How Conservation Careers Increased Opt-ins By Over 3x

In this case study, we break down how an online course business was able to build their list faster by ditching their one-size-fits-all opt-in forms in favor of surveying and personalized opt-ins forms.

“Our list wasn’t growing fast enough…”

Conservation Careers helps people in the conservation and ecology space.

Whether it’s finding new jobs or continuing their education, Nick (the owner) has created this social enterprise to help people find their ideal career in wildlife conservation.

Before switching to RightMessage, Nick was using standard opt-in forms (“Join the newsletter”) along with a random sampling of other lead magnets – all of which were competing for the same eyeballs.

The number of unique conversions he was getting was fairly standard: 3%, or about 30 a day given his traffic.

Most people wouldn’t complain about 3%. That number’s actually a tad bit higher than the average 1.95% opt-in rate.

But Nick isn’t most people. He’s passionate about helping people, and he wants fewer people bouncing and more people joining his list and getting their dream career.

He set up an internal goal of 100 opt-ins a day.

If he could get 100 people, rather than 30, joining his list then he’d be hitting his growth goals.

He tried all the usual things: Facebook ads (costly), webinars (time consuming), and throwing more-and-more CTAs and opt-ins at his visitors (annoying, yet got him a few more daily subscribers.)

But he knew his audience was diverse. And he knew that his message – and what he had to offer the people on his website – wasn’t as powerful as it would be if he only helped specific types of conservationists, or only helped students, or otherwise had some sort of niche offering.

Nick had heard of RightMessage. He’d also bought in to the idea of better segmenting your list and using personalization to increase conversions and sales.

But Nick’s background isn’t technical…

Before I started I was afraid it would be too techy—my background is in marketing and charities, I’m not an engineer. And that it would add a lot of complexity—how would everything integrate?

But RightMessage turned out to be easy to understand once I got my head around it, very visual, and having just one tool for all my opt-ins means everything’s less complex than before.

Switching from opt-in forms to segmentation funnels

Because Nick wanted to better relate with each and every individual on his website and list, he knew he needed to start segmenting.

His audience is pretty diverse:

• Some are already working in conservation, some aren’t.
• Some are still students.
• Some, like students, want internships. Others want full-time gigs.
• Some are qualified, others aren’t.
• Some know what they want to do. But others need a lot of guidance.

When Nick was treating everyone the same, and pitching the same opt-ins and lead magnets, he had to figure out what would appeal to everyone. “Join our newsletter” seemed like a pretty good catch-all.

But if you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one. So Nick went to work and put together a simple survey funnel that would have people self-segment themselves, and then pitch them on a personalized opt-in form.

Here’s the thought process that went into this funnel:

1. Find out who someone is and what they’re looking for help with.
2. Route different people to different lead magnets.
3. Personalize how each lead magnet is described based on how someone segmented themselves.
4. Eliminate all competing calls-to-action across the site (disjointed lead magnets, “Join my newsletter” opt-in forms, and a giant sitewide giveaway spinner) with a single next step.

Improving the user experience of visitors was key for Nick:

The website had got quite busy with lots of different ways to sign up. I think it became a little bit unattractive to be honest. There was too much going on.

…And the results

Immediately after launching this new on-site funnel with RightMessage, Nick experienced a opt-in conservation boost from 3% to 10.2%.

In real terms, this put him well above his 100 subscriber per day goal with no increase in traffic.

And he’s getting more than just 100 new subscribers a day. Nick’s getting subscribers who are segmented based on their experience in the conservation world, whether they have an ideal job picked out or not, and more. All this allows Nick to communicate more effectively and personally, both over email and on his website.

That’s a solid win for Nick and the Conservation Careers audience.

(Oh, and he’s also averaging >200% more revenue. More leads = more sales. 😎)

He was able to do this all by just repurposing what he already had, and with his funnel now set up in RightMessage he’s maintaining these results on autopilot.

A few simple changes made a huge difference to our email signups, and I didn’t have to create any new assets. It’s really impressive.

Playing the long game

Audience is everything.

If, like Nick, you’re selling digital products (like courses) you know that the single best way to get more of what you’ve got into the hands of those who need it is to build an audience.

But if your audience is just a list of thousands of email addresses, your ability to individually connect what you have with what people truly need will always be limited. This is why segmentation is such a big deal for Nick and Conservation Careers.

Additionally, if you’re just pitching the same, tired opt-in form to everyone then a lot of people are going to fall through the cracks. Unless you have a very focused website, people have different needs and identify differently – and they’re going to want to know how you can help them.

Nick didn’t get a massive surge in email subscribers because we created a prettier form tool.

His results are directly related to the fact that he’s not treating everyone on his website the same.

In fact, what he’s doing is pretty conventional: ask people what they’re looking for, and point them in the right direction.

If you’re building an audience made up of different people who each have different reasons for being interested in what you have to offer, then you owe it to yourself (and the audience you serve) to switch out your tired opt-in forms for dynamical, personalized opt-ins.

Nick’s now been able to expand his team.

Demand is at an all-time high, and he’s putting what he has to offer in front of more people than ever before.

And because he’s collecting more individual data, he’s now in the process of using that to better sell his digital courses, and creating personalized evergreen email sequences that put the right products in front of the right people:

We’re also moving quickly to an evergreen model for course sales, and RightMessage will be key to getting the flow of subs in.

We’re thrilled for Nick, and can’t wait to hear how his business continues to grow.