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0:00
- Tough love coffee mug toast that no one really cares about your launch unless you give them a reason to. And good news, 'cause that's exactly what I wanna show you how to do in this video. So first step, I'm gonna show you my overall launch workflow strategy and yeah, there's no one right way to launch. But over the years, I've hacked a system of five big pieces and mechanisms that you need to have into your marketing promo campaign, 'cause that's essentially what a launch is,
0:23
it's just a fancy word, and you could flex and change these for your creative small business. After we've talked about these five foundational things, we're gonna zoom in on pieces three through five. Specifically, I'm gonna show you how you can plot out your Instagram content calendar, as you are going through a pre-launch phase and leading into a big sales push in your business. I want you to pull people into that launch copy, sales copy funnel that you've worked so hard to create.
0:47
We need to actually get people to read that. So that's what we're gonna talk about here. Then I'm gonna give you five different ideas and ways that you could build buzz, whether this is your first launch of a product or the 10th time you've talked it up on the internet. I think these ideas will get your wheels turning on some new ways that you could be creative. And finally, I'm gonna take you through some small tasks and to-dos that I did the week before, I'm heading into a big launch period
1:09
or a campaign in my business to ensure I don't throw things at my husband or go crazy or just not sleep. 'Cause it can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be. Hit that like button or comment below, heck yes, if you're ready to go with this complete tutorial and let's dig in. Hey there, if we haven't met yet, my name is Ashlyn Carter. I've helped thousands of creators and creative entrepreneurs like you as a conversion copywriter and launch strategist.
1:32
Because not knowing what to say should not be the thing that's holding you back from making sales, click Like if you agree. Okay, first step I'm gonna share a few ideas on crafting your plan and your offer. So number one, you need a defined offer and a plan. That's step one of the launch workflow. That offer has got to be irresistible. And I think this is something that a lot of people don't think about when they're headed into their launch itself.
1:54
You spend a lot of time on the marketing of it all and you built a good offer, but you've got to think about how to put it out there and communicate it in a way that is irresistible to your audience. Now I know when we say launch, we think of different things. So if you haven't heard me say it before, launch is just a sexy word for a marketing campaign and you could be launching different things. You may have a new website launch, you may have a product launch, and I absolutely believe
2:17
that you should be launching your one-on-one services. But no matter what your promo campaign is around you can't do it without a clear and defined, packaged offer. As I get into this I wanted to mention a tool that you can absolutely use it is a wonderful, it's from Offer Cure created by Julie and Cathy over at Funnel Gorgeous. It can help take you through breaking out your offer and splintering it into different pieces so you can communicate that with your audience.
2:39
Look into that if you've struggled with defining your offer, but once you do have that clearly defined offer in place, then we need to come up with the marketing plan and the vehicle to actually get that out there. Now for an in-depth talk on actually crafting that marketing calendar with your four Quarterly Champagne Campaigns, I want you to look at this video that I have, I'll link it below. But for now what I've done is mark up a launch calendar right here so you can kind of see what I mean.
3:03
This is a calendar, an example of what I teach inside Primed to Launch. But it has a few key things that I want you to keep in mind too. So first, it's gonna have a defined period of the launch push itself, and that's gonna be a 10 day window or less. No more than 10. And you never want your launch window to be more days than you actually have messages to put out. So that can come into play a lot. I think sometimes we've had clients come and they'll say we're doing a 14-day OpenCart window,
3:29
and I say, why? I mean, you may have truly a reason to have it open that long, but usually I would say nine times out of 10 you don't. That five to 10 day window can be great for your launch push because you will have, you should have at least five messages that you need to push out there. Five different hooks and angles and ways that you can start to talk to people about what that offer is. Comment below if five to 10 sounds a whole lot better than a really long OpenCart period.
3:56
This again, to reinforce, this is why I like the Quarterly Champagne Campaign system that I have of just four big launches a year, because I can do five to 10 day windows four times a year. I can go all in and get my energy up and rallied for that, but I can't do it for just extended lengths of time, never stopping, I like to nap. Next, you can see that this calendar has what I call a hype piece and I'll talk more about that in this video. But this essentially just for now
4:22
at least think this is the vehicle that you're going to use to actually pitch and mention the product to the service that you have. Finally, this calendar is going to include as counting back six to eight weeks from that launch date so we can start to stack different messages in. The next piece of the workflow puzzle is story mining for the different content ideas that you need to talk about. So once you have your offer and that plan defined, then you're gonna start hearing
4:46
or starting to need to think about the objections that people will have to purchasing from you, working with you one-on-one, whatever it is. I love this part when we're working with our one-on-one clients and the agency side of my business, because it's so fun to sit there and come up with all the different things you've heard in the past about why people didn't buy that, or they thought they were above the offer, they just, they didn't really need it
5:07
or they thought they were in no way ready for it, when you knew that they would be a great fit for it. My favorite idea to start to get all of these ideas out and on paper when I'm in a pre-launch phase is to go through my 60 and 60 exercise using things like Magazine Mining, newsjacking, podcast, and Pinterest mad living, and of course, actually listening to what your audience is asking for and reading up on all of the surveys that you're conducting.
5:31
That can fill your queue with so many different ideas of content you can put out there and overcome their objections. Anytime you're coming up with these content ideas or are going through perhaps that 60 and 60 minutes exercise, I want you to think of these two things. Number one, is this content even gonna be interesting to my people? And number two, probably more important, does it show your value? Okay, so you've got this massive list of all the different content ideas
5:54
that you could put out there, the things your people want to hear from you, the objections that you need to overcome, how in the world do you organize all of this content prior to your launch? The next part of the launch workflow is coming up with an editorial calendar that you can use to disseminate these messages. The best visual I have for this, is I literally want you to picture six to eight, however many weeks you want to be in pre-launch dominoes that are all setting up,
6:16
and what do you have to knock over one by one so they fall and they form this clear path to you your offer, your product, your service? Now go back to that list that you created and I want you to circle, highlight whatever the top six to eight objections that you're gonna hear all the time. You're gonna address each one of those in one piece of weekly pillar piece hero content. This is gonna be coupled with your audience list building strategy. I talked about that in last week's video,
6:42
so here it is, go watch it if you haven't yet or watch it after this video, actually. Because you built your whole annual marketing calendar to focus on just one thing every single quarter, all your hero content for that quarter is driving towards that one thing you're launching. This means you don't have to be all the places, all you need to do is put the investment of your time and energy into crafting those six to eight weeks worth of pillar content
7:05
that's gonna knock over the dominoes one by one. And what you're gonna do is repurpose that one piece of hero content and splinter it out into 15 other pieces of content, then you can put on different platforms and outlets. Here's the kicker, no matter what is going on in your life, in your business, as you are prepping for that launch, focus on getting that hero piece of content out. I know when I'm going into a launch mode other things can be falling to the wayside,
7:29
I may not get to all the different marketing ideas or dreamy ideas that I have, but I know I am getting that piece of content out, that hero piece every week to overcome the objections leading up to the launch, and that matters. Also, I've done a video about repurposing your content before right here, I'll link it below that may support you here as well. Okay, moving along this launch workflow that you've started to craft here. Number one, you've come up with that absolutely irresistible offer
7:55
and the plan to get it out via your launch calendar. Number two, you picked out those top six to eight objections and now you're gonna craft one piece of hero content for the six to eight weeks of prelaunch. That brings us to the next piece of the workflow is coming up with an executing a hype piece to actually communicate the offer. And even if you hate video, you cannot skip this. There's got to be some sort of vehicle where you're able to look again, even if it's over the internet
8:21
your audience in the eye and tell them what it is that you're putting out there and why they need it. You're saying, hi, this is created just for you, it's open, it's ready for sign up. There's so many different ideas, I include a whole list of different ideas inside Primed to Launch, but this could be like a virtual launch party that you're doing, it could be a webinar, it could be a challenge, it could be a video series, there's tons of things out there
8:43
and vehicles to communicate this to your audience. You know, it highly recommend having a video component. I think the most successful ones that I've ever seen with our clients and in my own business they do have a video component. Let me pause for a minute, I teased webinars earlier on, I wanna address those right here. The digital marketing space, dah, is saturated with webinars and a lot of them unfortunately follow the same templates and formulas and scripts that are already out there.
9:09
Webinars still work though. I'm sitting here at my desk, I see the statistics all the time, I see the conversion rates, they still work, but they work if they're good. So if you're gonna make a webinar then go all in on making it juicy, and I would also say that we saw this past year short-form content become a way that we love to consume things. TikTok Reels. So think outside the box, be crafty, figure out how you can take your hype piece message that you're trying to disseminate
9:37
and not just have maybe a long form version, but can you break it up over days or do you need to come up with different ways to get a short form iteration of it out there? I'm so braining on this too, I don't have all the answers to it right now, I just think it's something for us to watch for here. And last but not least, the actual launch pieces itself and the messaging that goes into that. Here, I'm talking about everything from the emails that you're using to promote
9:59
and invite people to your hype piece, the sales emails and sequence themselves, the checkout pages, the landing pages, all the pages. I have all of this broken down into a launch copy and content checklist, I will link that below, it is free, it is ready for you. I've also done tons of videos about these specific pieces and how to write them. I will link those below. But part of this process is also setting good expectations, data-driven expectations that way your launch doesn't end
10:26
and you say something like, I, it just wasn't what I expected. Well, what did you expect? And was that based on actual data? Be sure to check out a video I have right here where I talked to you about how to run a launch moratorium. And I know that was a whole lot, even for me and I love launches, but it goes to show and hopefully, you've seen in this video when you're creating your launch workflow, you can't just focus on the launch week and vehicle itself, you've got to back up.
10:49
You need to be priming your audience weeks in advance by overcoming their objections and knocking down those dominoes. And along the way, you need to be seeding in the idea that you have an offer or a service that is coming and you're gonna be able to support them with it. Let's break down three steps of what to do to pull people into the launch copy in the funnel that you've worked so hard to create. Number one, I'm gonna back schedule my editorial calendar.
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First of all, I'm gonna plan six to eight weeks back from the launch itself and craft that content. I already know what the big hero piece of content is going to be for this six to eight weeks, I'm gonna back off those and plan my posting plan. This is my tried and true philosophy, it works, thousands of you have proved it, but if this is new and you haven't heard me talk about my philosophy before, about backing up and having this Quarterly Champagne Campaign system,
11:32
then make sure you check out this video. Now, if you are in Primed to Launch and you have access to this calendar, but I'd take it old school I would print out six to eight copies of this piece of paper that's inside, I love digital tools it just helps me to get out of my head and away from all the tabs of the internet, and look at these six pieces, eight pieces look at what the hero content is going to be each week and then go ahead and start to pencil around
11:52
with ideas of things that I could post about. Now, once this is good to go, I'm gonna load what's on these piece of papers into Asana and an app that I use called Plan to schedule our Instagram content. More on that later, but first let's have a timeout, a TO. We need to talk about what is working and what is not working on the app. Because essentially what worked in 2016 for a lot of us that we're launching and churning stuff out, is not gonna work here in 2021.
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My friend, Elise Darma is so great at teaching this, please go follow her, her Instagram education is incredible. She said this; "Gone are the days "of perfectly posed or edited images. "Instagram is no longer a place "for photographers to show their snaps, "but a content hub of videos, memes, Lives "and reality TV-like stories." So what this means for us is we're sketching out our Instagram plan is that we need to listen to the experts on this. Don't listen to me, I'm not an Instagram expert,
12:42
I go to them to see what's working and what's not working. And they are predicting that photo only feeds for just using those static grid images that's gonna kill our engagement. I'm about to tell you the four part Instagram content calendar I would recommend you have, but it includes videos. So I just wanted to throw that out there. You need to be on video using video if you aren't already, even if it's just 15 seconds story clips. Customers, prospects buy from brands they feel connected to,
13:08
and that is the quickest, quickest way to speed up that know like trust factor. Start on stories, then move to Reels, and I know Reels are scary, I'm scared too, more on that end tip too. But we are gonna see faster growth in 2021 if we use these two free tools that are sitting here and ready to be used in the arsenal of Instagram. Okay, so again, pretending you're my client here is the posting schedule of four different things I would recommend that you do.
13:30
Number one, two to five-ish static squares every week. Now one to two of those is going to be tied into that hero piece of content that you're turning out. Again, for more background on what I'm talking about when I mention this hero piece and these six to eight domino pieces that you need to create, watch this video specifically at that minute mark. The second thing, daily stories and again, one day, each week is going to be devoted to pushing that hero piece of content,
13:53
one weekly Reel, again, more on Reels in a sec and one IGTV or Live every week. And that also can be attached to that hero piece of content if not a flat out repost repurpose of it. We can fight that Zoom fatigue we're all feeling if we get out there with some short, actionable content via video, and if you're running ads before your launch, then be aware that the experts are saying that ads that include the video, even if it's just a Reel, they're cutting ad costs by thousands of impressions
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in half, that's crazy town. By the way also leading into your prelaunch, make sure your bio is done and dusted and looking good. If you need some tips on crafting that Instagram bio, make sure you check out this video as well. All right, number two, let's talk creating the content. Here, we wanna leverage the right neighborhoods and craft that content. So I just showed you the weekly content rhythm that I would plan to use if I were going into launch. Next step is actually building
14:45
and creating that content, and I am a huge fan of batching content, I am borderline fanatical about my time and so this is the best use of it. And this is why I love that hero piece of content method I teach so much because I can take that and stretch it out. So it makes me look like I am online more and creating more content than I actually am. I actually consider it the ultimate compliment when someone says, you create content all the time, how do you have time to do anything else?
15:10
You've got so much stuff posting online because here is the secret, I don't really ever even use or open Instagram on my phone unless it is to capture something that I could use and post later as a story, I really only just use Instagram on my laptop and on my desktop. This is so helpful because for the times when I do wanna be on social media a lot, leading into a launch I'm just excited and have something that I wanna share and talk to people about, I can do that,
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but during these times when I just don't really want to, I can lean on this as well. So there's my plug again for this process. Again, you can also check out this video where I talk about exactly how I repurpose content. Now as I'm creating content for things like stories themselves and even things like Facebook, posts every week, I like to give myself prompts. I'll put some things over here that I've used in the past to give my brain some jogs, or ideas of things that I could
15:57
create little stories about. But one tip I would absolutely recommend that you do as you're leading into a launch is include polls. For two reasons. Number one, for a crowdsourcing reason, this is gonna cut out that guessing game and make it a whole lot easier to craft content leading into your launch. And number two, you can survey ideas that you have for the thing you're creating itself. People will straight up tell you what they want and what they don't want.
16:18
I used stories like this, over here is an example of leading into a pre-launch and it was so helpful and it got people excited. It breadcrumbed them and the concepts that this stuff was coming on the pipeline. Plus 58% of people in a group said that they visited brand's website to buy a product or service after they saw it in the story. Now, one other tip for when you're creating this content Reels, let's just bring it in. Let's talk about it. Comment below with how you're feeling about Reels
16:43
or if you've tried them yet. I told my mastermind last week, I feel like I will just be that pats on head millennial if I start to doing Reels, because it won't be cool enough or they won't be funny enough. So if you're feeling weird about it, I get it, I am too. But they're six months old and they are here to stay. It is a fast track way to make it to the explore page Instagram's pushing constant creators that are building four to even six reels a week. We can start small,
17:06
we can do one a week and work our way up. The app also saw an explosion of about 70% of people interested in live content last year right after quarantine started and that is continuing to trend. So as we batch create our pre-launch content, don't just be crafting those static grid images, but go ahead and batch your Reels, batch stories. Like I said, I do that all the time, I pull out my phone, I shoot something, I just save it in an album on my phone and I'll pull it out later.
17:30
Which brings me to step three, scheduling it out and posting. So once all this content is created it's time to load it in. And here there are so many tools that can be useful for this. I mentioned earlier, I will link a video here where I show behind the scenes of how I plan and then pull everything into Asana, and then from Asana, I would pop it into the tool that I love to use for Instagram planning called Plan. So meta! So if you're tracking the order
17:53
was taking it from these six to eight pieces of paper, brainstorming, making a mess, moving those into Asana, moving from Asana into plan. That last piece of the puzzle happens on Mondays, I call it my marketing Mondays, I spent a couple of hours pulling things into the platform itself, like plan and I can go ahead and schedule and plan when the ideal time for me to post is. Now, ha, you ask how do you know your ideal time to post on Instagram? Well, knowing the best time to post
18:17
obviously changes based on region and your audience. So go one of two ways here. You could absolutely look at overall best practices times social media today had a great article on this. But here's what I do, I love this app called Prime. The free version of it is great. I actually would recommend paying, it's not that much. And I love it I can see for my specific audience, my group of followers exactly the three best times every single day. That's one thing I love it,
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it doesn't just tell me the best time, but it tells me two backup times that I can use and post then as well. I'm telling you this app is clutch and it's absolutely worth it. At least for a little while paying for it to see and get some regular trends that you can use as you craft your content and plan it out for pre-launch. I am a big believer in the value of a prelaunch. Your prelaunch plays a significant role in how people are even gonna understand or come to know your offer or your service
19:08
or your product before they get it in their hands. Number one, they'll buzz and plant seeds with an editorial calendar. Now I've talked a lot about your overall marketing campaigns and your editorial calendar in some of my more recent videos. But this is a big part of your launch. I have definitely more than once hopped on my one hour coaching sessions with clients and I've heard them say something like, I have this great product that I'm launching, I wanna pick your brain all about it,
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it sounds wonderful, it's a killer offer, and then I start to ask a few more questions about what does your communication with your people look like now? And we need to park and keep out here. If there's been no sort of priming going on and you're still planning on putting something out there, I mean, you do you and you go for it, but I'm just saying, it's gonna be better if you push the launch back and spend time developing a really good prelaunch strategy.
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As far as the number of weeks to count back from, your actual go date. And that kind of depends on your offer and my people inside Primed to Launch know I dig into that a little bit more inside there, but at least take it as a rule of thumb that you're gonna need about two weeks at least at a minimum before you go into your offer to be in pre-launch mode, usually more. I gathered six quick ideas for you that may be worthy of a shear in your editorial calendar or marketing plan.
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Number one, if you have a title yet, or even just the title of that module or a lesson or a piece of the puzzle, go ahead and start sharing that. Number two, ask your audience to go ahead and help you create the content. The questions feature on Instagram can be great, I use that a lot when I've been building something and it definitely gets people excited. Co-create it with them and for them, let them tell you what they wanna see in it. Three, testimonials from your beta students
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more on that in a minute and your clients. Number four, any new imagery you have for your offer or a piece of it. And number five, definitely audio and video clips. Now, I know this may sound obvious to do, but let me say that when I was putting my own things out there, for some reason, I just didn't do this a lot. I was pre-launching and talking a lot about the different things that people needed to understand before they purchased this, more on that in the next step,
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but I wasn't specifically pulling out bits of what I was building and sharing them. I think I was just scared to do it. Let me say here that I've kind of learned this the hard way. I know that those tips I just gave some super obvious but I actually didn't do that until more recently. I think the first time that I really teased an offer that I had by name, talked about the curriculum I was building, and really shouted it out was last year, my third year of business. The offer did great,
21:32
it was super well received, people were amped-up and so excited about it. Contrast that with the first time I launched my Art of Efficiency program, where I talked about it just a little bit online, but more I was focused so much on building the different prelaunch content pieces for it, more on that in the next step. But what I did, what I left out here it was really talking about the offer by name and talking about what the transformation was gonna be, what they were going to learn.
21:56
I was proud of what I was building, I should have talked about it a little bit more, mentioned what was going inside of it, well, who knows? Next, while you're doing that, go ahead and begin tackling objections. I talked about this concept recently in a video but I want you to go ahead and start to forecast what their objections to purchasing or working with you are going to be, and see how you can go ahead and make those null and void. How can you start to convince someone's rational thinking?
22:20
Let me give an example, say I'm launching a website course for artists specifically, I have a student out there doing this, you know who you are, part of your pre-launch content could be showing off some data and statistics. Do artists with high converting websites, are they able to up their one-on-one commission pricing by 50%? Do they typically sell more direct to consumer art than people that don't have a website and only work three galleries? I'm playing with this,
22:43
but I hope you can see what I mean. If you're having a sustainable ethical clothing, fashion pop-up shop, one of my objections may be, why does that really matter to me? I think what I wear is fine. One of my objections may be cool for other people, that kind of stuff doesn't really matter to me. So it's your job to get out there and knock over that domino for me. Put out content that convinces me that it does matter where I have built with my dollar and what I spend my money on.
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Part of your prelaunch is educating me about that. Next, get them used to the pace of the email marketing that will probably happen during your launch. I don't care how big your social media following is, this also goes without saying that I want you to focus on your audience building when it pertains to your email list before a launch. It's just a lot easier to measure the statistics of how many people may purchase when we're looking at your email lists
23:29
and those kinds of open rates and click through rates as opposed to just your social media engagement rates. Our email list is warmer and hotter. Emails typically enjoy a median open rate of 17% and a click through rate of 1.4% which is a lot higher than your social media rates. And by going ahead and getting people into a rhythm of hearing from you, that's priming to you. Remember how I said earlier when I'm asking people what's been going on with your list before we move into launch?
23:53
I'm really listening to see what they'll say there. This is where it matters. Obviously you don't want to go from absolute crickets to popcorn conversation all the time in my inbox. An idea that you may wanna try is ramping up your pace of emails. So if you typically send one a month, then definitely double or even triple that, and if you send one a week, maybe before a launch you send a few weeks where you have two emails going out just some ideas. Number four, beta testing.
24:17
I'm a big believer in beta testing. This gives you that honest customer feedback, but it also helps you build a better product before you get it out there. I will link an article below by Tara Gentile that was her name then, she's married now it's called the Living Room strategy, it was one thing that I really understood and took the heart before I did my first beta launch to build something. In all my big offers out there, I have only not beta tested one thing.
24:41
A side benefit is those beta testers also become kind of ambassadors for your brand and that offer. Treat them like the Queens they are, offer them the exclusive benefits, thank them profusely, they have really helped you shape what you're doing. While you're at it here, go ahead and set up a wait list page as well. I get to say this because I've screwed up here and not set up wait list pages when I needed to. One thing that I see can hold a lot of people back
25:04
is thinking, well I don't have the infrastructure on the inside or the nurture sequence to take care of people when they do sign up for the wait list to lead to this offer. And let me just say from experience, that's okay, do it anyway. Setup that wait list page and go ahead and start collecting emails even if you aren't going to maybe not do as best of a job as you want to and get everything ramped up on the inside with them receiving emails. Hope that makes sense.
25:28
And finally set goals and metrics. If you can't measure something, you can't improve it. Now in a recent video, I also talked a lot about the value of setting your expectations before you go into a launch because I think otherwise you'll get on the back end of it and say something like, it just didn't go as well as I thought. And again, whenever somebody says that to me I just wanna say, okay, but what were you expecting? Let me give you some examples of some metrics you could set.
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You can set a sales goal. For example, we will have 70 new members of this program by the end of the next month. Or I will book myself for the nine one-on-one client spots that I have in quarter two. It can be leads focused for example, by the week after a launch, I will have 200 new subscribers. Another goal could be social media focus. I have found every time that I watch or put something out there or make a big stink about anything, one of the auxiliary benefits
26:18
of that is that your accounts just grow by nature. Again, you're just, you're being loud, you're talking about something people are communicating about it, so you are gonna see a little bump there too. Here's an example, by the day after our pop-up event we will have 500 new followers on Instagram. You can have an awareness focus goal. Within a week of launch, we will have six new shop reviews and 3000 new visits to our website. Or you can set yourself a metric with number of discovery
26:42
or a kickoff calls you wanna book. By the end of the launch, we will have on the calendar booked 12 new potential client inquiry calls. With all of this, just remember your pre-launch content needs to be committed to knocking over those dominoes, those objections that are gonna be standing in the way between your offer, what you wanna do and the people that you dream about working with. Creating all of this stuff is a bear, I know I do it all of the time.
27:05
So look down below and you can get your hands on my free launch copy and content checklist. This is a multi-page guide that can help you get ready and get prepped to go on your upcoming marketing campaign. In this video, you're gonna hear my prelaunch workflow. Essentially, I wanted to tell you everything that I would be doing the week before I move into a launch. I know I've talked about launching so much here on my channel, but essentially it is a fancy word for a marketing campaign
27:29
or period in your creative small business. That said, let's go and first up I wanna talk to you about more nitty-gritty things. We had a launch copy client recently that said, how do you hype yourself up for essentially talking about the same thing over and over again for several many days in your business? Here's my two cents, if you're doing launching right, then you're gonna feel like a broken record during your OpenCart period. It's gonna happen. You're spending five, seven, maybe 10 days
27:56
pushing and talking about the same offer over and over again a lot of different ways. That is absolutely exhausting comment below, heck yes, if you've ever felt like that, when you are pitching or positioning something. That's normal, that means you need to have a plan though and work the plan when you are moving into your launch week itself. So my biggest tip, and I've done this wrong and screwed it up, is to go into your launch week with everything already done, as much as possible.
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Even if you are dripping out content or teaching along the way if you're launching a course, have absolutely as much done in other capacities. Every bonus, every PDF, every social media post at least the draft of it written, every funnel asset, every graphic, everything done. I've loved launched somewhere between 10 and 15 times in my business and usually, by and large I've not had this done and it is completely not fun. It's way more fun to move into a launch
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when you can actually focus that week on selling and talking to other human beings. Set yourself up for success so you're able to go into that launch week with time set aside to just get in the weeds with people and talk to your customers or your potential clients and make sure that you're able to have time set aside to troubleshoot with them and help them understand if this offer is for them or not. I just would recommend really clean that week so you're able to spend the time selling
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and talking to other human beings. It's not only way more enjoyable, but way more probably, profitable as well. So in a nutshell, if it wasn't already obvious, during a launch week or promo campaign itself I am online way more than I ever am in my business. I'm checking DMs, I'm in the inbox, I'm talking back and forth to people on video. I don't wanna spend any time in backstage, creation mode or trying to be creative and come up with stuff. I just wanna be front stage,
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actually talking to people and helping them. That said, here's another tip when it comes to pre-scheduled copy like your social media posts that you're using to market things or the email copy, I absolutely have drafts written in most of that all ready to go, but I wanna ride a little bit of the excitement and the adrenaline rush. So I'm not gonna schedule every single thing to go out and automate because I wanna get in there and make sure that I'm responding to real time
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how I feel and what the vibe is that I'm getting, what's going on in the world, et cetera. So again, everything is written and ready to go, but I'm in a riff a little bit during the week. That can be fun. Okay next up, I wanna talk about mindset. Comment below if this has ever happened to you, but launching, going into a promo campaign where you're talking up one offer for days at a time, it can be a total mind game. Not only are you online more than usual
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and hearing about talking to people about their problems that you can hopefully help them solve, but you're talking what feels like ad nauseum about something that you love and created. This is like the perfect storm for imposter syndrome to creep in, right? So here's how I fight that. There's a theory called grand gestures you may have heard of it, but think if you've heard before about how J.K Rowling rented out a hotel room and she would go there to finish out her Harry Potter projects.
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If you've ever rewarded yourself with something after finishing a big task, that's another example of a grand gesture. So mentally there are a few things that I have found that I like to do to get myself in the game. One thing I'll do, this is the weirdest but I'm gonna throw it out there in case it helps you. I will buy an expensive-ish or a nice candle from Anthropologie or whatever, and I'll have it on my desk, I'm only allowed to burn it when I am working that week.
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I can't take it out of the office, I expense it, the goal is to use it during that week. I've also gotten fun new pins before too. Those kinds of things can help me form a mindset of, okay when my butt is in my chair and I am selling and talking about this offer, I've got these things going and I am in the zone. That's probably a very weird tip. Another thing I've done is this, I've put sticky notes on the wall for every sale or order that I need to make for my goals.
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I've done a video in the past about launch metrics and I will link that down below, but you need to set your goals before you go into a campaign period. So at this point, the week before launch, those goals are set and now I wanna have a fun visual representation of the number of humans I would actually like to serve with this offer. So as each order comes in, I'll write their name on one of these sticky notes and it's just a great way to actually see these are human beings that you're getting
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to help and serve. Another essential mindset tool for me has been prayer. If you have a spouse that is involved with your business or a business best friend or a teammate, while you're praying for energy and wisdom to be able to show up and lead during this period, I've also found that so helpful to pray that the right people purchase this offer or come into this program or whatever it is that you're shilling. Praying over the number that you know you need for this to be a success,
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but also praying for each slot that you have and that the right booties get in the seats. Also praying over your audience that's not going to purchase. That they at least learn something in the process of hearing you sell for these number of days. I always want anybody that watches one of my webinars or workshops, no matter if they purchase or not to be able to walk away from it with things and tools that they can implement. So be praying for that as well. Finally, and this is a big mindset tip
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absolutely set yourself up with some time to read past testimonials and success stories and case studies so you can remember that you are good at what you do and it does see results for people. Maybe it's just me, but the imposter syndrome can be real. So it was really helpful for me before I move into a launch to recenter and go back and remember what it is about this offer that has worked, how it's helped people and that puts me in a place to be able
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to go out there and sell it with confidence. This is also why having a testimonial database like I've shown in the past few videos has been very helpful for me 'cause I can quickly go in and tab over and pull them, read them, give a mojo go in and keep going along. Okay, last step household things. So I used to go into launch weeks and my husband, Wes would probably just batten down the hatches, hurricane Ashland the royal B word would come out during a launch week,
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'cause they're just stressful. So over time I've learned before a launch I need to make sure two big things are done and out of the way. First up, food of course, I need to get not just my food and sustenance and fuel ready, but if you're the meal planner or the food provider in your family making sure that people are handled. Either outsource meal planning or hand it off to somebody else, put in those Instacart orders, getting your rations there and in the house
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before you go into a launch week, I promise it's it just as important. During the launch, I found I need a lot of snacks on hand grab and go because your time pockets can be weird. Also wanna make sure I'm plenty hydrated we'll probably throw a bottle of wine on the list. I'm telling you there's nothing like going live or going into a webinar or whatever when you're hungry and starving, it's just not gonna be your best work or you get off of some sort of live call
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and there's nothing to eat in the fridge, then you're just more stressed. Take my word for it, have food ready. And again, that second point I mentioned is communicating to your friends and your family that you're gonna be in a little bit of a high stress week in your business. This way, sure, they can support you but they're aware of what's going on. I've joked before that even my dad doesn't really quite understand what it is that I do, but it's been fun over the years
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would have been a launch for him to at least say, I know you're working on something really hard over there, keep it up. You may also be less likely during a big hands-on launch period to get back to people as quickly as you usually can. So just over communicating can be helpful. Random, somewhat related, Wes and I have had some same page meetings weekly this year that we've never done before and that's been helpful. I'm gonna put up over the side some of the questions that we've checked in
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on each other with, this is just helpful hit. Okay, like I said, I was a little all over the place here I talked about some nitty-gritty stuff, mindset as well as household things, mostly because when I am in a launch campaign mode I just to be able to focus on selling and talking to human beings. I want every other piece of the funnel completed so I can hone in and focus on that one thing. If you need a list of all the copy and the content that you need written
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before you head into a launch mode, then be sure to look below and grab that free link to that download PDF you can grab. And now, you know, all about my pre-launch workflow and how I love workflows in general, so let's talk about another side of your business where you may need some cleaning and tweaking of your systems and processes. Be sure to watch the next YouTube I have teed up for you. I'm taking you behind the scenes of how to hold an agency immersion retreat
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in your business to clean up the service provider side of your business. Here's to working from a place of more rest, less hustle even when you're in the crazy shenanigans of a launch week, and I'll see you in the next one.
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