such a fantastic way to get my feet under me, to learn, like, creating, uh, organic content on my podcast and on Instagram, talking about whatever problem they were having, what the solution was, and pitching my webinar as the [00:46:00] obvious next step, and just literally putting in the reps.
I think people give up really early I think they focus too much on themselves and what they want. Uh, they're, they're too driven by the lifestyle that they want out of their business instead of the results that their business is going to provide to other people, which in turn will bring you the lifestyle you want, but that's not the focus.
Um, and making sure that you actually build a product that's good, and taking really good care. I have a whole chapter of the book dedicated to the, what I call the Olive Garden effect of, like, once people are in my little world, they're family. And, like, they're in, we take care of them, we provide great customer service.
Um, you know, I try to, uh, anything that they ask me to, like, add to the bundle, if it's within reason, I add it. I make it better. I just refilmed all of the videos at Kids Studios. Mm.
Chenell Basilio: Like,
Sam Vander Wielen: I, I really put my all into this. And I have a lot of respect, I told Nathan this the other day, like, I, I think the other thing that people really mess up is that I have a lot of respect for how much money people are paying me for this [00:47:00] product.
And you don't wanna let that go too far in the sense that you feel like you owe, you know, you're always, like, indebted to people, and, like, I am providing something of value in exchange. Like, it's not a charity. But at the same time, I'm very respectful, and I understand. I'm very in touch with, like, I read all the things that come in about people telling me, like, the mountains they had to move in order to make this happen for them financially.
And I think in our industry, for so long, and th- this is, th- these are the businesses I think that died, we just saw so many people just talking about their own personal wealth and their own personal gain of what they got out of all these sales. And it's like, but you're dealing with very real people who are turning over money and who need something, and so you- Mm-hmm
better deliver. And I think that's fair. Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: What was your product priced at? Yeah. Just for context.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, like 2,000 to 2,400, depending on which option, and then I had order bumps and, uh- Okay ... upswells, upsells as well. Okay.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. That's for the ultimate bundle?
Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: Okay.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And you... Okay, just for context, 'cause I don't think we said this anywhere, but the ad spend.
How [00:48:00] much did you spend on Facebook ads? $24,000. Okay. To make
Sam Vander Wielen: half a million. 500. Yeah. That's good ROI, I'd say. Yeah. Not bad of ROAS. Yeah, so it's not bad. I mean, it grows my list. Like, I, I think of it as, like, a very long-term strategy as well of, like, you know, not everyone's- Mm-hmm ... gonna buy right now.
Totally fine. I will turn to nurturing these people from the day that sale ended until the next time I do one. Um, yeah, so it's, it's, like, there's nothing but upside- Yeah ... for me.
Chenell Basilio: Okay, quick question. I just did back of the napkin math. I haven't done this before. Uh, if you s- so spending around 24,000, um, and at 60% of 11,000 signups, that's like 6,600 potential email subscribers from ads.
Mm-hmm. So probably around $3.50 per people acquired. Yeah, that's right. I think it was a little lower
Sam Vander Wielen: than that, I remember by the time we- Little lower? ... tabulated. Yeah, but it was around that, yeah. Okay. Super interesting.
Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, it's not bad. That's the way I-
Chenell Basilio: That's the way I look at it. And then [00:49:00] converting to sales, was it still about the same, like people who came from paid ads versus organic?
Yeah.
Sam Vander Wielen: We always see a higher conversion rate with the warm, you know, people who are already on my list or like people- Yeah ... whatever, something like that. But it, we, we do convert really well directly from ads. Yeah. That's crazy. But you have to remember too, with our ads, I'm on them about, like, we have it set up so that the pixel is updating 24/7 with my email list, so it's constantly doing that.
I'm a really big believer in the lookalike audiences, so we are always running lookalike audiences to my list, and we're increasing the percentage from, like, 1% to 2%. Um, that does really well. We have it hooked up to my Instagram now, to my Substack, like all these different places. So we're pulling in all of these people and targeting people who are following me from somewhere.
Obviously, anyone who's clicked on my site at any point for anything. And I'm very intentional about, like, when I share links to things, I share it to my site so that it caps the data, and I know they'll see my ads. So, like, I'm very, I'm thinking about that all the time. And so, yeah, those people are [00:50:00] getting attributed to ads too.
Chenell Basilio: I think what's understated in this whole thing is that you have one product, and you work your butt off to make it so good so that people stick around, and they tell other f- tell their friends about this thing, and you're just able to go so deep with these people because you've spent the time, and you're only focused on this one thing.
I think a lot of people end up, myself, t- I'll fully admit this, like, going way too, like, spreading across too many things. Mm-hmm. Whereas you're so focused on this one product and delivering on that, and I think it, there's something so beautifully simple about that. So kudos. I think because you
Sam Vander Wielen: become known for it too, right?
Like, so your name becomes synonymous with like, "Oh, she's the one who will help you with legal stuff." And like, it helps the more you can kind of drive that home because then you're the person somebody thinks of when they need to refer- Mm-hmm ... to someone or when they're looking somebody up, and I think that stuff goes really far.
And I think in our industry, there's a lot of emphasis on this, like, create all these different touchpoints, create so many different offers, and then nobody becomes known for [00:51:00] really any one thing. I wish people would think more about what is actually the best way to deliver the experience, information, whatever, that you have to offer.
Is it in a course? Is it in a mastermind? Is it in coaching? Like, whatever it is, do that. Don't, don't package it in a way because you think you're supposed to. And so, like, I've h- been pressured so many times over the years to offer more, like, "Why don't you do a membership? Why don't you do monthly calls with people?"
And I'm like, "Why would I do a membership? This is the best way for me to deliver." If I did a membership, I'd have to repeat myself every single time where I'm answering the same question. That's what a course is. You get to deliver it in one package. And so this literally is the best way for people to learn.
It's the way they get the most effective results. And so, like, that's also what I focused on delivering. I love it.
Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. This is awesome. I
Sam Vander Wielen: hope it's helpful.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, it's really, really very insightful. Very insightful. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. It was fun to go deep into the details and hear about, like, the tech you're [00:52:00] using and just the way you, you know, send out emails beforehand and stuff.
So appreciate you sharing all of that. Um- Yeah, it's been great ... this has been awesome. Um, for people who want to go deeper with Sam's world, which you should, because she's always sharing some of these little nuggets in her newsletter, uh, where should people go to find you?
Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. Come, uh, get my weekly newsletter, Sam's Sidebar, at samvandewielen.com/newsletter.
You can come listen to my podcast, On Your Terms. Get my book, When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy, anywhere books are sold. And if you're hanging on Substack like Chanelle and I are, come over and read Beyond Business on Substack. Oh, it's such good stuff.
Dylan Redekop: Amazing.
Chenell Basilio: Uh, this has been awesome, Sam. Thanks for coming on and being our first repeat guest.
Yeah. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me again. I,
Sam Vander Wielen: I can't wait to be the triple- Yes. Triple crown ... triple killer. We'll just go ahead and schedule that right now. Next launch. This will be my sole, sole driver to have the next launch- Yep ... be even bigger is just so I can get back on ... Wait, are you guys committing right now if my next launch- Let's do it
is bigger, that you [00:53:00] will have me back? Yes. Yep. Yes.
Chenell Basilio: I'll
Sam Vander Wielen: take it. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: That's awesome.
