In this episode, I’m going to share with you the five EASY-PEASY launch tactics that most people forget to implement fully when they’re launching their course or program.
I’ve also got an extra bonus tip for those of you who use Facebook Ads.
Let’s get into it…
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FREE RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST MAY NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE.
These days, even first-time launchers come to me wanting to learn how to launch their online courses and programs thinking that they need to:
- Create complex funnels
- Have thirteen different lead magnets
- Have a lot of crazy email sequences that they need to write
Launching seems to have become a more and more complex endeavour with a shorter and shorter timeframe over the last few years.
It’s really interesting for me to see, particularly for people coming in and launching for their second or third time, they haven’t launched significantly before.
It’s interesting for me to see them come in and make assumptions about how complex their launch needs to be.
And it’s really interesting for me to be observing this because in most cases, the people that I work with, simplify their launches down to something really beautiful and connected. We make them as easy for them as possible. We prepare as much as we can in advance so that they can enjoy the launch process – we just really nail the basics.
When I think about it, it’s the same as anything in business.
There’s no such thing as a complex, advanced strategy or a “secret to success”.
The most successful entrepreneurs and launches just do the basics really effectively, and they don’t skip those core steps.
When I think about what really works for me in my launches, my highest conversion, my best results, and the biggest leaps in my business have come when I have nailed the basics.
Today I want to share with you five really basic strategies when it comes to promoting a course or program that many people forget to do or they don’t do effectively.
Even for myself, the first time I invested more than $1,000 in Facebook Ads for a launch, I stopped doing a lot of these basics.
I’ve got to be 100% honest with you, the results that came out of my Facebook Ads were less than spectacular and I was left with a launch that was worse than my first-ever launch of this course before.
It’s really interesting to see what happens when you let yourself down by not doing the basics effectively.
1. Let people know consistently that you are in launch of this program right now
One of the things that I still haven’t really nailed remembering to do is, for example, on your banner on your Facebook Page, changing it to be the thing you’re in launch for at the moment.
If you’re launching your feng shui course, make your banner a promo for your feng shui course.
That’s what you’re focused on right now and that’s how you can best be of service for people right now.
Make that your banner.
If you’re launching your Facebook Ads training, make that the banner of your Facebook Page.
About 50% of the visitors to your Facebook Page actually come straight to a post but another 50% come to that home page.
What’s the first thing that they look at to work out what you do? It’s your banner.
If your banner informs people that you have a course on how to create Facebook Ads, then when people visit your page they’ll know exactly what you’re offering and go and check it out if that’s what they’re looking for.
Particularly for your existing followers, it really informs them that you’re in launch right now of that program.
That’s a really beautiful way to actually create a lot of traffic and consistently be on message for the entire period of your launch.
Even before you get into your first lead magnet or your first webinar, it’s like a little sign.
“This is what I’m launching right now.”
I’m going to start to do that a lot more in my own business as well.
There are some other ways that I really do it well, and I want to talk about those as well.
When I’m in launch of a course or program, I have a banner on every newsletter that goes out in that period of time that tells people that I’m in launch of this program, and that offers up the details.
When I nail that effectively, I actually get a lot of click-through from my newsletters through to the sales page of my course or program.
They don’t have to go through the funnel of signing up for a webinar, coming along live, getting a sequence of follow-up emails, being reminded in my group, coming and watching a Facebook Live about it, and reading through the FAQs.
They just see that it’s open. It’s something they were meaning to buy, and they go and check it out.
Or they see that it’s open and the messaging tells them that it might actually be perfect for that problem that they’re facing right now.
They go and read the sales page, and the sales page does its job.
Make sure that the people who are already coming across your stuff, seeing you online, reading your newsletters and visiting your Facebook Page know that you’re in launch of that thing.
2. Email your list to talk about the program
I know that because of the prevalence of spamming launches that we are very hesitant to go down that path.
I think what happens is we swing the pendulum the other way and we only ever send one email saying that the doors are closing, which confuses your audience because they didn’t even know you were launching.
We want to make sure that you find the right balance.
I recommend, for example, for most people that I work with, we have a four to eight-week launch.
First-time launches are six to eight weeks. The more advanced they get, we go down to four to six weeks.
Over that period of time, your mailing list should hear about your launch at least three times.
I’m not talking about just a mention in your newsletter. I’m talking about a stand-alone email that either invites them to the webinar because you’re in launch of this program, or a stand-alone promo of your course or program.
In my launch of the Take Off program, I forgot this step.
I make mistakes so that you don’t have to.
When I realised that I had made that mistake and I hadn’t done it, I sent out an email two days after the cart technically closed.
It was a stand-alone email saying that if you missed out on the launch, you were still able to join.
I had fifteen emails from people saying that they wanted to jump in but didn’t have the money together yet, or they hadn’t seen that I was in launch so they’ll have to wait until next time.
I would say that ten out of those fifteen would’ve purchased if they’d come through that launch process with me.
But I left those sales on the table.
Make sure that you’re letting your list know in a very short and clear term that this is something that you’re focused on right now. That this is something that they could do and why they might like to join it.
3. Post about your course on your Page
As I said, when I’m in launch, I schedule up a post for every two to three days about that course or program.
Some of them will give a little bit of a personal story.
When I talk about the Take Off program, I talk about when I first started my business.
I had no money, I prepaid a day with a business coach, we had a whole day together, and I left with all of these ideas but no way of getting customers.
I had beautiful messaging, concepts, models and processes, but I didn’t have any clients and I didn’t know how I was going to find them.
And so I had to kind of make it through on my own.
I use that story to demonstrate that sometimes we start our business in the wrong order.
At the end of that, I say, “This is why I created the Take Off program because there are some minimum steps that you can take so you can start getting clients through the door. Then, you can look at some of the other stuff. You don’t need a website to do that. You don’t need fancy branding for that. And you don’t need to come up with a catchphrase or a tagline in order to get customers. The Take Off program focuses on the bare minimum things you need to do to get customers. That’s what puts you in business.”
I share that post when I’m in launch of the Take Off program.
I also do really short posts that say, “Five reasons why you might need the Take Off program to help you get started in the online business world.”
In that, I give five points and a link over to the sales page.
Make sure that when you’re starting off your launch, that you schedule up some posts to your Facebook Page where you talk about your program.
4. Promote your course in Facebook Groups
I see a lot of people go crazy with their webinar promos into Facebook Communities.
Then the early bird window opens for five days, and it kind of feels like they’ve disappeared off the internet.
They’re so busy with their email sequences and follow-up’s, and doing Facebook Lives on their Page, that they’ve forgotten their regular promo schedules in the Facebook Groups.
The place where you share your webinar and got thirty people commenting and saying “This looks amazing! I’ve signed up. I’m going to be there. Thank you so much.” is the perfect place for you to also be promoting your course when the doors are open.
When you’re mapping out your launch timeframe, don’t forget to continue your promos into Facebook Groups as you normally do with your freebies.
5. Do lots of Facebook Lives
I LOVE Facebook Lives! I love jumping into my group and doing Facebook Lives where I’m helping people.
When it comes to launching, what I’ve noticed is that all of a sudden I’ve put all this pressure on myself for my Facebook Lives to be perfect – to perfectly capture and bring people in and tell them all about my program.
Those Facebook Lives don’t generally do that well.
Something that I’ve learned three to four launches ago now, was that whenever I jump into my group or onto my Page, a blog post where I’m just giving value and teaching people something, it does so well and I have sales of my thing pinging whilst doing that Facebook Live.
People stop scrolling and come to watch a Facebook Live NOT to hear the five reasons why they should join your program, but to learn something that they can actually benefit from straight away.
When I’m in launch, I am aiming to do a content-laden or value-driven Facebook Live every single day.
Facebook Live product launch formula for courses and launch
That might mean when I’m launching Courses with Heart where I teach online course creation and launching, I’ll do a Facebook Live on the five things you need to make sure to include in your courses when you’re creating them.
Then I’ll do a Facebook Live on three launch mistakes that everybody seems to make and we’re going to fix them so you don’t.
Then I’ll do a Facebook Live that’s about the three email sequence that increased my conversion rate in my launches by 50%.
The topics of these Facebook Lives are not my course, but in the process of delivering that Facebook Live, I will mention the Courses with Heart program.
I will say, “I’m launching the Courses with Heart program at the moment.”
People inevitably ask lots of questions on the Facebook Live, and I get an opportunity to talk about that course.
All of the sudden, it becomes this beautiful, organic sales pitch for the Courses with Heart program.
All I did was turn up to a Facebook Live ready to give value and teach people something very practical related to the topic of my course or program.
They’re the five easy launch tactics I see a lot of people forget about when they’re moving into a bit more complicated launches or something that is a little bit more involved.
For those of you who use Facebook Ads in your launches, I’ve got a bonus here.
I’ve noticed a lot of people use Facebook Ads to get leads into their launch but they don’t remarket their audiences when they’re in the launch process.
I always keep around 10% of my marketing budget for my launch to do ads only to those people who have signed up for the lead magnet for the launch.
Run an advert that reminds them of the deadline for your course, reasons why they should join, and go check it out.
I’ve even done Facebook Ads where I’ve boosted one of those value-driven Facebook Lives.
In a launch of the Take Off program in 2017, I did a Facebook Live that was about how to get ten clients in four weeks in your business.
It was so popular. I think I had about 350 comments on that Facebook Live before it even finished.
It went for about 25 minutes when it was live and by the time that 25 minutes was up, I had four sales of the Take Off program at $995.
It was a $4,000 Facebook Live.
People were asking great questions. I just seemed to be in the flow.
Everything worked really beautifully. It was amazing!
What I did was anyone who had come to the webinar for that launch and was a member of my Lean Start-Up School, I uploaded their email addresses into Facebook and then I boosted that video as a Video Ad to them for a 24-hour period.
That ad cost me about $15.25. The audience size was about 2,000 people.
For $15.25, I got 150 clicks over to my sales page.
It cost me hardly anything and I got these clicks over to the sales page.
I just love using little strategies like this – that $15 ad that gets a sale. That little $10 something that gets that thing happening.
For me, that’s really where great launch strategy comes from.
If you can scale those, then they’re the things that are going to really get you those great results.
They’re my five (plus one bonus) easy launch tactics that will help YOU to get your launch rocking and rolling.
(By the way, I have a great free resource called $0 Facebook Marketing Strategy that you can grab HERE)
Before we finish up, I want to remind you that for any of the episodes of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, if you have any aha’s, questions or anything you want to share, come over to the Heart-centred, soul-driven entrepreneurs Facebook Community and use #podcastaha and the episode number (150) and let’s continue the conversation.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
