Are you launching an online course, membership or group program in the coming months? If so, you’re going to love this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, because I’m sharing my top launch tips.
Let’s dive in!
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I want to do a really practical episode of the podcast today, so I’m going to dive straight into my five launch tips, which will help you get more leads and more sales in your next launch.
Tip 1: Keep your entire audience informed throughout your launch
This is a biggie.
If you launch using lead magnets (like webinars, challenges, freebies, or events), chances are that you might believe that anyone who is a lead for your launch is participating in those lead magnets. But that’s not the case.
Your entire mailing list are potential leads for that launch. Just because someone didn’t sign up for the webinar, doesn’t mean they might not be interested in joining your membership.
Make sure that you keep your entire audience informed throughout your launch.
Don’t just send upsell emails to the people who’ve signed up to the lead magnets. Don’t just put the upsell ads in front of people who have engaged with the launch or visited the sales page.
Make sure that you are telling every single person in your audience:
- When the doors are open
- What the offer is
- Why your offer is so amazing and valuable
- The answers to FAQs
- Your response to common objections
Don’t save that just for those who have engaged in the launch or signed up for a lead magnet.
I do a lot of launch reviews in my VIP work and in the Leverage on Launch program, and for a lot of people when we review their launches, the part where they’ve missed the opportunity to increase their conversion rates and increase their sale numbers is that in the final stages of their launch, the only people hearing from them are people who’ve signed up for those lead magnets.
Remember: your entire list are potential leads up until your launch finishes. Keep everyone informed throughout the journey.
That’s the first of my top launch tips.
Tip 2: Your warm audience are the most likely to buy from you
One of the first things so many people focus on for their launch strategy is how to get their launch in front of more cold audience – more strangers on the internet.
Often, what this ends up looking like is ignoring and neglecting the very people most likely to buy from you.
Remember, your warm audience are the most likely to buy from you. They are the ones who should be informed first (and the most) about what the offer is and what the lead magnets are, and you should be nurturing, connecting and engaging with that warmest audience very consistently throughout your launch.
Someone discovering your product or service during a launch as a cold audience member is less likely to buy from you during that launch. They’re more likely to buy from you next launch or the launch after.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t promote to a cold audience at all. But what I’m saying is the people most likely to buy from you are the ones already in your audience.
The cold audience growth that you get from this launch is actually setting you up for sales in your next launch in a lot of cases.
Make sure that you give that warm audience lots of love and attention, which leads me to the third of my top launch tips…
Tip 3: Focus 80% on warm audience, 20% on cold
When you’re crafting your content and your strategies, focus 80% of your time, energy and attention on your warm audience, and 20% of your time, energy and attention on your cold audience.
80% of the strategies you choose are focused on your warm audience. 80% of the content that you write is for your warm audience. And 80% of the time that you spend nurturing relationships is with your warm audience.
20% is with your cold audience.
In my launch planning, I like to look at:
- What am I doing for my existing mailing list?
- What am I doing for my followers on social media?
- Where is all of this content going?
- What am I saying and to whom?
I always, always, always review my launch content, emails and promos through the lens of what audience it is for. Is this focused on a hot audience, a warm audience or a cold audience?
As much as possible, I stick to that 80/20 rule. I find that that gets me the highest conversion rate and the lowest ad spend cost.
Tip 4: Prepare before your launch
The more you prepare before your launch, the less you’ll face wobbles, procrastination, overthinking and blinking cursor syndrome.
Blinking cursor syndrome is the phenomenon that happens when you’re in the middle of a launch, you know that you have to send an email out that day, you open up that email to send it, and you’ve just got this white screen with the cursor blinking at you waiting for words, but you cannot think of a thing to say.
You have no idea how to start. You don’t know what you’re writing in that email.
The reason why you’re facing that is because you’re right in the middle of a launch. And right in the middle of the launch is when you are least confident in your launch results. Right in the middle of a launch is when you are most focused on the audience and the least focused on what you need to be doing.
You’re all focused on your launch stuff.
If you pre-write as many of your launch emails as possible, then when it comes to getting those emails out, you don’t have to think about that. You don’t have to remember that. You don’t have to be in writing mode and figure out if you’ve covered all the major objections.
That can all be done well in advance.
The more that you do in advance, the less your mindset wobbles will take over.
The emails that I write in the midst of a launch often reek of desperation. I can see it when I review them.
It’s been a lot of launches since I’ve done this, so I have to wind back the clock quite a way because I’ve learnt my lesson from this.
When I’m pre-launch, before the launch has even started, I’m feeling so optimistic. I’m feeling so amazing. But I also haven’t been in the face of my audience for a lot already.
Because of that, I’m not overthinking whether people are sick of hearing from me yet. I’m not thinking that because I’m not in the middle of the launch. I am pre-launch.
The more that you prepare well before the launch, the less you’ll write from a space of desperation. The less you’ll second-guess yourself and not send the email, and the more that you can focus on being present with your audience and those one-to-one follow-ups that are going to maximise your conversion as well.
That’s where I spend my time when I’m launching.
Launching is one of the most peaceful, least pressing, least stressful parts of my business, because when I’m launching, I am just showing up and hanging out with people. I don’t have any emails to write. I don’t have any posts to write. All I have to do is show up and be present.
I’m answering questions, I’m talking to people one-on-one who are considering the program, and I’m just floating around seeing if anyone wants to talk to me. That’s it.
I cannot relate to the people who say they need to take a week-long holiday after their launch because it was so stressful and overwhelming.
I can’t relate to that because my launches are so peaceful, lovely and fun.
Often I block out my calendar during launches as much as possible so I can be present with my launch. This means that I end up working fewer hours when I’m launching because I’m not doing other calls and I don’t have as many VIP clients that week or the week after. Often I’m just flouncing about with nothing to do.
The more that I do that, the more successful my launches are.
Doing the preparation, writing emails in advance, writing all the posts in advance as much as possible, and getting stuff done in advance means that I’m deeply present, and I’m just floating around the internet seeing if anyone has any questions.
I’m showing up with a very different energy, and that energy is hypermagnetic, so it really contributes to my launch results.
That’s the fourth of my top launch tips – prepare as much as you can pre-launch.
Tip 5: Ensure you include these five key things in your launch emails
I want you to consider covering the following five key things in your launch emails. It’s also important you include them in your posts as well, but I’m just going to talk about them in relation to your emails.
I’ve participated in quite a few launches as a potential client in the last few months, and something that I’ve noticed is that a lot of people’s launch emails are so fixated on the deadline or price increase that’s coming, that they’ve forgotten to tell me the detail that I need to actually decide whether I want the offer or not.
What I thought I would do is give you five things to include in your launch emails that I think make a huge difference to the effectiveness of those launch emails in terms of connection and conversion.
Key inclusion 1: Clear value proposition from multiple lenses
What is the value of me buying and completing the thing?
The value of me buying and completing the thing is not just that I will feel more confident. It is not just that I will have written all the copy for my website. That’s one thing. That’s an outcome.
What is the value proposition?
The value proposition is the gap between before buying and after finishing the course or the membership, and why that leap is valuable to me.
The value proposition is also something that needs to be looked at from multiple lenses. It’s not just one change.
When people join the Take Off program, there are 40 things that will describe their before state, and there are 40 things that will describe their after state.
Every single one of those changes is deeply valuable to my niche, and I can express that.
Looking at your value proposition from multiple lenses and expressing that very clearly in your emails is critical.
I want you to go review your launch emails.
If you’re redoing a launch, or you’re coming into a fresh launch and you’ve got your emails written in advance, I want you to go and have a little look through them.
Do you talk about how valuable this transformation is, what that transformation is, and how you facilitate that transformation enough in your emails? Or are you extra fixated on telling them to just join before the price increase/cart close, and you’re so focused on the manufactured urgency and the marketing tactic that you’re using to incentivise people to take action, even though you haven’t helped them make an informed decision about whether they want it or not?
It’s good to know if the deadline to join is tomorrow. But they need to know whether they actually want it or not first. The deadline doesn’t apply to them if they don’t know that.
Make sure you have a clear value proposition from multiple lenses.
Key inclusion 2: Your face
It could be a photo of you in some of the emails, or a link to a video where you’re talking to the camera.
Humans want to buy from humans. Humans connect with humans. Get your face in there somewhere.
Key inclusion 3: Invite and ask questions
Don’t just tell them to let you know if they have questions. Ask people questions!
In your launch emails, ask people: what’s the number one barrier that you’re facing with this goal?
This gets you some insight from them. And people who are hot leads for your offer are actually contacting you!
Learn how to invite questions well and effectively, but also learn how to ask great questions. Include asking questions in those launch emails.
Key inclusion 4: Story
We love stories. Stories carry so much depth, meaning and connection for us.
If all of your launch emails are just telling people why they should buy something and it just looks like an ad, then you’re not drawing people in. You’re not sharing any story.
Find ways to incorporate some more story into your launch emails.
Story is powerful. It creates connection, depth and intrigue. It carries people through, and it is a great way to facilitate that lightbulb moment that people need about why they’re struggling on their own, and why they need to jump in and join your offer.
Stories are great for lightbulbs.
Key inclusion 5: Clarity on your offer and the deadline
Do your launch emails make it very clear what’s on offer and what the deadline is?
I’ve just recently missed out on joining a course because I didn’t realise the doors were closing. I just thought that there was a special offer on the cards at the moment, but I just found out a week and a half too late that the doors have closed and I can’t join for at least another six months.
It was not clear to me that there was a doors-closing deadline.
I only realised doors had closed when I was listening to this person’s podcast and they mentioned how the doors had closed and all the students were having such a great time in the program. I had so much FOMO and was so upset that I didn’t know doors were closing.
Then I went and had a look at the last two emails I had read, and neither of them said that the cart was closing. Neither of them said that I wouldn’t be able to join.
Make sure it’s very clear what is on offer and what the deadline is.
That is the final of my top launch tips – include all the things you need to include in your launch emails, and those five are the key ones that I’ve seen missing a lot recently.
Hopefully you found that helpful.
If you would like to go a little deeper in your launch strategy, and figure out how many emails to send, what lead magnet to use, etc., then I have great news for you!
With this episode, you can grab my FREE training, Launch Basics.
Head to: tashcorbin.com/basics
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
