If you've ever wondered how you can go from a lacklustre live launch with OK results to a successful, profitable promotion, this is for you.
I'm going to dive into the five steps that you should take after every live launch to make your next one more successful, no matter how well it went.
Even if you've got good results, there are definitely things you can improve on and lessons to be learned.
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STEP 1: DEBRIEF YOUR LAUNCH
The best most important step that you can take after a live launch is to debrief everything, from the data to the revenue, and even how you felt throughout the process. I know that debrief is one of the least sexy words on the planet. But If you don't debrief your launches or your funnels, you're leaving money on the table and you're leaving your next move to guesswork.
Guess what doesn't produce the best results? Yup. Guesswork.
Even if you're getting good results, I always recommend doing this process by looking at all elements of your launch or funnel and taking note of what worked well versus what didn't work. Using what you learn, you can create a strategy to improve your sales time after time. So what kind of things should you be looking at?
Well, for launches and funnels, the first thing to start with is revenue.
Did you hit your goal? What could have been better?
Look at what you were hoping to achieve versus what you actually achieved. If you absolutely smashed through your goals, take a note of that and by what percentage. By looking at those figures, you can break down how you got there and take those wins forward into future launches.
The other thing that's A MUST, is looking at data like email stats.
How many people were opening your emails?
How many people were clicking through to your sales page from each email?
By looking at every email individually, you have an idea of which messages performed well, which calls to action performed well, and all of that good stuff that you can use to calculate your conversion rates, aka how many people turned into buyers.
Get my full list of post-launch questions for free, here.
The other thing you want to look at is your sales page conversion rate. So how many people landed there versus how many people bought. And again, it's very simple math. But knowing those numbers gives you a benchmark to work towards the next time you launch.
I also love to look at audience size and audience growth. The size of your audience is one of the biggest things that impacts the success of a launch. The more people you have in your audience, as long as they are warm and engaged, the more sales you are likely to make.
This is why between launches, you ideally want to focus on audience growth as a key thing to measure yourself against.
Say you grow your audience by 1000 people between your launch, you've increased the number of people who are likely to buy. If you did anything specific to grow your audience, then note that down as well, look at how it works versus how it didn't work. By looking at how much you grew your audience by and what methods you used to do that, you can figure out which one was the most successful. And you can take that forward into your next launch.
But not all people in your audience are what we’d call “quality leads” (I kinda hate calling people leads but work with me on this…)
Let's say you decided to participate in some kind of bundle or speaking at a Summit and you got 200 new people into your world. Did that increase your conversion rates? You can figure out from there, whether those people were good leads, or whether they were just adding numbers to your email list.
If your conversion rates went up and your audience grew, or they stayed the same, you know that that audience growth method was working for your business, it was bringing in people who were likely to become paying customers, which is of course what we want.
If you use paid advertising in your launch as well, things like Facebook ads, Google ads, you want to be looking at the ROI on those.
What was the return on ad spend?
And how much did it cost for every single lead that came into your business?
With this data, you can analyze whether your ads were performing well, or whether it was kind of a costly experiment.
I like to pull all of this data from my last two or three launches, and compare each one. This will give you an idea of your average benchmarks like:
your typical conversion rates
your typical email open rates
your typical click-through rates on emails
Then you'll know whether what you did in this previous launch was aligned with that. Was it better? Or was it worse? And what did you do differently?
By looking at what you did differently, you can kind of pinpoint what worked well and what didn’t.
For example, if your conversion rates went down, is there a specific email that you can pinpoint that to or specific messaging?
If you received a lot of questions or feedback on your offer, is there anything that you can change to address this or eliminate those same questions next time?
If you were receiving hundreds of questions, maybe something was missing in your messaging, maybe that's something you need to add an email about or mention on your sales page, again, just to make sure that people are aware.
This saves you so much time during that sales process. Because if you're having lots of back and forth with people, answering questions and handling objections, you're being quite hands on through that process andthat makes your launch WAY more draining.
You want to get this process as hands off as possible, reducing sales conversations, reducing questions, so that everything is answered on your sales page, and your emails and all of the other communications that you're sharing.
Launches get quite stressful when you have to prep all the assets in advance yourself, you’re showing up live a lot etc. Add to that answering a ton of questions in the DMS, in your emails, in person, on sales calls…. That is all stuff that's eating into your schedule when you're already so busy.
Do yourself a favor and try and cut down on questions you need to answer from everyone in your audience. Improve on your messaging for next time and every time you launch it'll get easier and easier.
I also really recommend taking some time to reflect on how you felt throughout your launch.
Did it feel easy?
Did it feel hard?
Were you relaxed? Stressed?
Then when you’ve established how you were feeling, try to pinpoint what was happening at the time when those emotions were running high. Fo example, if you were stressed, was it the fact that you didn't leave enough time to create all the assets you need? And what can you do next time, like start preparing a whole month earlier, to save you from feeling that same way again.
Or if for example, there was anything that made you feel particularly good, maybe you took a day off in the middle of your launch to go to a spa, and that made you feel great, do that again!
Anything that made you feel good, double down on it, anything that made you feel bad, we want to get rid of.
I created a full list of questions that I use to debrief my launches and my client’s launches, pop your details in here and you'll get a copy in your inbox!
STEP 2: HAVE CONVERSTIONS WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
A second tip for growing your launches, is have conversations with your audience. If your audience aren't buying like you expected, you need to dive deeper into why that happened. You are not a mind reader so never assume that they just didn't want what you're buying. Even if that might be your brain’s default setting… screw you, imposter syndrome.
Sometimes there's a really simple fix that means you can sell more next time. And sometimes the reason people aren’t buying is unrelated to you or your offer. Like for example, right now I'm looking to become a homeowner. And so at this point in my life, all I can think about and all of my energy and money is going towards that process. And so that means I have a lot less disposable income to spend on things. No matter how tempting someone’s offer might be (and believe me, it’s been HARD to refrain in some instances).
Your audience is full of people like me who have their own lives going on and having conversations with your audience to understand what’s going on for them can be so valuable to you as a business owner. You can get underneath what’s really going on in their heads, rather than getting in your own head (been there) or making assumptions about whether your offer was too expensive or your messaging was off. Yes, it might be those things but it could just have been a really terrible time for them.
So how do you get that information that you need out of your audience? I prefer to get on calls with them. And some people are going to find this scary, but honestly, it is the best way to get the information you need. Because if you're using a survey or polls on social media, you don't have the opportunity to ask follow up questions. Whereas if you're on a call, and someone says something interesting, you can dive deeper into that, rather than just getting a generic response, like, “Oh, I didn't have the money”, or “I didn't have the time” people will actually take the time to hop on a call with you and talk through what's going on in their life so that you can actually understand their daily situation.
Talking to your audience helps you approach your sales with much more empathy and stop with the high pressure tactics that are leaving your audience feeling burnt out and making you feel stressed as well.
Regardless of whether someone did or didn't buy, you want to go deeper and understand what drove that decision.
If they didn't buy because you're offer wasn’t a great fit. why not? Did the messaging hit home or not? Did they miss something important that could have actually helped them realize this offer was exactly what they needed?
Sometimes it can really be as simple as someone not being in the same time zone as you and any live elements, like calls, not working with their schedule. So have you really made it clear that they can catch up calls on replays, for example, or that they have more access to you. So that actually doesn't really hinder their experience in the program.
Other things that might not be clear is the full outcome of what they're going to get out of your programs. So is this going to help them 10x Their sales, for example, that maybe they came into it thinking, oh, what I actually need is help with my content creation.
I always love speaking to both people who bought and people who didn't buy so you can understand both decisions. With that info, you'll be able to create something relevant test new ideas, or articulate your current offers better.
If several people bought because of a specific feature, can you talk about it more in your next emails? Or if several people specifically didn't buy because they didn't get access to a certain amount of one to one support, is that something you can add on, even if it's an extra additional cost to that person?
The insights you can get from this process are honestly priceless.
They can help you create new offers and give your audience exactly what they're looking for.
STEP 3: OPTIMIZE YOUR OFFER
To understand the next step in this process, I want to talk through the biggest reasons that launches fail. And typically it's that there either wasn't enough people seeing the offer, or the offer wasn't a perfect fit for the people who are seeing it.
Once you’ve spoken to your audience and understand exactly what it is they're looking for, you can use that data to make your offer and obvious hell yes.
You want it to be so good they can't say no. And that means it needs to tick boxes on:
Relevancy - Is this something that they care about?
Urgency - Do they need to buy this right now?
Irresistibility - Does it tick their boxes on how they like to receive support and how they’re going to get the outcome you’re offering?
For example, if you're selling a group coaching program, does that format actually work for the people you're talking to? Do they want to get on a weekly hotseat style call? Or would they prefer to have one to one support?
Knowing this can be the difference between offers that fly off the shelves and those that sit collecting dust.
Look at every aspect of your offer, from the content to the support to the time they have access to it to how it's delivered, and see if you can make it an even bigger hell yes, based on the feedback you received in conversations with your audience.
STEP 4: UPDATE YOUR MESSAGING
Once you’ve nailed your offer, the next step is to look at your messaging and your copy. Without total clarity on your offer, it's impossible to write compelling copy that will actually convert. But now you have the insights from your audience, you can strengthen your copy to speak to their current needs, their fears, their desires, and their dreams, which is the thing that makes copy convert so much better.
Whatever was missing before from your messaging, now's the time to add it in and to be sure to explain any exciting changes to your offer so people can understand what's new the next time you bring it up to launch.
This also shows you're listening to their wants and needs. Helloooo brownie points.
STEP 5: STAY RELEVANT WITH SEGMENTATION
Once you've nailed your offer and your copy, the final piece of the puzzle is to make sure you're sending the right messages to the right people.
Your audience is likely burned out from constant sales messages. So to avoid being another voice screaming “buy my stuff”, you should aim to get as many of your emails as relevant as possible to the person reading them. How?
The magic of tech.
Now I don't want you to freak out - this technique is very simple but you can layer in complexity if you're a bit more experienced. I'm talking about segmenting your email list.
I'm going to talk about some basic segmentation ideas and also a couple of advanced tips. If you're more experienced, segmenting your audience into different categories can be a game changer for your sales results in a launch a funnel or just in general. And most email service providers make it so easy.
I love ConvertKit as it comes with so many functions. It's reliable, it's easy to use. And it's a really powerful tool that grows with you. They also have a free version. If you don't have an email tool that you already use to send mass business emails, I recommend checking it out.
The easiest way to segment your list is to add tags in your email service provider. I use tags to show the products and services that people have bought or downloaded, things that people have registered as interested in, waitlist participants, and so much more.
For one client, we even use them to separate out clients who are business owners versus employees. It just helps you understand more about what topics might interest specific people in your audience and why they joined your list in the first place. You can then send emails that seem relevant to people with a specific tag and exclude everyone else. This is so that those people don't get bombarded with every single email you're sending. And they don't get tired of seeing irrelevant content.
If they get irrelevant content regularly, that trains them to stop opening your emails. And then that's more people and more sales you've lost out on. I highly recommend giving this a try and just keeping it simple to start with.
Yes, it will feel like you have to create more emails, but you can be quite smart about this and tailor emails, tweak them very slightly from one segment to the next so that you are cutting down your workload.
If you're no stranger to segmenting your email list, you can also use it as an opportunity to track certain actions that your reader takes. This is where it gets a little more advanced... But honestly, this stuff is going to change the game for how you make sales from email.
Every time a reader takes a specific action in your audience you want to be tagging. So if they start viewing specific sales pages, say they view a sales page for one offer multiple times, you could probably tag them as interested in whatever offer it is. And some softwares even have an opportunity to score your audience. So you could give them a higher score if they're clearly clicking a lot of links in your emails.
That means that highly engaged and probably your next most likely people to buy. You can score your readers based on the number of specific actions they've taken. Think about what would make sense for your business. If you sell three different offers, and someone is clicking all three of your sales pages, the chances are they are desperate to work with you. And they're just looking for the right next step to take.
If someone is only clicking links for one of those offers, the chances are they're interested in that specific offer. And so you can follow up with specific targeted messages, maybe a specific discount or a limited time offer for them to take that next step with you.
Maybe they're just looking for a little nudge to push them in the direction of purchase.
Now, this isn't always the case, we don't want to go following up and spamming people but following your customers' behavior is a really smart way to understand their sales cycle and their sales pattern and also understand what they're interested in, so you can give them more of that.
Another advanced way to segment your list is with a quiz. A strategic quiz can divide your list into different personality types, stages of business, level of skill in your area of expertise, whatever you want.
This can help you create marketing messages, offers and content that's all relevant to every person who get a specific result. It's a lot of work to set it up and do it properly. But it's so effective. Everyone that gets a specific result, you can follow up with a certain email sequence and link them to specific offers that you're selling that seem relevant to where they're at in their business.
If you're an online business owner, coach or course creator who wants to increase sales in your next launch, but doing all of that yourself seems daunting, book a launch growth strategy session and I'll run through these strategies for you.
From helping you to optimize your offer to speaking to your customers and coming up with a plan to scale your next launch.
I’ve helped clients go from 5 to 6 figure launches using this exact method and I’ll give you an exact roadmap of steps to take to increase sales in your next launch. Get all the deets and book your spot here.