Innovation and the ability to take swift action are qualities that will always go a long way in business, but I feel they’re becoming even more vital as the online world becomes more crowded.
I’ve not long wrapped up my 7th launch of Home Detox Boot Camp and I can honestly say that, while it was a 5-figure launch, it was one of my more challenging launches in recent years.
A series of small things that didn’t go to plan early on in my launch threatened to seriously derail the entire sales period, but luckily, I was able to think on my feet under pressure and pull a few tricks out of my hat to get back on track.
Here’s some of my main learnings (and wins!) from the past few weeks.
- If you’re not on LIVE stream video yet, get on there ASAP. It’s the best way to connect with your audience and get a much better Facebook Reach because as we are all discovering, organic reach on Facebook is very hit and miss, if not, almost dead.
- Facebook Ads are more critical than ever before (if your ideal customer hangs out on Facebook of course!). I had issues getting my ads up and approved during my early bird period and it almost derailed my launch entirely. It took some serious creativity (and some Facebook LIVES) to pick my launch up out of the gutter.
- Email reach isn’t what it used to be. Many of my emails are going to the promotions tab in Gmail accounts which meant, when my FB Ads didn’t get up…. I couldn’t necessarily fall back on email deliverability (which was amazing in the past). I’ll be embarking on a bigger business project this May to improve my email deliverability.
- Don’t go into a launch flying by the seat of your pants. I’ve always been super organised in the past, but a rebrand and tight time frames meant I went into this one without all my ducks in a row. It created unnecessary stress, many late nights and I believe a drop in sales.
- Always be ready to pivot and change things up if things aren’t working. My opening webinars, where I usually get the bulk of my sign ups, didn’t result in the usual amount of sales. Following feedback from several attendees I ended up tweaking my early bird offer and running it for an extra two days to give people time to respond (and my FB Ads to gain traction).
- Don’t get complacent. Because things have worked in the past doesn’t necessarily mean things will work in the future. Be ready to pivot if you need to and always innovate to stay one step ahead of the game. On the contrary, don’t be afraid to revert back to something that worked in the past if something you’ve changed isn’t getting the results you’d anticipated. The tweak to my early bird offer was to re-introduce my usual offer and give customers the choice of which offer to receive.
- Show how your offer will make life easier for people. Many people out there are overwhelmed with info to the point of being paralyzed. Not add to their pile of overwhelm (sadly some people have been burnt with lacklustre ecourses).
- Cater for the customers who do want more from you. Over 70% of my sign ups took my upsell option…which was to scoop up another smaller program of mine (greenHOUSE Home Energy Blitz) at a bargain price. The offer was made on the Thank You page when they purchased Home Detox and I noted that they’d never seen the offer again. What can you package up as an easy upsell?
- Don’t change too many things at once. I learnt this the hard way this launch I think. Rebrand, change of launch webinar, change of opt in, change of early bird offer. One of these didn’t hit the mark and because I’ve changed many things it’s difficult to pin point exactly which one it is. I suspect it was the last two.
- The launch isn’t over until it’s (really) over. When my cart closed and the number of sign ups was quite a short fall from my target it would have been very easy to accept that and focus on moving forward. However, given the issues I had with driving traffic to my sales page during early bird I decided to re-open my cart to my email list only (at the end of the launch but prior to the course starting) with an exclusive 2-day “secret sale” offer. To say this offer went off would be an understatement!
Soooooo many learnings this launch. I hope sharing these few helps you in your navigation of the launching landscape.
Have you had any great learnings from a recent launch that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them below!
Laura xx
P.S. If you’re looking for more support in nutting out the launch strategy for your online products or services, book a FREE Conscious Biz Strategy Call with me or come along to my one-day Idea To Impact Intensive LIVE event in Melbourne and Adelaide next month.
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Laura Trotta is one of Australia’s leading home sustainability experts. She has a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering, a Masters of Science (in Environmental Chemistry) and spent 11 years working as an environmental professional before creating her first online eco business, Sustainababy, in 2009. She has won numerous regional and national awards for her fresh and inspiring take on living an ‘ecoceptional’ life (including most recently winning the Brand South Australia Flinders University Education Award (2015) for the north-west region in SA and silver in the Eco-friendly category of the 2015 Ausmumpreneur Awards). With a regular segment on ABC Radio and with her work featured in publications like Nurture Parenting and My Child Magazine, Laura is an eco thought leader who’s not afraid to challenge the status quo. A passionate believer in addressing the small things to achieve big change, and protecting the planet in practical ways, Laura lives with her husband and two sons in outback South Australia. 
