Sales are the lifeblood of any business. Without sales, a company cannot generate revenue, pay its employees, or invest in growth.
However, to succeed, you need to do more than just sell products—you need to connect with your customers in meaningful ways. This is what Nina Franks did to help Yasmin Boland establish a strong personal brand and turn her book into an Amazon #1 Best Seller!
This is our first case study interview about ranking a product high on the Amazon Marketplace. Keep reading to learn more!
Who Is Nina Franks?
Nina Franks owns Thrive Market Leader, a marketing agency that helps businesses with their marketing strategies. Before setting up an agency, she worked in the beauty, wellness, and lifestyle industry and has launched multiple brands.
Nina has successfully used tools like UpViral to boost her clients' results, such as generating significant leads and sales for Elixseri, a skincare brand. Her previous campaign using UpViral generated over 3,000 leads and $4,900 in sales!
Who is Yasmin Boland?
Yasmin Boland is an author known for creating a concept called “Moonology,” a method of manifestation. She teaches concepts that revolve around spirituality, life coaching, and astrology. She predominantly has a female audience, although everyone can learn from what she teaches.
Yasmin works with Hay House, which is a well-known publisher worldwide. Her book, entitled, “Moonology,” became an Amazon bestseller in 600 weeks and sold around half a million copies as of the case study interview.
Nina joined Yasmin to work with her and help build her brand.
What made them use UpViral?
Nina Franks used UpViral for Yasmin’s pre-launch campaign to connect her with a broader audience. While many people had bought Yasmin’s Moon Oracle Card Deck and Moonology book, they didn't recognize her as the creator. 🥺
UpViral was ideal because it could leverage people’s existing familiarity with Moonology to attract sign-ups.
The campaign's main prize was a chance to meet Yasmin, encouraging participants to share the campaign within their communities. This strategy helped build recognition for Yasmin and expanded her reach! 🙌🏻
What is the main goal of the campaign?
The main goal of Yasmin’s campaign was to support the launch of the "Moonology Diary," which contains 365 days of knowledge, manifesting tips, and other insightful information.
The publisher had previously tested the market with a small production run and wanted to commit to a much larger scale for the next release.
To mitigate the risk of unsold inventory, the campaign wanted to ensure the books wouldn’t remain unsold on shelves. The UpViral platform was integrated to facilitate viral referrals and support the launch. 👌🏻
How did they start the campaign?
Early 2021 was a challenging time due to the ongoing pandemic. The overall mood was gloomy and there was a lot of anxiety about the future.
During this time, Nina and Yasmin pulled content from the diary to help people feel better, encourage them to make plans for the future, and help them manifest their dreams.
Since the release date of the journal would be during the summer, they started marketing for the pre-launch. They drew traffic by creating a masterclass on manifestation using the Moonology method. Their audience might not know about the page or the person, but they were familiar with the concept of Moonology.
To join the UpViral giveaway campaign, people had to pre-order the book and provide a transaction number aside from their name and email address. This strategy made them a lot of pre-orders.
What were the giveaway prizes?
The grand prize of the giveaway was a personal reading with Yasmin Boland.
In addition, the winner would also receive the Moonology Cards Deck (#1 bestseller in Astrology) + the Moonology Book (also #1 bestseller in Astrology). To make things more exciting, 10 runner-ups would also receive these two prizes.
💡Nina believed that it was important to feature these products, which are bestsellers on Amazon because not many people knew about the Yasmin Boland brand.
The funnel started with Yasmin Boland conducting three different live Facebook events, which then directed her attendees to a long page inviting them to enter for a chance to win a personal reading and deck of cards. The screenshot above is the topmost part of that long page.
After they click the call-to-action button to pre-order the Moonology Diary (since that was the requirement to be able to win the prizes), they would be taken to a landing page. Here, they could enter their name, email, and the receipt number in the third field:
What was on the share page?
To encourage participants to share the giveaway, extra entry points were given to every friend who entered the giveaway.
Nina added that they only chose Facebook, Whatsapp, and Messenger because they observed that their target audience valued personal communications.
This meant that their audience preferred to send messages within groups or messenger platforms, and they were not predominantly email users.
Taking advantage of user-generated content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, such as images, videos, text, and audio. This is created by customers, fans, or followers of a brand and shared through social media, reviews, testimonials, and forums. UGC is perceived as more authentic and trustworthy because it comes from real users sharing their genuine experiences.
In their campaign, Nina reached out to previous buyers of the Moonology Diary and asked them to take a selfie photo with the book, along with a testimonial on how the product impacted their lives. These images were used on the landing page, emails, social media posts, and the main website.
According to Nina, this would create the fear of missing out (FOMO). Moreover, Nina made sure to feature users in locations where their astrology community was strong.
Nina’s “Sold Out” Strategy
As Nina mentioned before, the first Moonology Diary that came out was done to test the market, so it was only a small production. Since there were no stocks left in certain countries, they could say that it’s sold out, which indicates that it was a success.
Because of this, they can say that if you don’t place a pre-order for this product, there is a high chance it will sell out.
Kickstart 2022
Yasmin Boland had a 2-hour live masterclass to teach people how to manifest their dreams, whether it’s getting a better job, attracting the right person, etc.
It became a yearly event that was only open to people who had the diary. Many people didn’t want to miss this event.
They held the event every January, because it was the perfect time as people were in the mood to set New Year’s Resolutions or new goals for the year.
The Campaign Results
On the day of the release, Yasmin had a live launch party on Facebook. 🥳
Plenty of people attended those livestreams with their product. On the same day, the book became number one on Amazon as a bestseller and stayed there for months. 🤩
The product became a bestseller in the UK, Australia, India, the US, and Canada! Moreover, the book sold numerous copies in the UK and it became number 5 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. See the screenshot below:
The campaign was done in 2021 and repeated years after.
All the leads that they collected were used to build a connection and a community. They did this by creating a membership area called the “Diary Owners Bonus Area.” Members received bonuses such as guides, books, and other resources.
They also generated interest for their Kickstart live masterclass. This served two purposes — to reconnect with the community and to promote the paid membership site for Yasmin.
Nina also created another product for Yasmin called “Written in the Stars.” This is a workshop that they run every month. The campaign helped them from selling around 200 tickets a month to selling 500 or more.
Did they reach their goal?
Absolutely! Yasmin Boland’s products were selling well, but she lacked recognition as a personal brand. With the help of Thrive Market Leader and UpViral, Yasmin successfully built a strong personal brand. She grew a substantial email list and cultivated a thriving community.
According to Nina, they have generated over a million opt-ins. Yasmin’s membership also has thousands of people and she is now one of the bestselling authors at Hay House. With a huge email list, it became easier to rank new products on Amazon.
Is there anything Nina would have done differently?
Looking back at the campaign, Nina would have used a lot more integration on the back end, such as a universal opt-in so people didn’t have to opt-in in different places. This would have improved user experience tremendously.
Another thing is to improve email communications.
Nina thinks that if she had the resources back then, she would have done more follow-ups once somebody had opted in to using UpViral. This would have helped keep the excitement going and improved engagement with the participants.
Related article: 5 Follow Up Emails You Should Send When Running a Contest (With Examples)
What are the lessons Nina learned from the campaign?
Nina learned that it’s important to look beyond just selling a product. Building an emotional connection with the audience can significantly enhance engagement and loyalty.
Making the product relatable and impactful in the customers' lives is more effective than focusing solely on features and benefits. ♥️
Moreover, recognizing what is happening in the world, including political and social climates, helps in crafting a message that resonates with the audience. In this case, the campaign was run during the pandemic, when people were anxious about the future.
Building a community around the brand where customers feel part of a movement or a bigger cause enhances participation and advocacy. Personal involvement from the brand or product creator, including live interactions and authentic content, significantly impacts customer engagement.
Nina also learned that flexibility and creativity in using marketing tools like UpViral can lead to more effective campaigns. Being willing to break the rules and try new approaches can result in higher engagement and better outcomes!
What does Nina think about UpViral?
Nina finds UpViral to be an essential and powerful tool for marketing campaigns. She initially used UpViral for simple tasks like opt-in forms, leveraging its share page feature for viral sharing.
Nina suggests using UpViral creatively, such as engaging the community and increasing brand reach. Moreover, giving people a meaningful reason to share, like joining a movement or community, can be more effective than just offering incentives!
Final Thoughts
The collaboration between Nina Franks and Yasmin Boland exemplifies the power of strategic marketing, especially with the use of a proven platform like UpViral. 🙌🏻
Thanks to UpViral's capabilities, they transformed Yasmin's products into Amazon bestsellers and established her as a prominent personal brand in spirituality and manifestation.
Ready to take your marketing to the next level?
UpViral isn't just a tool—it's a game-changer if you’re trying to reach a huge goal or multiple goals in a short time. Join the ranks of successful marketers like Nina Franks by discovering more success stories here.
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