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Your Launch & Content Plan

There are multiple purposes of the launch. Obviously, you want to get your new product or service in front of the right people, and you want to sell it that's one purpose, but often entrepreneurs grow their email lists immensely with launches, and this can be really helpful in the future with launches as you move forward, because people often don't purchase the first time they see something or the first time they see your business, they need multiple touches. And so if you get those people on your list because they're excited about whatever you're launching, whether they buy from you, then or not, I can really help you in the future. Have you guys had experience where you've had a launch and you've gotten a lot more? Sign ups to your email newsletter? Tell us again where to find you online I'm at with a k writing dot com and kris with a k, and I really recently actually was doing a launch for a workshop that I was doing locally in new brunswick, canada, so fairly far away from here on ...

dh, I did the whole launch process that I learned about here on creative live taraji until his class, so I went through her whole launch process and it was really, really big. People were interacting with my block posted is doing and signing up for my list but people were signing up from far away and this is a launch for a workshop that I did in a tiny little town in a tiny little province in canada so and I was getting people from I mean, my my consulting clients are from all over the place and I had people from australia so yeah, but there's no way they could come to sack phil new brunswick you know, that's not gonna happen, but they're really they're really pumped about other stuff. So yeah it's totally true. Alright, you can also established herself as a leader an expert in your field by showing off your expertise. So this is within the content that you put out during our launch you can show people hand in my stuff you can often get lots of opportunities for that I have had people see my launch content and then ask me, can I interview you? Will you be a part of my online summit? Can I feature your business? Will you come and speak here so it can often help you become that expert that you want to be in your field you can grow and strengthen your connections with affiliates in creative entrepreneurs if they are a few of an affiliate program and they're making money from it, you're going to grow your connections with them they're going to be really excited and they're going to want to help you grow in the future and even other entrepreneurs if they see that you're putting out quality stuff, they're going to want to be friends and you should always set a goal to help people with their content no matter whether or not they purchase don't just care about the sale because it's obvious when you just care about the sale care about the fact that they're going to be lots of people who get this content and you want to help them question come in want to get your take on this, but I think some people are struggling with the word itself launch and kind of being overwhelmed by it, so we had a question come in that says doesn't necessarily have to be a launch. Is there something in there some merit and finishing something and soft launching it be a blog's be a guest post over a period of time as you're building a following and confidence rather than one sort of one day one big unveiled to the world kind of doing it over time? Is that something that can work for people? Sure, sure as you heard for my she started with a very small following and she just put it up on her block but she continued to write blawg posts about it she continued to email her list about her planners she continued to have them featured on other websites so you don't I have to do a big launch but the success of your product especially in the beginning is going to be much greater if you d'oh it's about your expectations too so if you're expecting to get a ton of sales you have to spread the word about your product so let's talk about your launch content plan and in going back to that question you can d'oh smaller launches like you don't have to have three videos on a separate page and people sign up and then you have all of these emails that go out and you have written ten block post doesn't have to be that it's just about figuring out how you want to spread the word about your product and it can be a little or big as you want it to be so keep that in mind don't let it overwhelm you a big part of her launch is all about your content don't worry about format right now instead or the house instead think about the type of content you want to share depending on the product that you've picked to work on what is the best content to get your audience primed to buy your product what do you think is going to get them excited to buy your product stage? What do you think people are going to get excited about for your product well, I have a system that I use with my one on one client that I can teach them how to get their very first sales when they don't have a list when they have no following, but even if they don't even have a block yet tell us more, oh, way, well, it's, like you say, um, the people who buy from you, like, two years from now, they already know, like and trust you when you're just starting out and you might not even have a website and you're just you don't have a list and you're so tiny, the quickest way to get seals is to go to the people who already know, like and trust you, your friends and family, other creative that you already partnering with or that you're friends with, um so I have a technique that has not failed for me yet and all the times that I've done it with my client, so all right, so, do you have any content examples in mind that you're thinking would work for the product that you're going to put out? Uh, yeah, templates that they can use templates that they can use perfect developing your content plan how digital products this's examples from my course right now. Okay, so how digital products work for other creative entrepreneurs that's one of the things that I talked about as a piece of content to get people excited and signed up in rsp peed for this course why you should sell digital products if you're a maker that's a big one makers think well is this for me or is this not for me so I wanted to include that in front of some of my launch content the importance of relationships and how they can help your business did any of you read the block post that I put up about the importance of relationships and why you should come and be in the studio audience here yeah I did that help you kind of pushed you over the edge to saying yes yeah that was one of the things that I thought about how can I get people really excited and relationships really are important they make a big difference you talk about the connections that people already have and how those people can help you I definitely wouldn't be where I am today if other people weren't helping me along the way so these are all things that I did these were all content ideas that I used to get people to r s v p for this course in particular the separate block post that you wrote as a way to tie into the content that you are including in a product that year launching yes. Ok. Yeah. So to get people primed for that product so I want to get people excited about this course, right? So one of the things I'm going to talk about is how digital products work for creative entrepreneurs and how they can work for makers. Those are things that are going to get people excited and wanting to r s v p for this course all of that kind of stuff. So you want to think about what it's going to get people prime to purchase or to do what you want to dio I wanted people to r s v p so that they would be watching the course, right? So that's the goal in mind when I am putting together this content plan. So what is your goal? And then what's going to help you get closer to that goal? So we talked about their other goals four launches as well. So maybe one of your goals is to grow your email list, maybe it's to make connections with other people within your niche. There are lots of goals, so you have to choose what are my goals and how is my content going to help me get there? I also had a blogger tour that some of you guys were a part of. I asked my audience is to help me spread the word about this course and a lot of amazing, generous, thoughtful, creative, yes, I will help you, and they brought, they wrote block post that primed people for this course. They talked about how digital products work for them. They talked about the questions that they have when it comes to selling digital products, they talked about their best selling digital products, all kinds of different topics, and so when their audiences read those block posts, it would get them excited to check out this course because it primed them for that particular topic. So that's, how I got how digital products work for other creative entrepreneurs if you guys read charlie's post from the female photographer's association, where she talked about how she was able to put the down payment on her house through an e book that she launched that's going to get people excited and wanting to take a course in digital products, right, let me give you guys another example. This is a content plan for a line of knitting patterns, so let's, say that's, what you're putting out you're content might be a tutorial of the knit and purl stitches, so either pictures or videos, tutorials to show how you can cast on three different ways tips on reading and following knitting patterns that's going to help people say yes easier because they're going to know how to read your pattern and it shows people that they can trust you as a knitting teacher so that content primes them to buy, because now they trust you, they've seen your tutorials, they can follow your advice, it works when they try it, and then they're going to want to buy your patterns when you launch them. Here is another example, and this is for somebody who sells wordpress themes and let's, say she's put together a bunch of bored press means that she wants to launch howto install theme under wordpress site how to update your wordpress website tips on choosing the right theme for your website tips on creating a successful blawg reasons for buying a theme versus hiring a designer so she could use all of these different types of content in in different ways. They don't all have to be blogged posts. They can be facebook updates they can turn into somehow on instagram update. You can break them up into really short tips and put them on twitter, so doesn't necessarily all have to be blocked posts were going to be thinking about block posts and email newsletters and social media, but you don't have to think about that just yet. First you want to think about what are the tapes of content, one of the topics all of these things would help prime you to buy a website thing. And here's another example for painting course so types of content supplies you would need to take the course example of past students paintings best experience level for the course so people are gonna want to know is this for beginners? Is this for people who already have some skills in painting? Is this for people who are pretty much experts or on that level the pros of taking an online painting course versus an in person course that's something that could be turned into some type of content that would help people get ready to buy this painting course so let's develop your content plan this content should show your target market that you get them should build trust that you know what you're talking about and can deliver what you say you will for each piece of piece of content consider these things does it entertain fascinate? Does it educate doesn't inspire and motivate doesn't empower if it does all of those it's going to connect with your target market immensely if it does at least some of those you are doing really good and I whenever I'm about to put out a piece of content I really think about these things is there is that entertaining is my personality in it does it educate people, doesn't inspire and motivate them and doesn't empower them because one of my big things is I want to empower creative entrepreneurs to build successful businesses use the content to move your readers and followers towards buying think about promotional content that adds value in some way remember to create content for your target market, not your peers. The big issue that I have found with especially service based businesses is that they end up creating launch content that connects to their peers and not their target market, and my tip is to give away your best stuff, and this is a picture of while obviously a teabag, but of one of the mice playing torpedoes as well, give away your best stuff. If you're free stuff isn't good, why would your target market pay for more people always ask me, but if I give away my best stuff for free, then then are people going to buy for me? Yes, because they're gonna love your free content so much that they're going to buy it shows that you know what you're doing, and an example of this is that mice free worksheets. They're adorable. The recipes that she's been sharing on her blog's as well. Because she's about to launch a cookbook, they're beautiful, the pictures are beautiful, the recipes are really fun, and she includes really entertaining, inspiring fun stories with, um so you're gonna wanna buy her cookbook even though she's given away a ton of recipes for free so let's develop your content plan brainstorm a list of ideas jot down any and everything so you've got a lot to choose from don't let your inner critic bad mouth an idea at this stage just like when you were brain storming a list of products don't let your inner critic say, oh that's not the best idea you can always delete things it's better to have more to choose from them less and you want both big and small ideas, so not every piece of content again has to be something huge. It can be a tweet khun b one hundred forty characters if you were stumped, think of the top five questions your target market will have about your product and start there. So when I was giving the examples from the painting course that target market would want, would the questions would be? Who is this for? What level of experience? What what materials will I need beforehand to take this course? Why should I take an online course as opposed to an in person? Of course they're gonna be asking all of those questions right? So turning those questions into pieces of content, then add the five biggest objections and how you could counter them so often I think about how are people going on just object to this and what kind of content I can create that's going teo help them move past that what will help your customer make an informed decision? Because, again, we're not trying to trick anybody. We want them to make the best decision. We're trying to attract the right customers, and I will show you how I did this for marketing. For creative. These are the top pipe questions and how I created content around them. Question. How is this different from other books on marketing, the content to tell how my book is different than similar products. Books, right? It's, not anything that is out out of the box, but it's going to help people decide whether or not that's the right thing for them. And one of the ways I did that it was by telling people that I made it specifically for makers and artists that it's for product, these businesses, makers and artists, that if you want to buy it as a service based business entre pure, you totally can but know that it was written for these people. Is this book right for me? Content idea let people know that I wrote this specifically for creative entrepreneurs, artists and makers. So they know is this right for me? Or is this not it's very easy for people to be able to say yes or no question, what topics do you cover? Content detail topics covered in book pretty easy right will this really help me the content who it will who will truly benefit from it and what you have to do to succeed so I tell people that you can't just read this and by osmosis your businesses going teo improve and that you have to do the work that my stuff is not about getting rich overnight it's about doing the work and putting in the time and you will get there do I really need to learn about marketing and spend so much time on it content the importance of marketing and how it improves to create a business and when I put out the block post on the importance of marketing and how it improves the creative business at a huge spike in sales I knew that people were wondering because I've been asked multiple times so I really need to spend that much time on marketing and isn't really important to my business I really have to do it so when I wrote that block post on how it helps your business huge spike in sales you guys have a list of ideas you want to share some of your ideas the viewers you guys can share some ideas in the chat room anybody want to share jennifer you're looking at me I'm gonna call on you having eye contact no I a couple of things that I came up with one is a road map to create a course a lot of people have ideas but they're not sure exactly how the process works but if they just had maybe a step by step overview of the entire process that would really help them clarify some things on and get an understanding of the moving pieces that they need to create a course and let me ask you something about that so since that's the overview would you say if you want more detail you can sign up and get this product yes exactly and I was actually thinking about doing that as a multiple blawg post siri's you know where I talk about all the steps and each of those block post event all that leading tio by the product so I had one person ask about sample student courses so I put that down as what will help your customers make an informed decision and someone actually told me that if they had sample courses that the students would take taking my class if they had seen it on my page that wouldn't help them better buy the product and so I like the idea of heavy maybe a before and after or spotlighting you know, student courses just because I think that helps you know the person looking at but it also shows like hey that khun b me too o r I want to do a travel course this person has done a travel course or I've done a course on self improvement and self care I mean that's the same idea that I have so it really kind of puts them in their shoes when I see it on the page from somebody else yes, yeah way have anybody sharing online yet? Chris couple coming in here see, eh? Bien says first, I really liked the idea of how this subject will improve my business that's a very good way to show the value of what you're selling and validating why the product exists. Then they say that I'd like to do a series of top ten things to ask when you're looking for a web designer and arisa says, I'm thinking about storytelling either the story of how the product came to be or a situation where I needed that particular product love it all right and you will keep coming up with these ideas as you move forward and as people ask you questions when you get a question, think of that as a way that you could use that for content because for every person who asks you something, there are many others who haven't asked but have the same question. So now it's categorized some of your content and this is in your workbook on page forty four you should have a pile of ideas at this point hopefully and you will keep adding to it, so if it's not as large as you would like don't worry as you move forward, you will figure out more and more ideas start to categorize them based on the format and platform. So where would they work best? Is it gonna work best as a written block post? Is it gonna work best for a long video for a landing page? Is it gonna work best for youtube tutorial videos? Is it gonna work best for short video for instagram? Or maybe as a facebook update or a really short tweet or a pin on pinterest, an email newsletter update freebies, giveaways what is it gonna work best for for each one that you've got right down and you can say it might work best for this or this and then choose when you're really getting closer and as you create the product, you were going to come up with more ideas as well. So you've got this product idea in mind right now, but if it's not created as you create it, you're going to come up with a lot more ideas for this stuff. This is just the beginning. Yes, on sometimes okay, for example, with prince, you may have already given away some or many, and then is there any way of segueing into charging for that needs to be considered? Do people kind of? Is that an issue? Sometimes where it's like, wait your stuff was free what's what's going on or have so there are two ways to look at this I know people who give away some of the stuff that they create like prince for free and also sell them and it works and then there are people who let's say they sell prince an example is ashley from principal wisdom she sells prints so she doesn't give that as a freebie or give away on her block instead she makes the desktop wallpaper and she gives that away each month she doesn't a new one each month and gives that away and then people who see that I love her work and then they want prints for their house and end up buying from her so there are ways to kind of make it a little bit different like maybe if you do prince you could give away a free card where you could turn some things into bookmarks or gift tags things that you don't necessarily cell so there's no competition all right? We're going to do a hot seat here where somebody comes up, you can tell me some of the ideas that you have and how you're going to categorise them who wants to come up with me? I have no idea but I'm gonna be break so tell us where we can find you at sarah shots dot com and I blogged at a love letter to adventure and my product is a planner where you make time for adventure in your life because if something is in my planner, I never do it, so I wanted to make it for myself. It was similar to what my was saying about her planner, and then I was talking to another friend, and she is that she was interested, so I was like, maybe other people will be too. So one of my ideas was a block post of many adventure props like not many, but many, many little one, yeah, yeah, but it doesn't have to be big, huge like travel europe, it could be taking a different road or trying to new food or something like that. I like it, okay? And you could also use some of those into making them into social media something so you could take a picture and put the tip on top of the picture and text have that on pinterest, then lead it back to your sales page. You could use one of those tips and break it down really into something short and put it on twitter, and then you could also pick some out and put them on facebook and you can lead back to that block post with all of those different tips so that you have aa lot of content that comes out of this one particular idea. I love it yeah awesome do we have anything else? Let me look at my other page um and then because it's a printable planner the benefits of a printed planner versus one that's in your phone that would be another blood post yeah, I like that I like that and then you could also do something where you're sharing some sample pages from them sometimes for I don't think it's direct competition I actually think it helps because people end up loving it and then they want the whole thing you could give away one of the pages for free and then people who are the right people they're going to love it and want teo purchase and then sharing some sample pages that can be content there are lots of ideas for in venture player why it's important for you to make time for adventure the benefits yeah venture the benefits of it that would be a great yeah come on up here okay, honey okay you guys all need to know that sarah is an adventurer's she's really, really awesome and she has and she showed us last night we were talking about this right? Dad was there too. We were talking about how cool it was and how none of us really do the adventurer stuff that we need to do unless it's written in there but sarah puts them together and she says them like binds them really in a special go away and stuff so you could totally do how to make your planner look beautiful thing and make it into you know what I mean? The crafty thing and like how to use queer talk make gold stars like how to use gold stars teo give you had a gold star adventure today and like that whole said, yeah, crafty e oh my gosh, I love when you guys help each other ever I love that that's a great idea because somebody is telling you this is awesome and that they would love it. So and your website is really beautiful, by the way, yeah, let everybody know where to find you again, sarah shots dot com yeah, go there and look at herself. Thank you. Now let's, talk a little bit about launch systems and this is page forty five. What systems can you put in place to make your launch run more smoothly? This will help you. If you can think of these things now, do you need a higher a virtual assistant or someone to help with customer service, especially if you think you are going to get a lot of orders? You may need somebody not necessarily to do the main things of customer service, but just to answer some of those questions that you don't need to be the person to answer if you're getting a ton of them do you need your web designer on call in case your site crashes or technical issue pops up if you have a course with lots of running pieces you probably need somebody who is going to be able to help you fix something if something comes up have you tested your product going through each step to see what your customers will see and experience you want to go through the process from clicking on the buy button teo purchasing to seeing every step what happens next what screen did they see next have you made a welcome screen forget to do that part when you get it what does the receipt look like? What does what do all of the pieces look like what's the experience have you had a couple of friends or fans test your product buying it receiving in using it so maybe you might not pick up on something that they would so what you khun dio before you put it on your website is you can make it a really low price like twenty five cents and ask three friends to go through the process and let you know what happens before you put it up on your website for sale then you bump up that price to what the price should actually be so that they can go through the process and give you some feedback is your shopping cart system set up to do everything automatically really manually sending everyone your product will click quickly become a pain and that you know what right? Have any of you guys launch and have system set up that have helped you in the past? Sage you have yeah, I have it set up to send them whatever it is right away so I don't have to do it manually. Yes, we want that I've had have worked with so many people who have to send it themselves and it just it makes you kind of not get excited when you see a sale as opposed to when everything is happening seamlessly you get excited every time you see a new sail come in because it's already done I know some people mentioned e junkie I used to use a junkie, but I like the interface much better with gum road and they have more options to just nice. I could do all kinds of fun. Discount codes and pictures are nicer customizing the color of the buttons. It's just the interface is a lot nicer with gum road. Is the price similar? Uh, yeah, I believe in paying five dollars a month for gum road it's really cheap? Okay, gum road I haven't heard of that that's a great resource thank you for sharing that you guys when you have resource is, let me know because people want to know the importance of feedback reach out to a handful of people in your target market and asked them to review your product and give you feedback in exchange for receiving your product for free you get great advice on updates and changes you should make before the product goes public and you can collect testimonials it's a win win they get something awesome early for free and then you get feedback on it didn't look quite right this isn't working in my browser whatever is going on you can get that kind of feedback and we'll talk about some other launch basics you want to build anticipation so before the launch actually happens you want to build anticipation you don't want to just start when you're launching you want to start talking about it way before that yeah I have a question concerning building anticipation so I know some businesses take the root of spoilers or teasers for it without giving information or do you recommend being more just upfront as you mentioned would like the free content is there way that works better than others? I think it's what works best for your brand? What works best for your brand in your business some people has that mystique like that's a part of their business and so that works really well and I've done both I think that they they both work it just depends on the product and what you want from it you just want to build curiosity and anticipation so that when you get to that launch date people already thinking about it because again most people don't buy with the first touch and so if you've already been talking about it, they're primed set monetary goals in other roles such as getting a thousand new email subscribers or whatever it is that you want to achieve from your launch I always set goals and the really weird part about it is when I set a goal not always but almost always I would say ninety percent of the time it hits like right at the goal that I've said it's really strange that you found the same thing to happen isn't that weird? You gotta set higher goals he always so yeah when I was setting up this block tour for the course, my goal was to have fifty post I thought that would be amazing like I would be great with anything with twenty post that would make me happy but fifty posts was my goal and there were fifty five posts for the box or weird how that happens and often if I'll say I want a hundred customers for this course, I'll get like ninety eight or one hundred ten or one hundred fifteen it's one of the reasons is you work to get that much you know what your goal is and you kind of know intuitively that you gotta do the work in order to get there, but I don't know what it is about that it's just so strange that that happens for me all the time personal thank you emails so this is an extra step that you can take to go above and beyond and especially for repeat customers or even if it's something where you just send personal thank you emails to the first ten people who purchase whatever it is landing page a landing page ana would say that prompts a specific action or result that's what the landing page is so this is only any page for connecting the gaps if you were to go to connecting the ops dot com this is what you would see there's nothing else there and landing page is set up so that you have you want somebody to do something specific when they get there, I want them to put in their name and their email and they're super power ray they can watch the video they can also tweet about it or email us, but you can't do anything else on that page. You can watch the video and you can input your name and email most sales pages or landing pages and they're often used to collect emails you can also set up landing pages for other things like let's say you put together a pdf workbook that you're giving away for free put it on the landing page have people give you their name and email for that workbook and then you are building your list in the process one major difference is that landing pages don't look like the website they have enough they don't have a navigation bar or sidebar and so people can't get distracted they have to do whatever's on the landing page or leave and you don't want any distractions on the landing page because you want them to do something in particular so if there's any time that you want somebody to do something, I suggest putting it on the landing page so that there's no other shiny buttons to get distracted by. Do you think it's understood that if you have to give your email teo get the product that you are now on the persons list and by putting that in you have agreed to that? I think people understand that, but I I usually say I usually have something that says and you'll receive weekly updates I usually put something like that, but most people nowadays know that they're going teo get your updates but it's nice to give them the heads up so that they know and they're expecting it and they know that not just that e mails coming and you can put it also when they get the workbook and they're so excited about your workbook you khun send them an email saying and not only that, but you're going to get so much other great things for me, and you could get weekly updates or if you're not interested, you can unsubscribe below give them the option to get out if they're not, you're right person, you don't want people on your list, you don't really want to be on your left, so I like to get I like to tell people what they're getting, and then also give them away to unsubscribe. If you are subscribed to my list, you'll see every once in a while I'll put something of bottom saying, hey, if this is no longer your saying, you can unsubscribe easily below, and I do that because I don't want people on my list who don't want to be there. And like I mentioned before, I used premise buy copy blogger too easily set up my landing pages and the other resource wass somebody gave another resource lead pages, keep in mind that for most launches, the majority of sales will come at the end of the launch. Within the last day or two, I've worked with so many creatives who panic because they start their lodge and they get they get some sales in the beginning, but not close to anything what they were hoping, and they trickle in during the middle. The last day or two that's when they're all going to come in if you are launching something that has a specific in date in mind so if you're launching of course and register oration ends at a specific time the majority of your sales are going to come in at the end do not freak out they're launching something that's a product people I would keep mentioning it because the more times they see the product the more often that they are going to be well people forget about things first of all and they're going to be more likely to buy it once they see it a few times so don't freak out when you have a product that doesn't have ended how do you create urgency for them to buy? You let them know why they need to buy now so what's it going to do for them that it's going to help them? Why should they buy it then right? How is it helping them with the value that they're going to get? How is it going to let's say change their life and you wanna have that happen today, right? So by now so progress today like letting them know that you don't want to procrastinate on this because you get this result on this we were talking about having your launch goals and being successful are failing and honey had a question here asking about what do you think about only setting goals that you can control? You can't control how much you will sell, but you can control the actions that you take any thoughts I'm doing that when you're creating your goals yeah, I like to create goals, alec to create goals based on what I want to happen and often that means how many sales I'm going to get and yes, I can't control it, but I can do things to get me closer to that, so if I know I want to have a thousand sales of something, I know I have to work really hard I'm probably gonna have to do interviews and set up interviews prior to launching it I'm going to need to do guess post I'm going to need to block about it I'm going to need to update lots of social media channels there was a lot that's going to go into it whereas if I have a goal of okay I'm just starting out and that many sales would be overwhelming so twenty sales would be great. I could probably do a couple of block posts, update social media little bit and send out an email newsletter so I know that that's going to get me closer to that twenty people, but if I know that I want a bigger I want more sales, I know that I have to do more work and again the goals that I said often tend. Teo. I would say ninety percent of the time that's where I hit things, even though I'm not in control of it. And part of it is knowing what I want and doing the work for it.