Aaron Doughty's "Three Door" Strategy to Convert Traffic Into Course Sales

Aaron Doughty is a spirtual teacher with 1.2 million YouTube subscribers. Here’s how he uses a “Three Door Strategy” to turn Instagram, YouTube, podcast, and website traffic into online course sales.

By James Mulvey, Director of Mighty Pro Marketing

April 27, 2022

7 min read

Aaron Doughty is a spiritual teacher and has helped millions of people remove self-sabotaging beliefs with visualization and meditation techniques.

The first time Aaron Doughty encountered the power of visualization was in 2017 when he was working as a salesperson in the women’s shoe department Nordstrom.

Frustrated with his progress in life and berated by the toxic department store manager, he set the goal of becoming a top salesperson.

“I asked myself how would a top salesperson behave? The first thing, I thought, was that a top salesperson would greet every customer that came through the door. So I started greeting every customer."

"Next, I thought, a top salesperson wouldn’t just bring out the shoes a customer asked for, they’d bring out multiple pairs and make recommendations. I kept on modeling the behavior, a new identity of what Aaron a top salesperson would be.”

Within a few days, he started to rank as one of the top salespeople in the department. This led him to set a bigger goal to achieve his dream of becoming a successful YouTube creator.

“A successful YouTuber publishes videos every day. I didn’t have an audience or know what I was doing. But knew that if I started to model that behavior, I could be successful."

While still working his sales job, he began his YouTube journey, publishing new videos every day. Within four or five months, his channel was taking off. He put in his notice and never went back to a 9-5 job again.

Today, Aaron has reached millions of people with his YouTube channel and podcast The Daily Vortex. He also sells seven different online courses, a high-ticket business coaching program, and a new immersive event experience called The Shift Experience.

Last year, he launched his own iOS and Android apps with Mighty Pro, bringing 18,000 of his most dedicated students into a private membership community.

Today, I’ll break down how Aaron expertly uses a “Three Door Strategy” to turn Instagram, YouTube, podcast, and website traffic into online course sales.

Aaron’s content engine

Aaron’s content strategy goes like this.

YouTube is his primary engine. He publishes a YouTube video every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

He adapts those videos into his podcast episodes. These podcasts are slightly shorter and often a video will be cut into two podcast episodes. The episodes are around 15 minutes long.

He’s published over 440 podcast episodes and built a top-ranked podcast in the Religion & Spirituality category. New episodes go live Tuesday and Friday and Youtube audio is posted daily as well.

Lately, Aaron has been investing more time into his podcast, creating episodes that go beyond edited audio from his YouTube channel. It’s key to note that Aaron has only invested more in his podcast after mastering YouTube. Creators should master one platform first and then stack another core channel (like podcasts) to compound their growth.

His Instagram videos are mostly native uploads, mixed in with a few edited clips from his YouTube channel. Instagram is used to drive people to YouTube, which is his main content engine, and where people go deeper into his videos.

Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter are secondary platforms, though they do generate traffic. Despite Facebook being dead these days, Aaron gets substantial engagement and traction for his videos there. His success on TikTok is growing with 150K followers and 1.4 million likes.

The ‘Three Door’ strategy for turning interest into action

As any creator knows, the way people find you today is so fragmented. The challenge is turning all of the bursts of attention and traffic your content gets into a deeper relationship with your audience.

Aaron is prolific and has created a vast network of content to help people discover him in many different ways. People discover his YouTube videos, find his podcast on iTunes, discover his short videos on Instagram, and find his TikTok videos.

All of these sources add up to millions of views every month. But it’s also difficult for passionate followers to go deeper into Aaron’s teachings if you’re relying on algorithms to continually serve up your content.

To simplify how people go deeper into his teachings, Aaron uses what I call “the Three Door Strategy.” This technique helps you make the most out of a large online audience, creating paths for different levels of interest and intent.

Once people discover one of Aaron’s videos or podcast episodes, they typically get a choice of three CTAs. Each serves a different type of audience.

Door #1: Low resistance, easy to open

Aaron often uses a personalized vibration quiz as a CTA in his YouTube videos. This quiz creates a personalized diagnostic of how you perceive your energy. This door is the easiest to open and he uses it in places where his audience is the newest.

This is an example of making the first yes—your first offer to your audience—extremely easy. It’s a great way to capture more interest from fleeting visitors who are not ready for your more advanced content or offerings.

Once you complete the quiz, you’ll get emails based on the level you’re at, with mediations to take you deeper into Aaron’s teachings. I’m at the Hero stage by the way—solid energy vibrations! Interested in your own vibration? Take it here: https://whatsmyvibration.com/

Door #2: More commitment, higher intent

The second CTA Aaron uses is a link to a more advanced video mediation called The Frame Technique Mediation. This is one of Aaron’s core meditations. Not only does he ask you to complete the meditation but to complete the mediation every day for 21-days! This door speaks to people with more intent. It’s a deeper journey for you to go on, requiring more than five minutes of your time to complete a fun quiz.

As part of his Frame Technique Mediation, he also introduces you to his High Viber iOS and Android apps. This app offers free meditations, live activations, and workshops. Inside, you’ll find other people discovering Aaron’s teaching, sharing their results, and working their way through 21-day challenges.

The purpose of Door 2 is to help people start achieving real results and transformation. If they participate in the 21-day challenge, they’ll see results. This is obviously a bigger ask, has more friction, but also provides a gateway to Aaron’s deeper teachings and paid courses.

Door #3: For people ready to buy now

The final CTA Aaron frequently uses is his 21-day Magnetic Love Challenge product. This is a $97 product. This is for the highest intent audience. People who have likely encountered him before or who are looking for the change his content promises right now. This product is a door to his more advanced courses and in-person Shift Experience.

Using a Three Door strategy helps you appeal to the three levels of intent that you’ll attract with any content: casual interest and low buying intent, more serious people looking for a deeper journey into your content, and high-intent buyers looking for immediate results.

Simplifying everything with a branded app

The CTA strategy above helps people to go deeper into Aaron’s content.

But as any creator knows, the more content you create, the more platforms you are on, and the bigger your audience becomes, the harder it is to create a unified place for your brand to live. It’s all fragmented. This makes it hard for your audience to truly understand your entire body of content, purchase new courses, and progress deeper into the knowledge you offer.

That’s where Aaron’s branded iOS and Android apps come in. His branded apps are like a container for all of his courses, challenges, videos, and invites to his new in-person experiences.

Inside his private community, 18,000 members access free mediations, talk about the courses they’ve purchased and transformations they’ve seen, share their personal struggles and manifestation journeys, plus interact with Aaron directly.

The members typically have purchased courses, attended his live Shift Experience, and use the app and private membership to go deeper into their own journeys with the support of other members.

His app also houses his popular 21-day challenges. His 21-Day Raise Your Vibration Challenge inside his app has 2.2K members and his 21-Magnetic Love Challenge has 3.6K members.