SOLO Eyewear drives +30,000 emails with 98% referral rate!

We needed at least 20K leads to validate our new product line.

"We had a Kickstarter crowdfunding goal of $20,000 and calculated that we could convert 2% of our email list.

With an average pledge of $50 (average cost of our new line), we had to gather at least 20,000 emails. We didn’t have that with our existing email database."

I was really hesitant to use KickoffLabs.

"As a designer, the integrity of our designs is very important to me. There are a lot of WYSIWYG and templated design tools out there that make it difficult to achieve your desired design.

Once I logged in to KickoffLabs, the tools were simple but I was also able to easily do custom design.

Along with implementing & managing the social referral program for us, it was a no-brainer."

We underestimated the amount of people trying to take advantage of the system.

"We launched the campaign to a modest list of about 500 people. People were signing up & referring others, and in my mind it was successful but it was fairly slow.

As soon as bloggers & influencers started picking up on it, the campaign blew up. With this, unfortunately, comes people trying to commit fraud and signing up with fake emails.

We quickly upgraded to Business level Advanced Fraud Prevention where we could do a two step double opt-in email verification, and also check there are no duplicate IP addresses.

KickoffLabs Support also came up with a good solution to back verify leads that had signed up previously… although I recommend just upgrading to Business from the start."

Even with an ambitious goal of 20K signups, our KickoffLabs campaign was hugely successful.

We exceeded our subscriber goal, converting a total of 30,487 new leads… while getting a ton of brand exposure in the process!

The signup page conversion rate was 81.9%, which is really, REALLY good. This was likely assisted by the 98.4% of people coming to the campaign referred by somebody else (Viral Boost).

SOLO Eyewear KickoffLabs Campaign flow:

Signup landing pages

The pages were modeled after content, design, and layouts of successful landing pages & companies who have already paved the way:

• Simple layout
Not distracting from the intended goal to signup.
• Clear, prominent call-to-action
People respond better to straightforward enticing instructions.
• Images have impact
Combining product and people images in a creative way.
• Literal
The messaging is extremely specific about the offering.
• Teasing the rewards
People read there’s a possibility to earn free product.

The campaign launched with 2 drastically different versions of the page. The intention was to run an A/B test, but page #2 took off before the other so we were unable to accurately compare.

90% of people saw page #2 (the one above on the right). Here at KickoffLabs, we prefer it too!

These are the noticeable differences between the two:

• Vague header image VS clear image of the offering.
• “Be the First to SEE More!” VS “Sign up and earn FREE sunglasses!”
• Social good eyecare messaging VS straightforward product messaging.

Viral Social Referral Thank You Page

After sign up, new leads were redirected to a customized version of KickoffLabs Harry Goes Viral Thanks page.

Here's why this page worked to convert new leads and get people referring friends:

• Top thank you message asking people to verify their email, helping to prevent referral fraud.
• Image of a dog wearing the product looking at the copy. Our eyes follow what other people (or animals) are looking at.
• Rewards are tied to the product and the brand.
• 1st prize level feels attainable with a good referral # separation between the next.
• 50 reward tier uses an attention-grabbing GIF image.

Reward level advice

In order for these campaigns to be successful, you have be willing to give something away. People need to be incentivized with a coupon, discount, free product, download, etc.

Click here to read more on selecting the right incentives for your campaign.

Free product (a pair of sunglasses) is not a low cost giveaway, but the majority of people don’t reach the higher reward levels.

If it feels attainable, they reach mostly the 1st level where you’re providing them with a discount code; getting you additional leads and further incentivizing them to purchase your product in the process.

Influencers that reach higher reward levels & earn your product is not a bad thing. These are people with a lot of clout promoting the campaign for you.

If a lot of people start earning higher reward levels, it’s a good problem to have!

After the campaign was over and referrals were properly tracked, here’s the breakdown of rewards earned by influencers:

• 110 people reached the highest level (50 referrals).
• 70 people reached the mid-level (25 referrals).
• The remainder of people (about 29,000!) reached 0-5 referrals.

For high value launches & giveaways, we recommend upgrading to KickoffLabs Advanced Fraud Prevention. Providing your campaign with smart tools to help stop scammers.

Social Sharing

KickoffLabs lets you customize the social messages when people click to share your page.

Facebook Share

The Facebook title is:

• Kept brief. People won’t get lost in long headlines.
• Literal. It’s hard to confuse the main offering.
• Consistent with the headline from the signup landing page.

The Facebook description mentions:

• They’ll be the first to see the new product.
• Social component about the business.
• Preview into the referral program.

The Facebook image is:

• Gender neutral. It can apply to both boys & girls.
• People look like they’re having fun.
• Somewhat professional photo, but looks relatable.

Twitter Share

• The message is short and to the point.
• @ mentions their twitter user handle.
• A hashtag exclusively for this campaign. Although, using existing popular hashtags work well too.

Be sure to read our guide on creating high-converting social share images here.

Automatic Reply

This the KickoffLabs generated email sent after people signed up and verified their email address.

It’s a fairly simple email that:

• Encourages people to share with the headline image.
• Linking people back to the signup page with unique share links.
• Providing a link back to the thank you page to “check their progress”.
• Conveys a personal request. It’s an autoresponder, but it doesn’t feel like a robot.

Driving People Back To The Viral Social Referral Page

Throughout the campaign, they would send email newsletters with the goal of keeping leads engaged, educating about the new product & business, and driving people back to the signup and thank you pages.

This is great example newsletter where they used our MailChimp integration to embed unique share links… and also included a screenshot of the KickoffLabs thank you page, editing in the “X people have reached this reward” text.

Seeing others hit reward levels makes the campaign feel believable and more attainable.

Seeding Traffic To The Page

An email newsletter providing details of the campaign was sent to an existing 500 email subscriber list, linking to the prelaunch page.

Aside from the typical posting on Facebook and Twitter, the campaign was promoted on Instagram. Sharing the page in the bio and running a creative “countdown to product launch” image campaign.

Our advice is to not focus on a single traffic source. Put in the work of trying different traffic driving approaches.

Here are other tactics they used to promote the page:

• Reached out directly to industry influencers.
• Found similar websites/forums and engaged with the community there.
• Drove additional traffic with paid Facebook ads.

Launch Day

On launch day, they updated the KickoffLabs signup landing page with a new call-to-action driving people to the live Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

Emails were sent out announcing the campaign to their subscribers. Segmenting between previous customers and new campaign subscribers, to better track how it translated to sales.

3 final pieces of advice

1. Coupon sites and freebie bloggers might pick up your campaign.
You’ll gain a ton of brand exposure and signups, so it’s important to consider quantity VS quality.
2. Prevent fake referrals with a Verification Email.
Improve the quality of your leads and help fight campaign fraud with Advanced Fraud Prevention.
3. Be prepared for the overflow of communications.
30K new emails is great, but that means you’re now managing 30K new potential customers with unique questions.