The Art of Online Business

How To Launch Like A Pro (Even If You Don’t Have A Huge Team)

• Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie • Episode 843

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In the second episode of our three-part series on launching strategies, featuring experts Allison Hardy and Brenna McGowan. We’re breaking down everything from the essentials of a successful launch to understanding the different components and the minimum you need to get started. Plus, we’re sharing personal insights on how email marketing and strategic communication can boost your launch success. 



Watch the last episode of this three-part series: Busting mid-launch lulls (+ other strategies to maximize open cart) (releases August 30th).



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Speaker 1:

In this episode, you will learn how to launch like a pro even if you don't have a huge team. In addition to myself, I have welcomed back Allison Hardy and Brenna McGowan. Now Allison Hardy is an email marketing strategist who helps coaches and experts enroll more clients into their courses or memberships on autopilot, and Brenna McGowan is a launch strategist copy and she's the creator of the anticipation marketing system. She helps coaches, course creators and high-end service providers increase launch revenue. This is a tree. It's a three-way conversation between me and these two marketing strategists one email and one launch strategist and when you finish this episode, you will know things like what are the moving parts of a launch, the bare minimum components that you need to launch well, the best way to kick off a launch, and more. Right now let's get into the episode.

Speaker 2:

I'm so excited to be back here again with you two. Hey Brenna Hi, hey Brenna Hi, hey Quajo.

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello.

Speaker 2:

This is episode number two in the Launch Like a Pro series and in this episode we're going to be talking about launch day success. So I'm excited to dig into this with y'all. So I guess the first thing we could explore is what are the moving parts of a launch? Actually, no, no, let's back up. What is launch day six Like? What is that day of launch for you guys? What's your definition of?

Speaker 1:

this. I will let you start first Brenna, but I'll also say to the listener, if you're like, what's going on here. This is a three-part series all about giving you the best strategies to set up your pre-launch, to have a successful launch day and then to get the most people to come into your program and serve you, and that will be maximizing your car open period. That will be the next episode. After this one episode or even listen to the previous one, because this is the first time you're hearing us three Alison being an email strategist, email specialist, and Brenna being the pre-launch strategist and specialist, and me being the Facebook ads guy and expert then you can click in the show notes below and jump to those episodes. So, brenna, you were going to say in response to Alison's question.

Speaker 3:

Right. So to me, what what cart day looks like? I think it depends. Interestingly enough, my last couple of launches I am not doing a conversion event. I, when I looked at my data, when I looked at my energy, it just I, it wasn't I doing a three day challenge sounded like torture to me. And my webinars I just thought, weren't you know, maybe converting as well as I had? So I had this crazy thought like what happens if I didn't do a conversion event? What would happen to my overall sales? And interestingly, interestingly enough, the first time I didn't do a conversion event, I had my biggest launch ever.

Speaker 3:

So I think that's the first thing that I really want to talk about is like what things that we've been taught we have to do do we have to do? And I always say everything and nothing works, meaning I'm not going to say webinars don't work. I'm not going to say challenges don't work. I'm not going to say private podcasts don't work. I'm not going to say you can't have a successful launch ever without a prelaunch right.

Speaker 3:

There's so many different variables that go into each individual, but to me, car open is. To me, it's like that part where you're like waving your hands like okay, the party has started, it's time to like. The car is open and it's how you are communicating with your people that that's the case. So for me, or for my clients, it's you know you might have a conversion event. You're definitely having emails.

Speaker 3:

I like social media posts. Something I think people forget to do in for social media sometimes, too, is when they do open their cart, is we've been taught reels, reels, reels like for Instagram or Facebook. What I feel like people don't do is I always do a static post of some type of image the first day I open my cart because it's easily shareable and readable. So if you have past clients or students who want to help you shout it out, or you want to ask, or you want to make it easy to spread the word or for people to see what you're up to, I always like a really good static post on the first day, and I don't hear a lot of people talk about that very often.

Speaker 1:

To Instagram or to social media right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean just like good old fashioned, like you know, I guess it would be a four by five now of this is my program, this is the car open dates Like this is what the main elevator pitch is for what it is, so that people can really easily see and not have to watch a seven second or a 20 second or they'd watch the caption. So I think it's being just it's almost going back a little bit old school, I find, because then too you can like, once a day, you can just share that post, you can ask people when people are like how's your launch going? Is there anything I can do to support you? Yeah, just literally go share that post here and put a link on it, because now we can all you know, have links on things and just make it really easy to share to help spread the word.

Speaker 1:

Nice. What's the four by five?

Speaker 3:

Well, four by five is just like the image size right. It used to be a square, static image, like something you would do in Canva or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Okay, All right, Very cool, Very cool, Allison. I'm curious what are the moving parts of a launch, Like better question or somebody who's launching on either a lower budget or has maybe it's them and they're at the solopreneur level Like what's the bare minimum that you see needs to come together to have like a good launch?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean like tangible, like nitty-gritty moving parts. It's like the actual event. So the video series, the webinar, the challenge, and then it's a email sequence that follows up. I think obviously there's different ways to think about that and there's other things you could add in, but if, like, we are bare minimally, bare minimally it, I think that's really all you need.

Speaker 2:

Now I will say I think, like to Brenna's point, like having some social posts, I think is always helpful Any having like different touch points, because people consume content and especially buying, they buy in different ways. So, making sure, inside of the content that you're relaying, especially in your live event and in your emails, making sure you're touching on those different ways and those different, the different ways that people buy and the different, like limiting beliefs and objections they have is really really important. But I think, like, if we're going to do the simplest bare minimum, like that's what you need Now, those things need to be very powerful and very strategic and very impactful, but I don't think you need to have a ton of stuff that goes actually into your launch. Okay, all right.

Speaker 1:

I got an email question for you. You ready, yeah, always. So in the next episode, to give this context, we're going to be talking about maximizing cart open, which is kind of we'll cover, like what happens if we you know the launch is not going quite as planned and some strategies that we can do to turn it around and best practices. But since you had just talked about bare minimum that's necessary, like the must-haves for a launch, I know I always see this question how many emails do I send on cart open day and cart close day?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I get this question all the time. I have a like pitch sequence process that I teach my clients and there's seven different types of emails that you need in your like open cart pitch sequence emails and the seven different emails speak to the different ways that people buy. So, like I'm very much like I'm a, I don't need a lot of details in business decisions. I don't need a lot of details. I just need to know, like what the promise of the program is, what's the offer, who's it for, and like that's all I need. So I usually buy off of like those types of emails, but not everybody in my audience does. So having emails these seven emails that like speak to the different ways that people buy is a great way to help people feel seen, heard, understood, to help them understand how your program helps them, because the more you can relay that information to them, the more likely they will be to buy. Did that answer your no? Your question was how frequently, like how many emails I mean?

Speaker 1:

that was like more than my question. You've got so much goodness to share. Before, though quick I quick have a clarification question Before you say how many emails you recommend to send. When you said having different emails that speak to the, I believe it was different ways people buy. What did you mean by different ways people buy?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, like some people need, like, all the details. They need to know how many calls, they need to know you know where's the portal hosted. They need to know very nitty gritty details, right? Not everybody needs that, though, but you should have one, a lot of people don't.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely, and I have a lot of those people in my audience, so I've had to get really good at communicating all those nitty gritty details in an email in like a short, brief way. So, like, that's one example of people. There's some people they need to know, like about you, like they want to know like your story, like why do you do this? How did you get here? What are some things that you've done? You know they're those like relational people and things that you've done. You know they're those like relational people.

Speaker 2:

There's other people, like what we were saying in the previous episode, that have that are more like reluctant to buy. So they have like immediate walls up and immediate objections. So how can you bring those walls down? Maybe that's like a client story that you come in and share. So if we can come from those emails from the perspective of these are the different types of buyers, it helps again, helps them to see, feel. It helps them to feel seen and heard and they're way more likely to buy if that's how they're feeling about you and your business and the offer that you have for them. So good, did that answer your question?

Speaker 1:

That did. All right, I know the listener's like. All right. How many emails do I send?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it depends on how you know.

Speaker 2:

I hate saying this answer, but it depends.

Speaker 2:

It does depend on your audience, it depends on how long your cart is open for, but I would argue you need at least one email every day that your cart is open.

Speaker 2:

If you're in the business to business space, I think you could do more than one, but I do think maybe on your last two days of your open cart, maybe it's two emails on the last, on the second to last day, maybe three emails on the last day. And I know whenever I say that like I have been on podcast interviews before you can just see like people's like body language, like recoil when I say that number. But not everybody's opening the emails, not everybody's reading every email and your people, the people who are going to buy from you, are not going to be concerned about getting more emails from you. So I think we have to get into that headspace that, like by sending more emails we're actually connecting more with our ideal clients who are way more likely to buy, and we're getting people to say you know what this person's not for me and they can unsubscribe and that's great and wonderful and we can bless and release them.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I totally agree with you and I also think too, it's like what you're, what's happening in your launch. So, for example, I had an appointment a couple of weeks ago and it was like one o'clock and I looked at my clock and I'm like, oh, I got to get on this appointment at one 30. And I already forgot at one 30. Thank God it wasn't like a client appointment. I like started setting my alarm. That's how quickly my brain went.

Speaker 3:

So if you have a bonus that's expiring, my brain went so if you have a bonus that's expiring, right that it makes sense to remind someone hey, a bonus is expiring and sending out you're actually in my, in the way I start to view is like the people who want that you're doing them a favor, that you remind them, and we can't assume that they thought you know, who knows, maybe they were going to buy and they're like me and have their teenagers calling them 24, seven and got distracted and you know, you just don't know what's going on. The other thing, too, that I like to do, especially as I get close to cart close, I would love to hear what you think about this, allison, is I started looking at who's clicking on the sales page too, and then I feel a much more. I will send more emails to those people that I know are clicking, so that because obviously there's some interest there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I love for those people. So you can track these people right, so you can like tag them a specific tag inside your email marketing so you can send them extra emails, and I love sending them like hey, so I checked out the sales page but you haven't bought yet. Do you have a question? Like a super casual, like, hey, do you just want to talk about it? Because there are again, that's another type of buyer, like the people who just want to like ask you questions. So, like, by inviting them to do that, it can again, it can help to increase those conversions and they feel more again. They feel more taken care of and when people feel taken care of, they're way more likely to buy because they're getting that interaction with you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I love it and I give people like different ways to interact with me. So last my last lunch I was talking to people on Facebook messenger. I had some people who wanted to call. I had Instagram message, like I was actually communicating with people in different ways. So I think that's the other thing is trying to and we can probably talk about this more, about like in our next episode is like really allowing space to be able to have those conversations with people and not because if you're feeling overwhelmed and pressured during the launch, it's really hard to have those have time to have those conversations.

Speaker 2:

I love that you just brought that up and having the space, because I think a lot of us, especially during like a launch situation, we don't give ourselves that space to actually have those sorts of conversations. So I love that you just said that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I think too, when you give people options, I know I had one person who was like can we just get on? Can we just talk? Can we just like get on Zoom right now? And I was like sure. And then I have someone else who's like I feel really pressured to be on zoom and talk to you right now. Can we talk over Voxer? So, like there, there's people who it goes back to what Allison was talking about, these different types of buyers. You have the person who's just like I want this done now, can we talk? And if you're like me, I'm not getting on a zoom call with you unless I'm like 99.9% sure, cause I don't want to feel pressured into something. So I'm going to like read everything 14 times, think about it, talk to my husband, voxer, my best friend and then maybe I'll talk to you. So there's thinking through that process as well.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to add something for those of you listeners that have a high ticket launch.

Speaker 1:

Something that I've seen two of my clients implement very well is because when I say high ticket, I'm talking about something that's like $2,500 to $3,000 or above, where a part of your launch mechanism is to after, or maybe the call to action in your webinar and training is to book a call with you.

Speaker 1:

Something that I saw work very, very well is just having a simple like either on Typeform or maybe Google Forms, but it's the quiz setup, but it's like a five question survey that's attached to this book, a call link, and before somebody can just book a call with you. That way, you're protecting your time and making sure that you're able to hop on calls with people who truly are ready. They just have to go through and answer a set of questions and then you have logic set up on the back end so that the right kind of person is able to book a call with you and the person who is not quite ready you have either a downsell or maybe other offers that you already have available, prepared on that results page, so that you're making sure that you're spending your time in a way that protects your energy and that also you're giving your time to people who need it the most.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think that's super smart and actually it reminded me too, another way I was communicating with people was video ask, so that's a really quick way as well. I sold one of the spots in my program on video ask last time, so that's another way to protect your time, too is to give people easy ways to ask you questions.

Speaker 1:

I love it For you listening who might be having, let's say, a multiple training.

Speaker 1:

Let's say you have a boot camp with multiple live trainings, or you have a pre-recorded video series that you're releasing on the DRIPT schedule.

Speaker 1:

You can run ads to those and all you have to do is retarget your registrants and your warm audiences with a very simple ad.

Speaker 1:

If you're looking inside of Facebook ad manager because you want a little bit more detail, it's the traffic objective and you simply create the ad as simple as you would like. But the ad copy just needs to say reminder training, one that you registered for or signed up for, is on or is today, and then you set that ad up to run like in for an hour, not an hour for 24 hours, and the link goes to that training session. Or if you have the training sessions on one page, the link goes right back to that page. But you can definitely remind people who have registered and your warm audiences, like your Instagram followers, your Facebook followers, people who have visited your website recently, that these trainings have gone on, because what we tend to see is the most people will show up to your first training and then it starts to taper off from there for the second and third trainings and this is a way to get more people to the value that they signed up to get.

Speaker 2:

So if you do a webinar, Kwejo, can you send people to the replay through ads? Have you done that before?

Speaker 1:

I have sent people to the replay through ads for my clients. You can absolutely do so and you should, because I mean, both of you have seen time and time again what is the webinar. Show up rate 30%.

Speaker 3:

You're really lucky right now, on a good day.

Speaker 1:

On a good day, right? Because I mean okay, you're launching in summer your clients are busy or on vacation or just have kids like mine, you know and they're at home more. So making sure that people know that they have an option to come and see the replay is a very good thing, and we can't rely on emails Like what standard email open rates that you're seeing?

Speaker 2:

Like 20 to 40%.

Speaker 1:

Great, and so you can rely on emails. But what I mean is we can't just say that, okay, we sent a few emails about a webinar replay and that's it. You know, like we want to make sure people know, because if 20% of people are opening the email, then that means 80% of people did not see that email.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, you have me thinking. Now I do a webinar very at least once a month, if not twice a month, and like I'm like, can I send ads for my replay? Like totally going to do that next time.

Speaker 3:

Right People are already interested. Allison, I'd love to know, like on the day of the actual event, how many emails are you sending out and what do those look like?

Speaker 2:

The first one. I can tell you exactly what I do, so my webinars are always at 1 PM. The first one goes out at 6 AM and talks about like the bigger picture transformation of what they're going to learn today, and it also gives them all the details right the length, the time, all that. And then it announces the free gift that they get if they show up live and tells them that they'll get access to it and you only can get it when you are live with me. Oh, and then the reply, the like call to action is like hit, reply and tell me exactly what you're looking like, tell me what you're looking forward to learning. And then what I do is I screenshot those things and I put them in the webinar, which is fun, so it helps them again to see, heard or to feel seen and heard.

Speaker 2:

The second email goes out an hour before and it's like nuts and bolts again, link time, all that, and it says like an hour to go, there's a timer in it. And then the third email goes out when we're live and it has just a huge button. It's like join the webinar and they get access to it. And then this is something I added in about a year ago and this is really helpful. 10 minutes into the webinar my VA sends out an email and says hey, allison started the webinar 10 minutes ago. You can still join.

Speaker 2:

Here's the link and it's from like a team Alison Hardy web address instead of like Alison Hardy, and so it's just like something different that pops in their inbox and 10 minutes in every single time I see a surge of people joining. So it just kind of like gets those people who are like oh, like you, brenna, like oh, crap, I forgot, like oh, I wanted to do this thing, but it's like oh, just kidding, you can still get in. And 10 minutes into my webinar is really when I start to like dig really into like the meat and potatoes of the content. So they come in and like oh, here we are, and that's a. That's been a great way to get more people in.

Speaker 3:

Are your webinars typically an hour long? Yeah, and then do you stay for, like, does it go over for Q&A or does that include Q&A?

Speaker 2:

I try. So the webinar itself is 45 minutes and then I usually do about 15 for Q&A, and so the webinar itself is 45 minutes and then I usually do about 15 for Q&A, and if we go over, like that's cool.

Speaker 1:

But usually that gets the job done. Thank you, yeah, always have Q&A. I mean Q&A is to me basically it's objection overcoming time. With people's questions, lots of it is. There's objections packed in there or underneath underlying each question. So Q&A is a must have in my book.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we used to have a mentor that said, like the more questions you answer, the more sales you will make, and what they were saying is, like the longer you can stay on your webinar, like the more questions, like the more people are asking questions, which is a great thing, and then you'll get more sales as a result of that.

Speaker 3:

Well, and I think too it's like I, even with our conversation like one person says something which makes you think of something else. So there's probably questions that people don't even know that they have, but once they start listening to someone else, they're like oh wait, I do have a question. So I love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But, like a good magician who never reveals all of their tricks and leaves the audience waiting, two things we're going to make sure to stop the episode now and tell you that there is the final episode of this series coming up Maximizing your Cart Open Period where you're going to hear from us about how to overcome that mid-cart lull in sales, like maybe how to turn around a launch that's not going as planned, but specifically talking about having a Q&A session at the end of your webinar. Don't keep going and going and going and going and answering all of the questions because, like a good magician, show them your best answers, so to speak, point back to your offer and then no one to stop when they're still left wanting more from you, so to speak. Because if you're going on like an hour after your webinar answering Q&A's, just it's not doing your webinar attendees any good, for lack of a better word. So with that, any closing thoughts before we jump into the next episode.

Speaker 2:

I think, for when it comes to like, the actual you know event, I think that what we said in the beginning I just want to highlight this again is like what's the mechanism that works best for your audience? And I think when you can land on that and then you can also come from the perspective of like what works best for me, and when you can marry those two things together, I think it really creates a very powerful launch that feels good Cause like we need to feel good when we're launching because we're, like you know, on display and our business is like the forefront here. So coming at it from that perspective, I think, is not only key to seeing results, but I also think it's key to helping you want to do more of it.

Speaker 3:

I think the thing I would leave you with is on car open day, kind of having a plan of where you want to be at.

Speaker 3:

So for me, I write a lot of my launch emails more in real time or I'm repurposing ones and I'm kind of repurposing them and I'm doing it. But I know for me, like having that initial kickoff email, like ready to go well ahead of time, helps me just get into the mind frame. So I think that's it Like. Are you someone who's going to feel much better if you have, you know, all 10 of your launch emails completely written ahead of time? Or are you someone who it works better if you have all 10 of your launch emails completely written ahead of time? Or are you someone who it works better if you go with the flow? So I think, also listening to you and how it's how you will stay out, some people get so overwhelmed trying to write 10 emails they burn themselves out and then they show up to the webinar depleted where other people that would energize them to know that they have checked that task off. And so I think that's everything is really knowing yourself in this, in the sales process.

Speaker 1:

Oh good, oh good, let's all say goodbye for now. Like we got so much good stuff coming up for the upcoming episode, I can't wait personally.

Speaker 2:

Awesome Thanks, Gleadjo. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Speaker 1:

Cool, bye, you both.

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