SAM Labs: Summer Camp Campaign
Summary:
Summer is typically the off season for Edtech products. Very little usage and pipeline activity, if any. Most customers are completely offline until mid-August. At SAM Labs, we had closed a marginally successful winter and spring buying cycle, giving the company 6-8 months of runway.
Behind the scenes, we attempted to raise capital through debt financing and additional angels. The board threatened to shutter operations if positive cash flow signals did not materialize soon. On the main stage, I led the development and launch of a new product for summer camps in roughly 6 weeks.
This new product was a mixture of recycling our existing product line and new components. I created new pricing/packaging to fit the offer. The selling motion we used had the same skeleton as before, but different and novel target audience.
The impact:
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Maintained strong performance, market and brand momentum into Summer months.
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+224% revenue YoY growth in May, June, and July.
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Increased ARR from $92K to $176K.
Details and Assets:
The Lightning Strikes
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We put on two large scale events to announce, educate, evangelize, and engage.
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The strategy was to interrupt and hijack the industry's collective attention through can't miss content.
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This enabled a quick climb into the adjacent market segment that puts on summer camps.
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I deployed two months of Revenue teams budget into the promotion, execution, content distribution, and follow on activities.
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While the summer camp product launch wasn't quite a bet the company bet, it was close.
The Air and Ground Wars
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Given the time poor position we were in, our remaining Summer Camp efforts were focused on driving short term revenue.
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Operationalized, this was a combination of paid search, organic and paid social, email.
Organic and Paid Social
Strategy
- Highlight the gain (summer enrichment) and imply the pain (learning loss).
- Target only the same segments in all channels. Use social distribution to drive problem and product awareness first, then use email to inspire action.
- Target only high propensity to purchase geographic clusters (zip codes and cities, bang for $s, funnel velocity).
- Lead with giving (relevant content), persuade with emotion (bring learning and fun back together), close with value (long term investment).
- Pulse paid social on all channels, rotating 2 days on with 4x-8 frequency, 3 days off - break through the noise without overwhelming.
- Synchronize sales outbound to follow and fill in gaps in Marketing outbound (by email domain).
Organic and Paid Social
Paid Search
Fuel UGC Flywheel
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This was done for three reasons:
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Leverage for immediate revenue (social proof, FOMO, products in action).
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Add to the broader UGC base of assets and momentum.
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Give us something to talk about in a time when most competitors are quiet or irrelevant.
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