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BLOG SMARTER DASHBOARD :: COMMUNITY

When it comes to launching a digital product online, you have endless options available to you for how to accomplish that. That can lead to decision overload and overwhelm, which means many bloggers get stuck in the planning phase and never end up launching their product. If you can relate, use this proven product launch framework to plan your next launch — from light bulb moment to close cart.

But first, a warning: A product launch involves a lot of steps. For the best results and to avoid becoming overwhelmed, what helps is to make one master list of all the tasks related to your launch so that you can prioritize what’s most important and focus on one task at a time.

Step 1: Listen-Plan-Deliver

Before you launch a product, you need to follow the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle we covered in Module 6. This is a prerequisite to doing any sort of launch — even of an existing product.

For a new product, the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle will make sure the product you create is something your target market actually wants and needs.

For an existing product, going back to the “Listen” step and following the whole cycle will help you improve your product and your marketing so that you’re getting the most results from that product. This is where you’ll get ideas for tweaking your sales copy and even the product itself, which will help you improve your overall sales conversion rate.

Step 2: Map Out Your Launch Content

For every launch, you’ll need to create several pieces of content to let your target market know about the solution you have that will help them. You don’t have to write all the content up-front, but it does help to map out everything you’ll need to create ahead of time.

Here are a few of the most common pieces you’ll need to launch a product:

• Sales landing page (see the bonus Copypicking Workshop for guidance on what to include)
• Pre-launch content to get your list ready and excited (see the Step 3 section below)
• Sales emails to send during open cart (see the Step 4 section below)
• Follow-up emails to send after close cart — to customers so you can reinforce the good decision they made, and to non-buyers (see the Step 6 section below for more about non-buyers)
• (Optional) Any bonuses you’ll include with your product to drive sales (see the next section)

Optional: How to Plan the Best Bonuses

While bonuses certainly aren’t required for your launch, they are an excellent way to increase the perceived value of your product.

Bonuses work best when they accomplish one of two goals:

• Before: Solve a problem that’s preventing your target market from being able to use the product you’re selling
• After: Solve a problem that might crop up after your target market consumes the product you’re selling

For example, the bonus you’re consuming now is an “after” bonus because it addresses a problem that crops up after you’ve gone through the Blog Smarter program. An example of a “before” bonus for the Blog Smarter program could be a time management mini-course because if a blogger can’t free up time to focus on this program, they won’t be able to consume the program in the first place.

To create a bonus, follow the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle. To save time, keep an eye out for existing content you already created on your site or in previous emails that you can repurpose into a bonus.

Step 3: Get Your List Ready + Excited

You might have heard this phase of a product launch referred to as the “prelaunch” phase. During this phase, your goal is to warm up your subscribers in order to get them ready and excited to say “yes” to your product when you finally do send that first sales email.

To do that, you’ll create content that fulfills your Brand Promise and meets the other criteria for strong on-brand content. Because this content will be on-brand, you’ll boost your authority and credibility with your subscribers, right before you ask them to buy from you. And by helping your subscribers with a problem they have, you’ll be engaging The Rule of Reciprocation right before you ask them to buy from you. All good things!

The most common way to deliver prelaunch content is through a series of emails to your list. That works well because you’re not forcing your subscribers to take the extra step of going anywhere else to consume the content. However, you can deliver this content through other formats, such as a pre-recorded video, a live event like a webinar, or even a series of blog posts. The video format in particular is excellent for building relationships with your subscribers and capitalizing on the know-like-trust factor. You can also engage with your target market through social media, but remember that if they haven’t signed up for your list, they may not be in your target market. So social media should always be second priority after engaging with your list during this phase.

Ideally, your prelaunch content should give your readers a tiny taste of the ultimate transformation your product will deliver. Be careful of not delivering too big of a taste because if readers don’t consume the free prelaunch content, that won’t help you anyway. Your prelaunch content is in some ways similar to a Tiny Taste lead magnet because it needs to be specific, simple, speedy, and valuable.

Then near the end of your prelaunch phase, hint at a special announcement that’s coming soon. But be brief so your prelaunch emails don’t start sounding like sales emails and scaring the lizard brain. Focus on fulfilling your Brand Promise above all.

How to Map Out Your Prelaunch Content

Below, you’ll find a few questions to help you brainstorm prelaunch content that will build your authority, earn credibility, and nurture your relationships with your subscribers.

To be clear, you don’t have to address all these questions in your prelaunch content, but it’s helpful to at least think through the answers to all of them so you can uncover the best prelaunch content ideas.

• What’s a quick win you can give the reader right now so she can get a tiny taste of the transformation she desires? For this, you could even include a lead magnet that you know not all your subscribers have yet.
• Does the reader need a mindset shift before she’ll be ready to use this product? How can you shift her mindset?
• Does the reader have a self-limiting belief that might be standing in her way of feeling confident your product will work for her? How can you address that head-on?
• What misconceptions might the reader have about this problem and how to solve it? How can you clear those up?
• What’s a common suggestion or solution some people suggest for this problem that would actually lead the reader astray or lead her to fail at solving the problem? How can you call that out and address the limitations of that alternative solution? This is a great way to queue up your own solution as the best solution for when open cart rolls around!
• What mistakes do people usually make when trying to solve this problem, or when trying to cope with how the problem shows up in their life? How can you point that out and show them a better way?
• Can you share a success story of a reader or customer doing whatever it is you’re suggesting the reader do, such as applying the quick win you’re sharing? Show how the reader’s life will change as a result of applying that quick win.
• What objections or hesitations might the reader have about your product and whether it will work for her? How can you speak to those?
• How does your product compare with other similar products that solve the same problem? You don’t need to list these differences explicitly, but you can start laying the groundwork now for what sets your product apart from the competition.

Step 4: Open Cart

Now comes the fun part! This is the phase where you explicitly ask your subscribers to purchase your product. Because you already did the work of getting your list ready and excited for your product, now you can focus on driving the action you want: motivating subscribers to click over to your sales page so that the sales page can drive sales.

Typically, you’ll send a series of sales emails during this phase. For example, if you want to keep the cart open for five days, you might send one email every day for five days with one extra email reminder on the last day of open cart before the deadline.

Speaking of the deadline — during this phase, you’ll want to create urgency in some way to compel your target market to buy your product now rather than later. You can do this in a few different ways:

• Add bonuses available only during this promotional period. This creates urgency to act now because the bonuses will disappear after the promotion.
• Stop accepting orders when the promotional period ends. This isn’t the perfect fit for every product, but it’s an excellent way to create urgency because when you close the cart, customers cannot get the product any more until the next time you open cart.
• Raise the price when the promotional period ends. In effect, this means you make your product available at a discount during your launch. This is the weakest of the urgency strategies as far as motivating customers to purchase, and it also decreases the perceived overall value of your product in the customer’s eyes. So it’s best to use this option only if the others aren’t possible.

What to Include in Sales Emails

Inside every sales email, you’ll need to first connect with the reader on an emotional level so that your email resonates with her and what she’s struggling with. Only after you’ve done that can you position your product as the next most logical step for a person like her to take. And then finally, you need a Call to Action to drive her to the sales page. Typically, you’ll have multiple of those same Calls to Action within an individual sales email, worded or formatted a little differently each time so they don’t look repetitive.

Every sales email must accomplish those three goals. But beyond that, here are some other powerful elements to include in your sales emails. Feel free to pick and choose different elements to include in different emails so that each email is unique and you can listen for which elements seem to resonate most with your readers.

• Case studies or stories from customers
• Frequently asked questions to address objections and common misconceptions — it works well to devote one sales email during the launch to the FAQ
• A list of everything they get when they say “yes” including bonuses — for example, instead of saying you’ll just get an “e-book,” does that e-book also include templates, worksheets, or a quick start guide? Call those out explicitly
• A peek inside the product to show them what it will look like after they say “yes”
• Reminders about deadlines to create urgency — Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is real!
• If you have certain bonuses available only during an “early bird” period of the first day or two of the launch, remind readers before those bonuses are set to disappear
• An explanation of who this product is for and who it is NOT for
• What makes your product different from other similar products or solutions for this problem

Step 5: Close Cart

On the day of your deadline, you’ll want to send at least one reminder to create urgency to act now. Because of the psychological effect that deadlines have on human behavior, you’ll likely see a large percentage of your orders come through on this last day.

To be clear, these last emails must still meet the same three goals for your other sales emails — resonate with the reader, position your product as the next most logical step for the reader, and include a Call to Action to head over to the sales page. But in these last close cart emails, you’ll be relying more heavily on urgency to drive the reader to take action so that she doesn’t miss out.

Step 6: Listen to the Non-Buyers

The last step of the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle is to go back to the “Listen” step again and listen to your customers. But you’ll also gain valuable insight if you listen to the people who clicked over to your sales page but did NOT buy. You can send a quick survey to the non-buyers, or you can simply send an email and ask them to reply to that. However you decide to reach out, try to keep your tone light and curious because you would never want to come across as accusatory.

When you listen to their replies, keep in mind that money and time are common objections you’ll hear. But those are typically excuses masking the real reason, so you’ll need to read between the lines to uncover the deeper level of objections that kept your readers from buying.

Later: Fine-Tune, Then Automate

Remember the example of the car manufacturer rushing the new design to full production? Even if you’ve finished your launch, it’s likely still too early to automate your launch process, such as through an ongoing email series that pitches your product in an evergreen way.

Because through the normal and healthy process of listening to your target market after you share that product with them, you might discover tweaks you need to make to the product so that it helps them more deeply, and you’ll also discover improvements you need to make to your marketing materials to call out directly to the people who need that product. You might even discover that the product as you originally created it isn’t exactly what people need, so in that case you’ll need to go back to the drawing board and try again.

For these reasons, creating an automated marketing funnel too early can end up being a waste of time.

Instead, circle back to the “Listen” step of the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle for both your customers and your non-buyers, then fine-tune your product and marketing until you’re confident it’s connecting well with your target market and has a healthy sales conversion rate. Then you can use your successful launch emails as a blueprint for an automated email series to pitch the product in an ongoing way. Or as another example, after you fine-tune your product and marketing, that’s a good point at which to recruit affiliates who can sell your product to their audiences.

Steps to success…