Overview
Don Crosby is the founder of Pairfection, an online membership that helps transform how couples connect and live together by fostering deeper bonds, respect, and intentional communication.
We began working with Don in 2023 and have had the pleasure of collaborating on several business and technical challenges together.
In this case study we'll explore several features that we implemented in collaboration with Don and his team that's allowed them to continue to improve Pairfection and grow it to the next level.
They are:
1 – Course Gifting: allows Pairfection to reach more customers
2 – Implemented a 3-day free trial courses: aimed to improve conversion rate
3 – Integrated FluentCRM for email marketing and data collection
4 – Set up sales funnels on pairfection.us using the CartFlows plugin: increase average order value (AOV)
5 – Integrated WooCommerce with MemberPress: allows for maximum shopping cart and funnel flexibility while using MemberPress for content protection
6 – Implemented subscriptions: provides a recurring revenue stream
As a result of these changes, both members and visitors can now gift courses or subscriptions.
New users have the opportunity to explore a bite-sized version of each course through the free trials, and can then opt in to purchase the full course or a subscription to pairfection.us.
These functionalities were built using WooCommerce, synced with LearnDash LMS, MemberPress, FluentCRM, and FlowCart.
And since this website is considered transactionally heavy, we hosted all of this on memberhost.io, our high-performance hosting service that’s purpose-built for large WordPress eLearning, community, WooCommerce and membership sites.
Initial Challenges
Before this implementation, pairfection.us faced several limitations that hampered user experience and business growth.
Customers had no option to gift courses, or even sample them before committing, which led to missed sales opportunities.
In addition, the absence of sales funnels and effective email marketing meant there was little to no follow-up engagement with potential and existing customers, which negatively impacted customer retention and conversion rates.
MemberFix worked with Pairfection to do several things:
Enabling Gifting on the platform
We needed to provide a seamless way for both users and non-users to gift courses or subscriptions, which potentially opened a new revenue stream and attracting more users via word-of-mouth.
Gifting opened up a whole new creative avenue for prospective customers to join via being gifted the membership by family or friends.
In the relationships market in which Pairfection operates, this is a uniquely great marketing approach.
Offer a Risk-Free Trial:
A risk free trial can encourage potential customers to engage with the courses, showcasing the value without revealing the full content.
It also generally improves overall conversion by start people at the bottom of a value ladder that then progresses to a stronger relationship with the vendor.
Free trials don't always work, though.
In fact, our preference is to always offer some non-zero dollar trial, such as $1.
This allows you to make a small, inexpensive transaction, collect credit card details, and—to a degree—filter out tire kickers who are not serious about solving their problems.
Streamline CRM and Email Marketing
We needed to implement an effective CRM system to manage customer relations and automate email campaigns.
FluentCRM is incredibly sophisticated and inexpensive, yet very easy to use.
Not only that, it's self-hosted which means you have full control over your data, you don't have to pay the crazy fees and price increases that accompany 3rd party CRM providers like ActiveCampaign, Keap, et al, and can even extend the functionality of FluentCRM if you need a specific feature it doesn't currently have.
And since nurturing, giving value, and following up consistently is a key to winning and keeping customers, this was a great thing to implement on Pairfection.
Implement High-Converting Sales Funnels
We needed to implement structured sales funnels to guide users through a course enrollment journey.
Not only that, we wanted to ensure that Pairfection had the flexibility to experiment with various other funnels in the future.
Don had already chosen CartFlows as his tech for this project and we collaborated with him to set up his funnels the way he wants.
Our usual choice for WordPress-based funnel software is FunnelKit.
But if a customer is happy with a particular piece of tech and it's not creating technical or marketing bottlenecks, we don't need to rock the boat.
In this case we just helped Don make the most of his existing software and the bottom line is that he's happy with it and it works!
Ensure Ultra-Performant Hosting
A WordPress site with a tech stack as heavy as Pairfection needs excellent hosting.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of WordPress hosting providers do a particularly poor job of understanding, hosting, and supporting these types of sites.
The very fact that much of the content lives behind a paywall makes simplistic performance optimization approaches ineffective.
A site like Don's calls for a bespoke and nuanced approach to maintaining performance during periods of high concurrency (i.e. many users logging in and interacting with the site simultaneously), high traffic levels (e.g. during an ad campaign or email broadcast), and increasing growth.
For this reason we offered to host Pairfection on our custom hosting product, memberhost.io.
Solution
We’ve used the following tools and plugins for this project:
1 – WooCommerce
2 – WooCommerce Subscriptions
3 – WooCommerce Smart Coupons
4 – WooCommerce Subscriptions Gifting
5 – LearnDash LMS
6 – MemberPress
7 – FluentCRM
8 – CartFlows
Implementation
We integrated these plugins in the following way:
A) Allow WooCommerce to handle normal purchases (such as subscriptions, memberships, one-time courses)
B) Course Gifting via virtual gift cards
C) Subscription/membership gifting
D) Configure WooCommerce and CartFlows to add free trial products/courses
E) Add all of the customer data to FluentCRM
F) Protect the content via MemberPress
G) Sync WooCommerce and MemberPress with our 2-way sync plugin
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To integrate all of the plugins to work like a well oiled machine, we took the following steps:
A) Plugin setup and configuration
We’ve created the appropriate WooCommerce products and synced them with the gifting plugins.
We’ve also set up automations in FluentCRM to capture customer data, and we set up the sales funnels in CartFlows.
B) Sync with LearnDash and MemberPress
We’ve synced all of the WooCommerce products with LearnDash courses so that users who purchase a WooCommerce product get enrolled in a LearnDash course.
Of course this goes for all types of products on the website, including one-time purchases, subscriptions and gifts.
The content access rules on pairfection.us are managed by MemberPress and to add all of those users to a membership, we’ve used our own WooCommerce-MemberPress 2-Way Sync plugin.
C) Landing page creation
The landing page ( https://pairfection.us/give-a-gift ) was created to highlight the gifting feature on the platform.
The landing page takes the user through a sales funnel.
D) Testing
Of course, all development is not finished until thorough testing has been done, especially on a platform with so many new moving parts.
Results
The new gifting system, limited-access free trial, CRM integration, sales funnels, LearnDash integrations and blazing fast hosting yielded positive results, such as:
A) Positive feedback
B) Increased customer engagement
C) Enhanced website performance and reliability
Recap and Conclusion
The implementation of course gifting, a 3-day free trial, CRM integration with FluentCRM, sales funnels using FlowCart, and hosting on MemberHost.io has significantly enhanced the performance and user experience on Pairfection.us.
The course gifting feature opened up a new revenue stream, allowing both users and non-users to easily share and gift courses or subscriptions.
The 3-day free trial offered a risk-free, bite-sized introduction to course content, increasing trust and encouraging conversions.
The integration of FluentCRM streamlined email marketing and customer relationship management, enabling automated, personalized follow-ups that improved engagement and customer retention.
Meanwhile, FlowCart's sales funnels optimized the user journey from discovery to purchase, boosting conversions.
Lastly, the ultra-performant hosting on MemberHost.io ensured that the site operates smoothly even under high demand, making it scalable for future growth.
Together, these solutions have expanded Pairfection.us's audience reach, improved engagement, and increased conversion rates—all while providing a more seamless, enjoyable experience for users.
