Everything you need to know about launching an online product or service

Your Dream Business

English - June 08, 2020 00:00 - 37 minutes - 68.2 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: Changing your mindset for success with Dean Graziosi.

Next Episode: The Power of Content Marketing with Marcus Sheridan.

In this week’s podcast we will be talking all about launching your online product or service. I am going to talk you through all the different steps involved, and some of the key things that make the real difference in terms of the success of a launch.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTLaunching an online product or service is a bit like baking a cake – you have to follow the steps and the process.This is not a quick win, it takes time.You need to create consistent content in the warm up phase so people can engage with you on a regular basis – you need to be known for your product or service.Start building your email list!Love your audience, keep showing up.You can launch a product or service through masterclasses, webinars, live videos, waitlists or challenges.You need to demonstrate what they are going to get if they then purchase from you – give them a taster.The day you do the webinar, masterclass or challenge, is the day you start selling.Start planning your launch 6 weeks in advance.Being live makes it easier to have that conversation whilst they are sat there and they also get to ask you questions.Create downloads and workbooks to add value.Consider your price point – you should offer a discounted rate for people to buy straight away. You could offer a payment plan.Open cart or closed cart – is there going to be a day where people can no longer join?Your sales page is SO important – there is a download on my website and a course in my academy on this subject.Consider why people didn’t buy – follow up with a survey for feedback.Don’t forget to love the members you already have.Review all of your steps before relaunching.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Launching an online product or service is a LONG process, there are so many different steps to it but I promise, if you have the drive and the desire to have an online business, it can be the most wonderful thing.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSQuick launch - 04:00The warm up phase - 06:37The pre-launch - 16:21The actual launch - 22:58Post-launch - 31:28Retention and relaunch - 33:23
Transcript below

Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? As I'm recording this, it's a beautiful sunny day. We've been so lucky with the weather and I am so, so grateful for having nice weather. I have to say it really does make a difference to my mood. So I am very grateful for the sun shining today and I hope the day that you're listening to this, the sun is shining too and I hope you're having a good day. Okay, so I want to talk today about something that I love. So when I started in marketing about 16-ish years ago, I did well basically over these 16 years, I have done so much marketing. There's probably not much I haven't done. The one thing I haven't done hands-on is TV advertising. We, I used to work for Land Rover, as you may have heard me say before, when I worked next to the people who did the TV advertising, but I didn't do it myself.

But other than that, I've pretty much done everything and stuff that is no longer around. I used to do fax marketing, we still lot of postal marketing, whereas some of these things obviously we're not using now. And then some of the things I use today, I had to learn like everybody else because they weren't in my degree 16 years ago. So for me, as you know, it's a passion. I love every, every minute of marketing and I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff. But the last few years I've been very honoured to work with lots of business owners in a particular area, which I love and I want to dedicate today's episode all to that area. So I want to talk to you about launching....

And I have done many, many, many launches, including many launches of my own and I have also spent a long time learning about them and buying courses and attending conferences and even doing a certification with lead pages in conversion marketing. So I know what I'm talking about in this, in this sector, and having done it for myself and for clients, it really has helped me fully understand the process and see what works and what doesn't. And what are some of those secrets behind a successful launch? Why is it that some do really well and others not so well? So today I want to talk you through the wider launch process. Now I want you to know that if you are not selling an online product, if you don't have a course or a membership, I don't want you to skip over this episode and think this is not for you.

This is for sure going to give you something even if you don't have those online products. But if you do have an online product, then this is going to be music to your ears because I am literally going to talk you through all the different steps involved and some of the key things that make the real difference in terms of the success of that launch. And do you know what? You know me, I don't lie. I don't tell you some BS. I'd come straight out and tell you the truth. So you're gonna get a very honest look at launching and what honestly makes the launch a success and what doesn't.

Quick launch

Now, what I'm going to be talking to you about today is quite a process. So that's the first thing I want to quickly address. This is not a two minute job. This is not a, "Oh do you know what? I'm just going to do a quick launch." Now you can do it that way. But that's one of the reasons it's probably not successful because there are lots of moving pieces in launching. And the one analogy that I like to use is it's like baking a cake when you bake a cake. And this is the reason I am not a very good Baker other than the fact I'm celiac and can't eat wheat other than when you bake a cake, you really have to follow the rules and ingredients. You can't go rogue, you can't throw some extra flour in or substitute eggs for something else. You've got to really follow the steps and the process and making one tiny change or moving the goalpost in one place or adding too much or too less or doing something different is going to have a huge impact on the results of that cake or that baking at the end.

And that's how I want you to envisage the launch process. There are many moving parts in this and that. Any point, any one of these parts can affect the whole launch. So I want to talk you through the whole launch in in its entirety, but also I want you to know that actually when I worked with people, when people are in the Academy and they're launching or they're on my 90 day programme and we're working together on a launch, the the moving parts, there's a lot more to each single moving part and therefore there's a lot deeper than we'd go, but at the moment for this episode, I'm going, I'm looking at the bigger picture, but if I was to talk to you about one specific area, there's a lot I could go deep in, but like I said at the moment I just went to see it like that.

The other thing I want you to know about this episode is I have put together a download where I talk you step by step through this process. Now, in all honesty, because I'm very honest, this style, it doesn't exist at this point. I'm going to do this episode and by the time you are listening to me say this in your ears, the download will be done and you can go to teresaheathwareing.com/launch and you can get your own step-by-step launch process and you can follow that through.

The warm up phase

Okay, so we're going to break it up into four different parts. We're going to break it up into the pre-prelaunch or the warmup phase. Then we're going to look at the prelaunch. Then we're going to look at the launch and then we're going to look at launch.

So let's start with the pre pre-prelaunch, the warmup phase. Now this is the bit that most people do not give enough time to and this can have a huge impact on the success of any launch going forward because you know what happens? People like the idea of having an online business, they liked the idea of selling a course over and over and over or having a membership where lots of people can join. It's this whole going from a one-to-one to a one to many type business and don't get me wrong, I love it and this is what I am doing. This is what I have wanted to do for a long time. This is what I am putting my time and effort into and this is what ultimately I want going forward in the long run. A big massive membership with lots and lots of amazing business owners in there that I can help.

So I want you to know that often these tools or these strategies in terms of having these types of businesses people see as a quick win. I am telling you straight up, this is not a quick win. This is hard work. This takes time. And I know you're not going to want to hear that and I know you're going to think no, there must be a cheat. I'm sure someone's that I can launch that list and I can launch like this and I can do this. I can do that. I promise you you are going to have to work hard at this. And this is not a quick win, easy way to make money. So that's the first thing I want to say about this. So the the warmup phase is really the bit that most people are probably not hand on heart consistently doing enough or long enough before they start deciding to actually sell the online product.

So in this warm up phase, this consists of creating consistent content. Yeah, I know boring, boring, boring, the reason to stop going on about it, but Teresa is on episode 121 of the podcast. I am practising what I preach. I am teaching you from what I know works and consistently showing up in your ears week after week, after week after week. Honestly, that is a massive part of the success of my business. So consistent content is a must because how am I going to see what? How am I going to know? You know what you're talking about. How am I going to engage with you on a regular basis if you're not putting that consistent content out? So that's kind of the first step because you need to be known of your product or service. Now I've got a little story to tell you about. Like I said, I've dealt with lots of businesses, had lots of conversations about launching, and there was a very lovely lady who came to me because she'd been advised by someone else just alone.

Just get it out there because you know one thing that holds us back from launching, I'm going, I'm digressing now, I'm sorry, but it's fear. And that's what held me back. And I've done an episode on fear before. I'll link to it in the show notes, but fear held me back from launching. Now I have the consistent content. I had the list, I had all these other various things, but I didn't launch cause I was scared. I was scared that no one would buy. I was scared that people wouldn't like it. I was scared that people would go, you're wrong. So I didn't launch right. So I get it. So I know that this person who gave this lovely lady, some advice was saying, just launch for the fact of, get over the fear aspect of it. And I totally, totally get that. However, I need to explain the situation.

This lady was in, this lady had had a successful business in one distinct area, let's say finance, so she would have done something in finance. She was helping people financially. She was probably doing one a one work, and she decided that she wanted an online business and she decided that she wanted to pivot. So then let's say she wanted to teach yoga online. I'm making this up for the benefit of this. This is a real woman, but I'm protecting her by not telling you what her businesses were. So let's say she literally decided that actually she didn't want to do finance online. She didn't want to do an online programme finance. She wanted to do an online programme for yoga. And she knew she, that might've been a passion for his VA. She knew what she was talking about, but she'd never told anybody. She'd never come out and gone, do you know I'm a bit of a yoga expert, or I love yoga, or I'm good at it.

She had literally only ever been known for finance. So she went to this expert and this person was and is seen as an expert and this person said, just launch, just get out there and launch the yoga course or the yoga membership or whatever it was. And she was nervous about this. So she asked if she could have a chat with me. We're in the same group. Um, so we were both being educated by this person and she came to me and I said, with all due respect to this person who's teaching us, I don't think this is a good time for you to launch because no one even knows you can do this. You have no history or no content out there that tells me you are good at this or you know this stuff I do not. You are not some synonymous is that a word, did I say that right? Synonymous with this subject. When I think of you, I think of finance. So actually this is going to be an incredibly difficult sale. And then what happens is she goes ahead and launches and gets like one or two people in there and in all truth, the chances are those one or two people could have been friends. They could have been someone that knew her because she's done something for them in the past and they haven't slept the same thing and this lovely lady did the launch and it didn't go down obviously as she wanted it and then she pivoted again because she thought, Oh, well, this obviously isn't a market. There's no market for this. I'm going to pivot again and now let's say she pivoted over to the food industry and was going to teach people to do cookery because that was another passion and then she was told to launch again and it's like, no, no, no.

Now that is enough. You have got to be known in your industry to be able to sell a product or service. I don't know of any business out there that I can think of. Any single person that sells a course or a membership or anything online coaching programme that has not done that thing for a very long time and is not well known for it. So if you are brand new to your industry, I am sorry and you're not going to want to hear it, but you've got some groundwork to do and that grind to it takes time and we're talking months and months. We're not talking weeks. You know, I've been in marketing the 16 years, I'm not saying 16 years, but I've been doing the online marketing stuff for a good few years. I've been teaching social media for six years, so this isn't a something or nothing I've just picked up.

This is something that I do every single day, day in, day in, day out. And like I said, the podcast is now, you know, 121 episodes old. And I've been consistently doing that every single week. So like I said, I know you don't want to hear it, but consistent content is key. The next thing you're going to have to do. And I want you to do it from day one. I want you to imagine if you were sat here starting a business and I'm telling you now how to start, I want you to start building that email list. That email list is so, so important. So within the email list building phase, you've got things like lead magnets and I've talked about lead magnets lots of different times. You've got things like landing pages. So you need someone to go to a landing page to one's opt into your lead magnet.

And the lead magnet is some information about you and what you do in terms of your, you know, whatever the product and services you're going to sales. Obviously mine is always about marketing in some way or another. And you won't be able to go there and download that lead magnet or opt into that PDF or get that workbook or that check sheet or whatever. So that is just as crucial. And then the next bit is you need to love them and you need to keep showing up. So even once you've them on your list, even once they are con you know, consuming your content, you need to find other ways to love them and show up in their world. So if you were on my email list, you'll know that I send an email every Wednesday and I try and add some value. I might try and make you laugh.

I might try and make you think, I might help you with the business aspects of things. But basically every Wednesday I'm going to turn up in your inbox and say hello. And then I try and appear in lots of other places. So I get on other people's podcasts, I speak at events, I put stuff on social media saying, look, I've just done this or here I am. Or you know, or I do live stuff or I show up in the Academy. So I'm trying to do things where I am showing up all the time. So especially on social media, that's probably the one main place I'm showing up. So not only am I saying, here's my email list, here's my podcasts, but here's something else on social media that might help. Here's something that you may not know. Here's something that might support you. So I'm trying to appear as frequently without irritating you as possible.

So that's the thing I want you to think about. Those things are really, really important. And honestly, there's no end the time that you could spend putting into that and it will be worth every single second because you need to be able to get known for your thing because otherwise it's going to be so hard when you come to sell it. Okay?

The pre-launch

So let's say you are known for your thing and you've done everything I said, and you've built up this lovely audience who love you and want to hear from you. So now we'll talking about the actual launch. So when you are ready to sell something, so obviously the one thing we're not going to get into here is the product or service that you're selling. So whether it be a course or a coaching programme or a membership, whatever that is. Obviously you need to have a think about that, but we're going to talk about the launch of it.

So in the prelaunch, what we're going to be looking at here is how are you going to launch it? May some of the most popular ways to launch it online products are through master classes, webinars, live videos or maybe challenges. And the two ways that I've used most often are challenges and webinars. I love a webinar and the reason I love doing webinars and challenges and actually teaching people and helping people is because that's what they get in my paid programmes. That's what they get in the Academy. That's what they get in the 90 day programmes. So for me, those ways are great ways to demonstrate what they'll get because if they enjoy a one hour master class with me, they're going to love what's in the Academy. If they like the sort of motivation of a challenge, then the 90 day programme might be perfect for them.

So likes of, these are the two kind of main ways in which I do it, but there are ways you can, not for the lives and weightless and various other things, but going to talk the processes if we're doing a challenge or a webinar. So the first thing you're going to need to do is obviously plan that challenge or webinar and work backwards. Now the day that you do the challenge or end the challenge or the day that you do the webinar is the day that you open the cart and that's the day that you start selling. So you need to plan backwards from that point. So I like to give myself or a light to give myself the opportunity at least two weeks to promote the thing that I'm doing to launch. Now I won't talk about the launch necessarily. I might say something's coming.

I might say, you know, this is leading up to something...