HSH 027: Unpacking Our $66,000 Launch
In this episode, we thought it would be fun to unpack our recent launch, by going back and looking at EVERYTHING – what worked, what didn’t work and specific tips and tools that can help you succeed.
Although the goal for our most recent launch around 5-figure challenges was $100,000, we fell a little short and generated about $66,000. $10,000 of this was from beta testers, and the remaining $55,000 or so was from the launch itself; including $10,000 from people on the “Early Bird” list).
There were two price points for this launch, a $497 “Do-It-Yourself” option or $997 “VIP” program. Payment options were available for both, and at the end of the launch, approximately 60% of cash was in hand.
Expenses amounted to about $9,000, including $5,700 in Facebook ads, $2,600 in management of the ads and $1,000 in miscellaneous items such as designers.
The expense-to-revenue ratio was about 6X, meaning we got $6 in revenue for every dollar spent.
The early bird list was built through Facebook ads, posting in our group and an email that was sent out a week before the launch, offering those people a 10% discount. The results were strong, amounting in $10,000 of total revenue.
It’s ok to start where you are with your launch. We’re several launches in and didn’t hire a team and designer when first launching products. It takes time to perfect processes.
The first big mistake of the launch happened when we front-loaded the first of four webinars. 15,000 people registered, but it hadn’t been tested to the public yet and it didn’t convert, with only one sale coming directly from it.
When asking why the webinar didn’t work, a lot of people who watched were confused by our systems and the webinar itself didn’t have time to go in-depth to answer the specific questions.
As well, some of the pieces just didn’t flow. We ended up simplifying the presentation for the following webinars, as well as changing our follow-up series to address the concerns. These activities resulted in higher conversions.
Also, a 15-minute video was created to show how simple 5-day challenges are, and we added a fast-acting bonus offering a live list-building workshop.
The webinar that was planned for July 23rd was cancelled due to a high lead cost of $6 to $7 each. People who had signed up were sent a free replay and we adjusted our follow-up sequences accordingly. As you grow and scale your businesses, your failures get really profitable!
One of the best ways to figure out what your launch and promotion is worth is to calculate your Earnings Per Lead (EPL).
Pre-launch content (email, Facebook posts, podcasts, blog posts and case studies) worked extremely well. For example, several hundred dollars were spent running traffic directly to the podcasts centered around the challenge content). Emails started arriving from people that wanted to buy the program before it was even available.
The upsells offered didn’t work, and it was realized that the upsells were not great and that a lot of the content of the course included content that would have worked well as upsells. Next time, the Facebook group will be monitored to see what people are struggling with, as a way to determine what the upsells will be.
Even if you’re good at things, you can still have someone else do them. My Facebook Ads Manager made life a breeze during this launch, as well as providing hard data so we could analyze risk and reward.
Zopim Live Chat Software and Instapage (landing page platform) were both inexpensive, valuable tools that were used effectively in this launch.
By sending out a post-launch email titled “Do you hate me?”, massive responses were evoked as to why people didn’t buy the program.
Based on the responses, alternate offers were given and this generated an additional $3,600. In addition to getting the information and revenue, real connections were built with the audience, which is something that you cannot scale or automate with Facebook ads.
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