Anna Marsh Client Case Study

How Anna Went From Burnt Out & Stuck In Her Business To Creating Predictable Income, Filling Her Private Practice & Feeling at Peace With Her Growth

This blog will outline the full case study for our client, Anna Marsh, and provide a full overview of how our work helped Anna build the business backend that provided the peace of mind Anna needed to continue growing her company as a person with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

Anna Marsh – United Kingdom

www.annamarsh.co.uk

Functional Medicine & Nutrition Therapist
10 Years in Online Business

All data and statistics updated on July 3, 2023

Important Cliff Notes About Anna

Scope of Work: Full Service Done For You Agency Client – Anna invested in our company’s highest level of support, which consists of an entire business revamp from start to finish. This investment ranges between $12,000-$24,000 USD, depending on the complete deliverables the client desires, and is an initial 6-month timeframe for completion of all assets.

Time of Service: Anna worked with our company at a high level of support for an initial 12 Months while we completed the full build-out of her business. She has continued with our company on a lower maintenance support package, including ongoing podcast production and management support.

Anna’s Business Background: Before working together, Anna was already an established veteran business owner with previous success online and over ten years of experience in online marketing.

Anna has also been our previous client in multiple business coaching containers on and off between 2015 – 2019, with a large amount of experience in social media marketing and list building before the start of this specific service.

Anna already had various offers, including 1-1 Functional Medicine Support, Group Coaching Programs, Workshops, Low Ticket Guides, and courses.

Anna’s reason for hiring us: Anna shared that part of her reasoning for choosing to hire our Agency for support was due to the fact that she knew Soph was training with the Somatic Experiencing Institute and working towards her Trauma Practitioner certification.

During our client interview, (linked below), client mentions the importance for her as someone with CFS needing support that understood her nervous system and could work with her at a gentle pace.

Part 1. Prior To Starting

Biggest Challenges Before Working Together:

• As someone with CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), Anna had limited energy and optimal functioning windows to build and run her business within, which meant she was no longer able to (nor desiring to) show up on social media 24/7 to maintain her business growth; Anna needed an approach to her business that supported her need for rest, spaciousness, and a slower pace that didn’t risk additional burnout.
• Anna was undercharging for her services and unaware of how much time and energy she spent supporting clients regularly. This kept her stuck in a loop of being unable to break past certain income brackets without feeling overwhelmed by the potential client load.
• Anna had A LOT of moving pieces in her business from the last decade of building out her company with multiple mentors, programs, and ideas that she had outgrown. Her business backend was a puzzle, with pieces from multiple software working together but not cohesive and hard to manage.
• Anna’s brand and website were fairly outdated and needed a total revamp to help communicate who Anna was TODAY that more congruently expressed her level of expertise as a Functional Medicine & Nutritional Therapy Expert
• Anna did NOT want a huge team to manage nor did she want a high cost business with lots of moving pieces to run; She wanted to prioritize a business that felt sustainable and safe for her body and her nervous system as she continued to recover from her Chronic Fatigue & Burn Out
• Anna didn’t really have any plan for marketing or growing her business and was merely posting on social media to attract clients with her content; Though her content was valuable, she wasn’t excited about the idea of continuing to post online to grow and maintain her business and wanted a different approach that allowed her to have content working FOR her and exemplified her expertise.

Part 2. The Action Plan

I. Software Simplification

Our first course of action was simple, migrate everything off the different software she had previously and consolidate her entire business backend on one platform, ScaleUp. Our team moved over and rebuilt all her funnels, courses, web pages, and assets for her and set up her account so she could continue running her business while we got to work on the backend.

We cut Anna’s software cost down from $245/month with more than 10 different software platforms, to less than $100/month for ONE platform, that’s nearly 60% savings in monthly cost and over $1,200 USD per year in savings from software subscription fees.

II. Time Analysis & Product Scalability Analysis

Next, we dove into data collection unpacking the nitty gritty details of Anna’s day-to-day in her business including a thorough understanding of each of her current offerings, all the deliverables included, the amount of time she spent on each deliverable, and the total cost for delivering each service.

We calculated Anna’s hourly wage based on her current pricing and worked with Anna on establishing healthy pricing that supported an equitable salary for herself along with healthy profit margins for her company. This meant we slightly increased the cost of her services while also simplifying the delivery aspects to improve overall scalability.

Anna’s pricing for her 1-1 services was increased by 53% to account for the time and energy spent within the program and increased her hourly rate that she paid herself by more than 51%.

This allowed Anna to decrease her total required client enrollment by more than 54% per year in order to reach her desired annual revenue goals.

This means Anna was able to earn the same amount of annual revenue while working with half as many clients.

III. Optimization of 1-1 Services

Next, we went into optimizing the entire sales and onboarding process for Anna’s 1-1 offers including the creation of a mini one-off package that allowed client to work with her in a shorter time period at a smaller investment.

During this phase, we helped create the sales funnel including the application, calendar system, enrollment guide, email nurture sequence, checkout page, thank you page, intake form, and welcome email leading to the client starting the program with Anna.

We also supported Anna in developing and designing the sales pages for both 1-1 services that you can explore here.

In the last 6 months of tracking for 2023, Anna has seen a steady increase in Application submissions each month for her 1-1 services in addition to a steady increase in 1-1 sales calls being booked every single month.

Additionally, the data shows a consistent stream of sales each month for both her 1-1 services AND her beta group program that was launched in February 2023. This data indicates a steady upward trend in the growth of the business along with the reach of the business as a whole with the ability to more easily predict trends for future business growth and enrollment for 1-1 services.

Anna has shared in her most recent updates to our team during the review process for her case study below with an update about here 1-1 services in July 2023, highlighting that

I have had to close down applications now for my 1:1 services as even my waiting list was getting too long!

Anna Marsh

IV. List Building Strategy

We decided to help Anna build two different core funnels for her business.

Funnel 1: Free Quiz

The first was an opt-in quiz based on the symptoms of Fatigue Recovery that you can test yourself, here.

We helped Anna map out the entire quiz structure along with the low ticket offers correlated to each results page upon completing the quiz. We then went to work creating the wireframes for each of the landing pages, and the quiz logic to ensure the pages redirected correctly.

Anna wrote all the copy for each landing page and our team went into development on the design aspects for each page then thoroughly tested the funnel to ensure all aspects worked correctly.

Upon completion of the funnel pages, we developed the full email nurture sequence and email sales sequence automation that consisted of a multi-step email campaign which was fully automated inside of ScaleUp for Anna.

QUIZ FUNNEL RESULTS: in the last 18 months, Anna’s quiz has generated more than 870+ new email subscribers to her email list without any paid advertising.

Additional data shows that Anna’s quiz funnel has contributed to a 20% conversion of subscribers who’ve opted into the quiz then choosing to opt into her free workshop in 2023 and an additional 19 applications for her 1-1 services coming directly from quiz opt in subscribers, demonstrating the value of the funnel for Anna’s business.

Funnel 2: Paid Workshop & Free Workshop

After completing her Quiz funnel, we then developed her core Workshop funnel including the opt in page, thank you page, reply page, and two email sequences including the reminder email sequence followed by the sales email sequence post event leading to her core offer.

The workshop funnel was initially designed as a paid workshop for an offer Anna was testing as she was restructuring her core curriculum with below average performance of 9% conversion rate for workshop purchases based on the total number of page views.

Following the workshop, only 1 sale was made for the core offering being tested at the time.

This experience invited both of us to dig deeper and explore why the performance was not up to par.

After working through the difficult emotions that often come with an unwanted result, we began to redefine how we’d approach the workshop and switched gears transitioning the paid workshop into a free workshop that we ran on live on repeat for a few months to collect additional data.

The data was impressive showing a 10x or 1,000% increase in program sales conversions on the backend of the workshop funnel after converting the workshop to a Free event and changing the core offer that was being promoted on the backend of the workshop.

We then restructured the entire workshop series from a paid workshop to a Free Workshop opt in and revamped the entire messaging for the workshop along with the core offer that had been changed.

Changes made to the core group offer:

Since the change, Anna increased her client spend average (the total amount of revenue generated per client within a funnel) from an average of $121 per client to $675, more than a 457% increase.

Today, we are actively working towards continuing to revise and streamline this free workshop funnel automated lead generation.

We believe it’s important to share both the highs and lows that come with business to provide realistic expectations about the inevitable testing that needs to be done to create certainty within your business.

The paid workshop funnel with the previous offering was a beautiful lesson in exactly that, allowing Anna to get back to a place of being the scientist in her business and not letting one less than ideal launch deter her from continuing to adapt and prevail.

V. Brand Development & Website Launch

We then spent the next few months exploring Anna’s brand, who her target market was, the way she wanted to be seen online, and the overall experience she wanted users to have of her brand.

In collaboration with my business partner, Mel Judson, we were able to land on a new color palette and brand mood board that fully encompassed what Anna envisioned for herself and her clients.

Upon completion of the visual aspects for her brand, we began crafting her website strategy geared around her having a Podcast, Workshop Funnel, Quiz Funnel and a few core offerings.

We worked intimately with Anna on developing the website wireframes, crafting the website copywriting guides for each page, and having Anna write the copy for website.

After Anna completed the copy, our team went into the development phase and began building out her new website that is now live at annamarsh.co.uk.

Organic Website Growth

Anna has seen a slow and steady increase in her website growth and engagement since launching her new brand and website in June 2022.

After launching her new podcast, The Chronic Fatigue & Burnout Recovery Podcast, in September 2022, Anna has consistently put out one new podcast episode, one new blog, one email, and 1 Instagram reel each week for the last 9+ Months contributing to the growth that Anna’s site has seen.

• Unique monthly visitors has increased by over 211% from January 2021 to June 2023
• Total Website hits has increased by over 64% from 2021 to June 2023
• ORGANIC Traffic from Google has increased by over 349% from January 2021 to June 2023
• Traffic from other social media and other website referrals has increased by over 1,004% from January 2021 to June 2023

VI. Podcast Launch & Evergreen Marketing

After completing the build out of all business assets, we began to map out Anna’s long term strategy for marketing in her business that would feel supportive for her desired lifestyle goals. For Anna, spaciousness and sustainability were key. This meant Anna was unwilling to jeopardize her health or wellbeing for short term success and was committed to finding a way to market that felt nourishing for her.

We explored both YouTube and Podcasting but based on Anna’s current preferences, she opted for Podcasting & Blogging to be her main source of marketing moving forward due to the less technical aspects of audio in comparison to video.

In a separate service, we supported Anna in creating the Podcast cover photo, general strategy, and provided ongoing support with the general production of the show.

Deliverables for her Podcast included:

• Development of the core podcast page on her website linked here
• Development of the podcast episode template on her site
• Complete setup & integration of her Podcast Hosting via castos, apple podcasts stitcher & spotify.

Ongoing episode management included the following:

• Full episode editing and redistribution to all channels
• Episode summary and show notes formatted into a short form blog on her website
• Episode Email newsletter with link to the blog and audio files
• Episode snippet in a reel format for sharing on Instagram

Since the launch of her podcast in September of 2022, Anna has seen wonderful growth outlined below:

Organic Podcast Growth

Anna’s new Podcast has grown by over 489% in total monthly listeners from September 2022 until June 2023, with a consistent upward trend month after month.

Ongoing Marketing Strategy Recommendations for 2023

Upon completion of our initial backend development, we’ve recommend the following ongoing marketing strategy for Anna:

• 1 Weekly Podcast Episode
• 1 Weekly Email newsletter sharing the podcast
• 1 Weekly Blog for the podcast or other
• 1 Weekly reel for Instagram sharing the podcast snippet
• 1-2 Weekly instagram carousels based on blog content

In addition to the content production, we’ve encouraged Anna to boost top performing carousels with a small $4/day ad spend budget to increase visibility and reach of her highest performing 1-2 carousels on Instagram.

With the implementation of the following, Anna has seen consistent growth on her social profiles along with website traffic including her Instagram following growing upwards of 6,434 followers (2,000+ increase in new followers from April 2022) along with a steady increase in her average post shares, saves, and likes.

Changes After Working Together:

• Email list grew by over 40% in the last 18 months
• Year to Year annual revenue grew by more than 30% in the last 18 months
• Primary source of sales is generated via email marketing, podcasting and blogging
• Averaging between 9-18 applications completed for services each month (500% increase)
• Averaging between 4-11 sales calls booked each month for 1-1 services (400% increase)

Watch Anna’s Full Client Interview Below

Curious about working together?

If you’d like to enquire about working together in a similar fashion to the level of support our company provided for Anna, we recommend reaching out to Soph directly at sophie@sophiekessner.com with details about your current business.

If you’re looking for more affordable options to work together, we take clients through this exact process in our DIY approach inside the Online Business Automator Course and provide a full library of templates for clients to implement the strategy on their own with additional group coaching calls and community support.

You can learn more about our OBA course here: https://onlinebusinessautomator.com/course/