HSH 138: Planning Out a Successful Digital Course Launch
Today’s Episode:
In this episode, I am talking about how to plan a successful digital course launch so that you can launch with confidence, get your product out there, and create the impact that you want. If you have been thinking about launching a digital course, program, or offer this episode is for you.
Planning is going to be really important in the coming year. We have so many things that are unexpected come up in life, the world, and the economy and we can’t control those things. What we can control is what we plan to do. In this episode, I am going to walk you through my process for creating a successful launch plan. We are going to cover how to create a launch calendar, how to prime your audience for your offer, refining your sales vehicle, and the actual launch itself.
Show Notes:
[01:29] If you take the time to plan out your launch, you are hands down going to get better results. You are going to reach more people and get better sign-ups for your course just by the act of planning.
[02:31] A launch calendar starts with your pre-launch plan. You should be pre-launching before you ever launch to your audience. Pre-launch includes building, engaging, and converting your existing and new audience.
[03:15] Zach uses a printed calendar and he actually maps out what is going to happen several weeks before his launch and then his launch week.
[04:56] If you have a map of everything that needs to happen weeks in advance you can create the content you need long before that content needs to go out.
[05:17] He also maps out his cart open including ads he is running and emails he is sending.
[06:11] You need to be planning your launches 60-90 days in advance and 30 days as a minimum. Your plan needs to include three parts: pre-launch, launch week, and cart open. Then you can break it down into actual tasks in your calendar to actually know what you need to do.
[07:37] Before you launch, you want to be building your audience and engaging your audience. You want to keep people engaged until the launch actually happens.
[07:49] You want to convert your audience onto your email list, webinar, or challenge.
[08:32] During the build phase, you should ask yourself how can I reach new people and amplify that with advertising.
[10:49] There is power in moving your ecosystem over to your email list.
[11:39] Ads are an investment in growing your audience so that your ad costs are lower when you go into launch time and your conversion rates are higher. When you take the time to spend ad money on engaging, building, and converting your audience before the launch happens, you are taking time and money to increase the conversion rate of your launch and decrease the cost per lead in a launch.
[13:18] The second piece of your launch is the launch week or lead generation week. Plan everything out from the place of a new customer.
[14:01] He recommends planning out your sales page before you plan anything else out. This requires you to have everything dialed in including the problem, offer, and the checkout system.
[14:38] Writing the sales page first made it so much easier to write the emails, come up with the webinar topic, and check out systems.
[15:37] You want to get crystal clear on what you are promoting, how you are promoting it, and the process. Then walk through the process as a potential customer.
[16:18] Then you start generating leads to your webinar with email marketing, Facebook advertising, organic posting on social media, and podcast promotion.
[17:32] When somebody registers for your webinar, take a piece of social media content and run it as an ad to them just to stay top of mind for a week.
[19:22] You have to slow down to speed up. You have to slow down to create massive action and create that forward momentum.
[20:01] If you have a clear plan, goals, metrics, and timelines you know exactly how things are going.
[22:01] Zach highly recommends doing a debrief or an evaluation one or two weeks after the launch.
[24:14] Save your seat for Zach’s upcoming webinar on Creating Your 90 Day Profitable Course Launch Plan here.
