Have you ever tried to launch something and it flopped?
Have you ever tried to launch something and it flopped? Did you pour your heart and soul into an offer that you were super proud of and yet no one seemed to want it?
We see it all the time with new businesses. And it’s heart breaking when that happens.
But the good news is that it can be completely prevented with a comprehensive, powerful launch strategy.
Where Do Launches Go Wrong?
Launches go wrong when there’s no thought or strategy put into the build up period prior to the launch. Most people tend to put all the thought into creating the actual product or offer itself, without the same thought and care applied to the launch process.
Have you been guilty of putting something out to market without implementing a carefully considered launch process? I know I have, especially in the early days. And then we wonder why it doesn’t convert.
A launch is when you’re going out to the market and asking people to buy something from you.
Let’s think of a dating analogy. Just like you can’t ask someone to sleep with you before you’ve been on several amazing dates, you also can’t ask someone to buy from you when you haven’t spent time romancing them or allowing them to get to know you.
You might have heard of this quote or similar before.
One of the biggest mistakes most businesses make is they’re walking around trying to sleep with complete strangers.
– Sabri Suby
It sounds a bit harsh, but this quote is metaphorically very true with any marketing strategy and it’s especially true for launching!
Did you know that most people need at least 7-20 touch points with you before they’re willing to buy?Tweet it
That’s because of the extremely important concept in the world of marketing known as The Customer Value Journey (read all about it here: How to Win More Clients with a Powerful Customer Value Journey). The Customer Value Journey leads your prospects through a series of touch points that are designed to ‘romance’ and warm up your prospects. The different touch points help you to build a relationship with your audience, establish trust and credibility, and generate a willingness and desire in your prospects to buy from you.
People need to know, like, and trust you before they’re willing to buy from you. And a great launch strategy will help you do just that. Tweet it
If you launch to an audience that hasn’t been warmed up appropriately, they won’t want to buy from you.
So How Do You Make Your Launch a Spectacular Success?
There are a series of steps to follow to maximise the chances of your launch’s success. You should start your launch preparation around 30-40 days before you intend to launch, to launch like a Queen!
Here are the steps we recommend you follow.
1. Set a Launch Date.
It’s essential to have a launch date to work towards. Like everything in business, you need a specific goal that keeps you accountable and helps you avoid procrastination. Choose a date that’s realistic but also stretches you a little. Most people work more efficiently with a little pressure!
2. Grow Your Social Followings, Your Email List & Establish Promotional Partners.
You don’t want to launch to an empty theatre! Put a concerted effort into growing your social platform followings and your email database before you launch so that you’re launching to as big an audience as possible. Find colleagues in your field who are willing to promote your offer to their audiences on your behalf and set up a simple affiliate arrangement where they get a small percentage of the sale if the prospect comes from their list. This will get your offer out to much larger audiences.
3. Start Building Anticipation.
Make a public announcement across your social profiles and your email database about when you’ll be launching your product or service offering. Be specific, tell them the exact date and be sure to launch on that date!
Start to romance your audience with high value content related to your business or product so that you continue building anticipation. Provide content that piques curiosity and teases your audience so that they’ll want to see what comes next!
4. Release High Value Content Piece #1: ‘Why’
You’ll need to prepare a series of content (blog posts, videos, social media posts, or infographics) that answer that question ‘Why?’
- Why should your audience care about your product? What’s in it for them?
- Why should they listen to you?
- What’s the transformation and the result you will offer them? Why do they need it?
- What do you believe? Remember, your job is to do business with those who believe what you believe (see Why You Need to Know Your Business ‘Why’, Vision and Mission).
You don’t need to give your audience any details of your offering at this stage, simply explain why they need it, and let them know you’ll be providing all the details in upcoming posts.
5. Release High Value Content Piece #2: ‘How’
Now you need to educate your audience about how you will deliver the transformation that you promised in your first piece of content. Present a short case study or demonstrate how your offering works. Answer common questions, which is a way to address any objections they might have. Help your audience to see the big picture and how it can impact their life. Let them know you’ll be explaining the offer in detail in the next post and to ‘stay tuned’; this keeps building the anticipation.
6. Release High Value Content Piece #3: ‘What’
Now you get to announce your offer and let them know all the details they’ve been waiting for! Tell your audience exactly what your offer is. Teach some key concepts related to your offering so that they can see the benefit of your offer. Explain how your offer is different to your competitors. Give them a tip or trick that is really valuable and that they can implement right away. What can you give them or teach them that will make an impact and make them want more?
7. The Countdown
7. The CountdownFor the final seven days before you launch, continue to build the anticipation and excitement by doing a countdown with your social media posts or emails. For example you could post a big number 7 with balloons and champagne one week before launch, and continue with the countdown 3 and 1 day before launch. Send an email to your database to get them excited about the impending launch.
8. Launch Day
This is when you finally ‘open your shopping cart’ and announce that your product is now live and available for purchase. Your offer should be irresistible, meaning, your audience perceives it as high value for a great price – which it absolutely should be! It should seem like a ‘no-brainer’ for your audience and an easy ‘yes’, because it is. To learn more about crafting irresistible offers, check out this article: How to Craft an Irresistible Offer that Your Prospects Can’t Refuse.
If you have a sales page, give your audience the link to your sales page where they can go to purchase your offer. Or tell them clearly the process they have to follow in order to work with you. Tell your audience exactly which action you want them to take to engage with your offer. Be clear and specific. Remember, the confused person never buys!
9. 7-10 Day Launch Period
You’ll want to keep your offer open for 7 – 10 days, and then close it down. People need a deadline to make a decision, it’s just human nature! That’s the beauty and power of launches, it creates anticipation, builds tension, opens the offer, and then closes it down. It provides urgency and scarcity, the key ingredients to successful sales. People feel the FOMO (fear of missing out) if they choose not to engage with your irresistible offer, which motivates them to buy now.
With a legitimate sense of scarcity and urgency, you’re helping people to make a decision that you know will positively benefit them.Tweet it
Hopefully now you can clearly see what it takes to successfully launch a product. It’s a lot more than just putting your offer out to the market. It takes a lot of work, but the results are well worth the effort. If you can develop a process and templates for your business, then it becomes a matter of rolling out the same process over and over again each time you go to market with a new offering.
Give it a try and watch how your conversion rates drastically increase! And please reach out if you have any breakthroughs, I’d love to hear about them!
Did you like this article? You might also like:
How to Speak Transformationally So You Can Sell More
How to Drastically Increase Profits with a Product or Service Ladder
How to Sell More with Your Three Business Superpowers
How to Become a Profit Queen (Part 1): Growth Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level
Are you starting or growing your own business? Get your FREE Fempreneur Success Handbook and discover everything I wish someone had told me back when I was starting my business in 2014!
In service to your success,
Kate De Jong, Ph.D
Fempire Coach for Thriving Female Professionals
katedejong.com
[email protected]
Kate De Jong is a business and marketing strategist for start-ups and small business owners who want to grow their business with ease. Kate is a bestselling author and a Chief Executive Women award-winner for women in leadership. Formerly a consulting engineer for more than fifteen years, Kate left her engineering career in 2012 to pursue her passion and zone of genius—entrepreneurship and marketing — and has never looked back!