How Kaye Putnam uses Quizzes to Sell Her Online Course… and You Can Too!

Online quizzes are just a bit of fun, right?

Something to pass the time and test your knowledge.

They can’t possibly bring over 100,000 people into your marketing funnel...

… or can they?

Today, we’ll share the secrets of Kaye Putnam’s quiz-focused marketing funnel, and how it powers her highly successful online business, so you can learn how online quizzes can drive leads, grow your email list, boost your social media presence, and sell products by the bucketload.

You’ll discover:

• Kaye’s self-supporting social strategy she uses to get over 100k people to take the quiz
• How to balance giving value with building an email list
• The intelligent way she's using just the right amount of personalization in her email follow-up sequence.

What does this tell us?

It’s clear that Kaye wants everyone to take her quiz!

… but why?

What are the tangible business benefits to driving people towards an online quiz?

Kaye uses her quiz to:

1. Offer a fun and engaging piece of interactive content for visitors.
2. Grow her email list.
3. Encourage subscribers to self-segment based on their answers, allowing Kaye to market to them in the most effective way.
4. Improve conversion rates, by letting Kaye connect visitors to products that are more relevant to them.
5. Encourage social media sharing.

Breaking Down the Quiz Page

We can see that Kaye Putnam’s quiz is a critical component of her online sales strategy.

But how does it work? What’s her secret?

Let’s throw ourselves into the start of her marketing funnel, to see how it all fits together!

Starting with her quiz page...

The Hero Call-to-Action

Kaye’s hero call-to-action on her quiz page is beautifully designed and features clear, compelling language.

We can already see the zodiac-like brand personality results, both in professionally-designed icons and around the wheel with individual font-faces.

Why This Works

The imagery suggests that each brand archetype has its own individual identity and personality.

The similarity to the zodiac feels deliberate; 12 archetypes around a wheel, each with a name and a symbol. It’s a framework that should be familiar to most Western audiences.

Kaye’s use of language is also immediately positive, and appeals to our vanity and sense of individuality...

You have an “innate brand advantage” and a “brand personality” with “unique strengths”... all that remains is for you to take the quiz and discover them.

Explaining the Benefits and Science

Why This Works

Kaye appeals to authority (David Ogilvy, Dr. Pearson, Margaret Mark) to add legitimacy to her brand archetype quiz.

It lifts a “fun gimmick” into a science-based assessment that you can trust and build upon.

Rather than a trite online personality test, it becomes closer to a credible Myers-Briggs test for your business brand.

The Archetypes

This is where things get really interesting… visitors can access all the brand archetypes immediately, without taking the quiz.

But doesn’t this defeat the purpose of a quiz?

Why does Kaye Putnam offer the results before the quiz?

The value of this quiz is not in hiding the information, but in guiding the reader the right result for them.

Why This Works

Kaye’s quiz is really an interactive tool for guided self-selection.

There’s no right or wrong answer – visitors are encouraged to learn about all the archetypes, and are even given the opportunity to change their result if they feel it doesn’t quite fit them.

Think of it as a way for visitors to self-identify (to themselves) and self-segment (to Kaye). The questions are just a way to lend legitimacy to the process.

Image-Based Multiple Choice Questions

Answers can often feel more fun and emotionally-driven with images. They’re also a great way to spice up the quiz experience so visitors don’t have to click through pages of boring text.

I love the way Kaye Putnam uses vibrant images of real people to offer additional opportunities for people to recognize themselves.

This image-based question injects some fun into the quiz experience.

Are you Luke Skywalker or Romeo, Jack Sparrow or Prince Eric?

Kaye could have simply asked, “Are you loyal and adventurous, or emotional and spirited?” – but the colorful images are a great way to keep the user engaged.

Let’s look at one more image-based question.

This time, it’s purely visual.

Kaye is asking for an emotional response, so she leaves out any text cues that could influence the answer.

From the visitor’s perspective, this forces them to study the images and demands their total engagement.

Self-Segmentation and Answer-Based Tagging

Quizzes are an exchange of value:

• Users get their promised brand archetype results
• Kaye gains new email subscribers, along with valuable insights into these potential customers

These insights can come from a powerful feature of quizzes – answer-based tagging and segmentation.

Check out this whopper of a question...

The Opt-In Gate

The Results Page

I have to admit, I was expecting more Wow-factor from Kaye Putnam’s quiz results page.

After answering 16 soul-searching questions, the visitor is given a choice of 4 archetypes that most match their answers. Each results page is linked to a separate archetype page.

But which one to choose?

Wasn’t that the point of the quiz?

It feels a bit indecisive and noncommittal.

But perhaps Kaye knows her quiz isn’t intended to focus on the results page – it’s really about growing and segmenting her mailing list.

Selecting an archetype from the list reveals what should probably have been a better initial results page:

That’s more like it!

A confident declaration of my archetype, with a short description and a link to find out more.

Now to be fair, I selected answers at random. I’m not a caregiver, and I’m certainly not a mother, servant or martyr, but we have to assume these terms are carefully chosen to resonate with true caregiver archetypes.

Why This Works

People appreciate choice, but at some point, they also appreciate a conclusive result based on their answers. Kaye’s second results page delivers that result with a well-designed banner, a short teaser of the archetype, and one of 2 clear choices:

• Learn more about the archetype
• Share the results on Facebook or Twitter

It’s simple, attractive, and focused on guiding the visitor to the next action.

Tapping into the Power of Social Sharing

Did you notice the social sharing buttons on Kaye Putnam’s quiz results page?

Kaye encourages people to share their results on Facebook and Twitter, and she makes it easy by including a pre-written message widget...

Why This Works

People love to share positive quiz results. It’s really that simple.

They’ll share anything… IQ score, personality traits, their Pokémon spirit animal!

Kaye’s quiz archetypes appeal to the perfect combination of accomplishment and vanity, giving her constant, free social media visibility and a self-promoting marketing funnel.

Breaking Down the Archetype Page

The final quiz results lead to 1 of 12 seriously impressive brand archetype pages.

This feel-good page is designed to attach positive associations with the visitor’s archetype, by pointing out positive traits… considerate, thoughtful, kind, generous.

You’re not just a generic caregiver archetype, you’re in the same club as Princess Di, Angelina Jolie, and Johnson’s Baby!

Throughout this comforting archetype page, Kaye has deftly woven 5 call-to-actions that will appeal to different people depending on their personal journey and needs.

The Low Barrier ‘Learn More’ Call-to-Action

The Medium Barrier Free Call-to-Action

For people not ready to commit to a paid product, Kaye offers a free masterclass.

This is a mini-funnel itself – she’s extending her chance to convert on-the-fence visitors into paid customers later.

The High Barrier Paid Call-to-Action

The paid course itself!

It costs $297 for the first archetype, and $247 for additional ones.

Offering this high-ticket product now achieves 2 things:

1. It introduces the product early, so it doesn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere later in the funnel.
2. There will be some people who are ready to buy at this early stage.

The Value Exchange Opt-In Call-to-Action

Not everyone who reaches this archetype page are email subscribers.

Maybe they browsed the archetypes without taking the quiz, or they skipped the opt-in gate step.

Whatever the reason, this is Kaye’s chance to add them to her email list.

Again, we see the value exchange – a free brand inspiration PDF for each archetype. The same one that was available when subscribing after the quiz.

This is a smart move by Kaye.

She’s plugging the holes in her marketing funnel by encouraging them to join the mailing list – she knows this may be the only time this particular individual visits her website.

The Last-Ditch Hail Mary Call-to-Action

If a reader has made it this far down the page without taking another action, it’s a fair assumption that they’re not sold on their archetype.

I certainly wasn’t expecting to be labelled a caregiver, along with the related terms mother, servant and martyr.

This section gives the reader a last chance to explore other archetypes – and maybe find one that more closely aligns with their internal image of their brand.

Kaye’s strategy never leaves a visitor at a navigational dead end; there’s always something more to read.

Breaking Down Kaye Putnam’s Email Sequence

It’s hard to appreciate the effectiveness of Kaye’s full marketing funnel without subscribing to her mailing list.

So we did!

After completing the brand archetype quiz, subscribers receive a 3-day automated email sequence:

That’s not unusual in itself but Kaye, being Kaye, works some magic.

Let’s find out how…

Personalization Where It Counts

On our first quiz run-through, I identified as a Maverick archetype.

Here’s her first email:

But what happens if we identify as a different archetype, let’s say a Hero?

The email is personalized using quiz results data, but the content is exactly the same.

This is an incredibly smart move by Kaye.

There’s no compelling need to rewrite the emails for each of the 12 archetypes. The content is equally valuable to each archetype, and the personalization helps subscribers to better connect with the message.

Each variation comes with a different archetype PDF, so there is plenty of value beyond a generic message.

Emails 2 and 3 follow the same pattern...

Given the goal of Kaye Putnam’s archetype emails is to introduce and sell her paid course, Brandfluency, the genius part of this strategy is there’s no need to explain the purpose or benefits of archetypes during the sales process.

All that groundwork has been done in the quiz, results and emails.

At this point, all that remains is for subscribers to make a decision: to buy or not.

Why This Works

Personalization only needs to make sense to the individual. There’s no point creating unnecessary work if you’re confident the core message is universally valuable.

At one extreme end of the scale, you could hand-write a unique email to every subscriber.

At the other extreme, send a generic, cookie-cutter email.

Kaye has found the best balance for her business, by personalizing only what matters to her audience.

What Happens After The Quiz Funnel?

After going through the 3-day archetype series, subscribers start receiving Kaye Putnam’s regular broadcast emails.

This allows Kaye to keep in touch with news about content, events, sales offers and more.

Key Takeaways from Kaye Putnam’s Quiz Funnel

There’s so much value to unpack from Kaye’s quiz funnel, it’ll take a while for it to all sink it!

In the meantime, here’s some important takeaways that will help you to get your quiz launched ASAP.

Build a compelling splash page.

Really dial in and communicate the benefits of taking your quiz, whether that’s just the fun factor, or if your visitor can expect some deep insight from the results.

Complement your splash page with an enticing image, to provide your visitors with more than just text elements.

Link to this splash page from anywhere you want to promote your quiz, both onsite and offsite.

Take advantage of different question types.

Remember how Kaye uses both text-based and image-based multiple choice questions?

That’s a great way to keep the quiz moving and inject a splash of color into the experience.

Image-only answers can encourage an emotional response from visitors, making the quiz feel more engaging and personal.

Consider how you can encourage people to self-segment.

Of course, you should be tagging quiz takers based on their final quiz result category, but did you know you can also assign tags based on individual answers?

This can be a valuable way to let visitors tell you more about themselves for future segmenting and communication.

Capture your quiz takers’ email addresses

Use a quiz opt-in gate to either lock the results behind a subscription wall, or encourage them to subscribe with a compelling benefits-driven offer.

If subscription is required to access the final quiz results, make sure you’ve set expectations early to avoid user frustration.

If subscription isn’t required, think of ways you can sweeten the deal with an additional, valuable offer.

Offer dedicated landing pages for each result category.

To really get the most out of a quiz-focused marketing funnel, you’ll need to give people something more substantial than just a quick results snippet.

Kaye offers a landing page for each of her result archetypes so she can share the right message for each person.

Don’t forget to include a range of calls-to-action that appeal to people in all stages of their journey.

Personalize your follow-up communications based on your visitor's answers and results.

Build on the identity established in the results category. Whether they’ve been awarded the label of Maverick, INTJ Personality, or Squirtle Pokémon, be sure to tie this into your emails so they see continuity and personalization.

Encourage them to identify further with their result, so they feel receptive to any offers you send.

Encourage sharing of the result on social media.

Effective social sharing can encourage even more people to take your quiz, who in turn share their results. It’s a circle of automatic promotion for your marketing funnel.

To achieve this, you’ll need to make people proud of their results, and give them a super easy way to post to Facebook and Twitter.

Don’t forget to include a link back to the quiz in your pre-written social sharing snippets!