In our last post we asked Anthony Mink, CEO of 8-figure brand Live Bearded, to walk us through how his misguided messaging doubled his acquisition costs and led to the biggest loss in the history of his business.
In that article, he explained that his ads micro-focused on the WRONG message — highlighting the good deal of his Sample Pack instead of a problem that would resonate with his customers.
But recognizing his mistake was only half the battle.
So in this post, we’ll show you how Anthony fixed the messaging in his ads by focusing on his customers’ problems and desires.
You’ll learn:
- The 2 new ads that cut Anthony’s CPA in half and nearly triple his acquisition rate
- How 2 ads with the same offer can have wildly different results
- Why his new ad creative resonates so well with his customers
Why the Fish Weren’t Biting
As a reminder, the ad creative Anthony was running was a “Try Before You Buy” campaign that sold their Sample Pack with 24 products for just $10 (plus a free gift).
The creative wasn’t speaking to his audience’s pain points or offering to make their lives better; it was simply giving them a good deal.
The problem is, people tend to buy external things to solve internal problems. We choose brands that share stories we want to hear, emotions we want to feel, and identities we want to have.
Unfortunately, Live Bearded was focusing on external questions like “How do we help beards?” rather than internal questions like “What do men really want?”
And while this external messaging worked for one ad, it wasn’t a result they were able to replicate with new creative. (When they tried, they saw their CPA skyrocket from $9 to $33 and their acquisition rate plummet.)
The ad didn’t speak to the real needs or desires of their customers.
Start Asking the Right Questions
Anthony was at a crossroads. Something wasn’t resonating.
So he stepped back and started asking the internal questions: what do his customers really want?
The answers were:
- To feel desired
- To feel confident
- To feel respected
- To feel recognized
Yes, their customers want products to help them improve their beards, but only because they satisfy their deeper needs and desires.
The next question Anthony asked was, “How do we stop selling the external problem (a bad beard) and start solving the internal problem (not feeling desired or respected)?”
Then they decided to pump out new ad creative that focused on sympathizing with these problems and offering a solution in the form of their products.
Here’s how it worked out.
Live Bearded’s New (Hugely Successful) Ad Creative
Campaign #1
Live Bearded’s first new campaign was called “My Beard Sucks!”.
It’s a comedic play on 2 well-groomed guys sitting at the bar with their scraggly-bearded friend. The well-groomed guys attract all the compliments and attention from women, while the scraggly guy is left feeling insecure about his unkempt beard.
“My beard sucks!” he says.
Fortunately, his 2 friends have a solution: his beard doesn’t suck, he just needs to take care of it.
How? With Live Bearded’s 24-product Sample Pack, of course.
You can watch the full ad here.
It’s an ad that speaks to a problem that many customers are having — i.e., not getting the compliments and the attention they want — and then offering a solution.
And guess what?
That campaign worked! It was their first high-performing ad in ages…
But the next campaign blew it away.
Campaign #2
The next ad is called “She Wants Your Beard to Smell Like This…”
The creative shows a man cuddling up with his lady — until she’s poked by his prickly beard! He’s clearly embarrassed by his unpleasant facial hair, until she offers him a way to fix it:
With Live Bearded’s sample pack — 24 products that can turn a porcupine beard into facial hair that women actually want to be close to.
You can watch the full ad here.
Results of Anthony’s New Ad Creative
So, what were the results of these two new ad creatives? See for yourself:
CPA was down from $28–$32 to around $16–18, while the average number of customers acquired per day was up from 150 to around 400.
A huge hit! Live Bearded cut their CPA costs in half while nearly tripling their acquisition rate.
And most importantly: these 2 new ads made the same offer as their string of unsuccessful creative (the 24-item Sample Pack), but framed it around a problem that resonated with their customers..
Takeaway: Positioning is Everything
This case study is just a quick example of how one ad with the correct positioning can completely change the trajectory of your business.
As Anthony put it, “My marketing costs sucked because my positioning sucked. I was solving the wrong problem for our customers. We get paid exponentially more to solve the right problems.”
But it all comes down to understanding the internal problems, desires and fears of your customers, and then finding the right way to speak to them in your ad creative.
If you find a way to enter the conversation that’s already going on in their mind, they will listen.
That’s it for this post — thanks for reading!
