In this episode I am joined by Prerna Malik, a conversion copywriter. We will talk about launch strategies, the need for conversion copywriting, the different types of things businesses could launch to help increase their revenue stream and the 5 steps to creating a profitable launch strategy for your business. We will also give you concrete examples to help you bring your ideas to life.
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Prefer to read 5 Steps to Creating a Profitable Launch Strategy? Here’s the transcript:
ANGELA:
You’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast, with Angela Henderson, episode ten.
Hey there, you’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast, my name is Angela Henderson, and on this show we talk about improving your business, life or both. By having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests. Who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks, to help you grow both in life and in business.
I’m back for another amazing episode of Business and Life Conversations Podcast with me, your host, Angela from Angela Henderson Consulting. Today is super exciting because I have one of the most brilliant people in the world on the show today, talking about five steps to creating a profitable launch strategy. During today’s show, you’re going to learn what types of things businesses could launch, why having a launch strategy is imperative for success and the top five steps needed to create a profitable launch strategy. So, grab your pen and paper and get comfy; because you’re in for a brilliant show.
Welcome to the show, Prerna.
PRERNA:
Hi Angela, thank you so much for having me here and I’m really excited to chat about all things to do with launches, since, yeah that’s something I can just talk on for ever and ever.
ANGELA:
Yes, yes and we do know, you and I have been friends for a long time so we have a tendency of talking on for ever and ever, naturally. Our sessions normally go for way longer than our allocated times we have for each other. So yes, so I’ll try and keep us off random tangents as we talk about launch strategies. So yes, now speaking of talking, again I’ve known you for a very long time and you are a lover of Starbucks, so you post about this regularly on your socials, so I like to get the audience to get to know you a little bit more about who you are as a person before we jump right into the business side of things. So, for your love of all things Starbucks, tells us what your go to snack or drink is when you head to Starbucks and also just let me and the other listeners know a little bit about who you are, where you’re from and what you do?
PRERNA:
Awesome yes, so caramel macchiato, hands down, is my go to drink when I am at Starbucks. That was easy, so yeah, and fun things about me, I’m a conversion copywriter and one of the most fun things about me is that I work with businesses like yours all over the world. U.S. and Australia being the biggest for me, and I live in India. So that’s yes, super fun.
ANGELA:
Basically again, so you really are living in the like remote nomad kinda sort of. Because you …
PRERNA:
Yeah.
ANGELA:
You two travel quite intensively around the word, but yes. So you’re stationed at India but yet you’ve grown your business quite substantially, not from the people of India though you work with people in India, but predominantly like you said, Australia and America.
PRERNA:
That is right, yeah. And yes, we do travel, we travel both as a family for pleasure, just like Yale and Dale and Finlay and Chloe, but also for business for events and conferences. Again, yeah all over the world and that’s in fact how we met. We met at an event, I think it was for bloggers, right?
ANGELA:
More than that, I think you posted on a group, you’re like I’m flying in from India into Brisbane, what’s going to be the easiest way to get to the Gold Coast. And if anyone who lives in Australia, getting from Brisbane to the Gold Coast on public transport is not the funnest way, you’ve got to go from the airport into the city, into the city down to the last stop in the Gold Coast, and you got to kind of catch a bus, and I was like, “This poor lady she’s going to have traveled from India and she’s not like, going to have to go through all these hurdles,” so I was like, “Hey I’m a random stranger but if you’d like me to pick you up at the airport.” And you’re like, “Yes pick me up”, and then we’ve been friends pretty much since then, it was like just so funny what can happen, again the importance of networking. I talk to people all the time about their reach out, connect with people. And yeah, so it’s been brilliant since, how long, two or three years ago, I think it’s been?
PRERNA:
Yep, three years ago, I think, yeah I know..
ANGELA:
Three years in August, I think. Yeah.
PRERNA:
Mm-hmm.
ANGELA:
You mentioned something interesting when you first started. Now I know, but a lot of the listeners may not know. So, when you really talk about copywriting I think and I know it’s slightly different but I think it’s important so people understand because what your type of copywriting does is very important from a strategy, like a launch strategy point of view. So when you, you used the keywords conversional copywriter, am I correct?
PRERNA:
Yeah, it’s conversion copywriting. So essentially..
ANGELA:
Yeah.
PRERNA:
Go ahead.
ANGELA:
So, tell us a little bit about regular copywriting versus what you do, just to kind of get a little bit more depth and scope for those that are listening.
PRERNA:
Ideally all copywriting, whether it’s you know, whatever people may call it. It could be personality-based copywriting, it could SEO copywriting, it could be conversion copywriting. All copywriting needs to convert. Period. If your copy on your website, on your sales page, in your emails, on your landing pages is not converting, those are just pretty words on a page. You don’t need those, you know so ideally all copy needs to connect and convert. Why I specialise in conversion copywriting is because I have a proprietary process that I use to not just write the copy but actually collect all the data needed and it’s almost scientific, I collect a lot of voice of customer data, I do a lot of research and use all of that to create, whether it’s sales pages, emails, website copy whatever. All of that, knowing what’s going to really connect with a reader, and then convert them, I know exactly why we need to include a certain call to action, I know exactly why we need to use a certain sub head because I’ve got the data to back it up.
ANGELA:
Yeah, gotcha.
PRERNA:
It’s not just me pulling words out of thin air, essentially, I’m relying on a pool of data to guide me and my copywriting decisions.
ANGELA:
Gotcha cool, because I guess with any type of industry copywriters, business coaches whatever, there are some dud ones out there.
PRERNA:
Yeah, yeah.
ANGELA:
That they, they own that I do this and I do this. But what you’re saying is in your particular instance, hone down even further by looking at the data and taking what the data is saying and then marrying that with the copy in order to have the highest chance for the greatest conversion.
PRERNA:
Absolutely, like in your case. So, we’re working on your launch copy in fact as we speak, and the whole process started with a fairly in-depth questionnaire, then we met for a long kick off call. Then, since then I’ve been digging deep into your Facebook group, I’ve been talking to people who fit your client profile, I’ve been going into different forums, communities, asking questions, collecting all that information. Looking at what your competition is doing, finding the gaps in what they offer, so we can stand out. There’s a whole lot of research that goes into the process before I even put a single word on the page.
ANGELA:
Yeah, no, perfect.
PRERNA:
And that helps me make sense, when I do your copy presentation you’ll see that I’ll explain exactly what I did and the reasoning for why I have certain phrases, a certain structure. All of that on the page, so you know where I’m coming from and you wouldn’t just say, “Oh this is great”, you’ll know exactly why it’s great.
ANGELA:
Yeah. No absolutely. So, for those that are listening, I know we slightly got sidetracked but I do always try to make sure that you guys out there that are listening aren’t lost in conversation, or going what was that big word, or what did that mean? So, I just wanted to clarify because the type of copywriting that Prerna does, to me is very important and it’s not just your everyday copywriting. And we’ll talk a little bit about that once we talk about the launch strategy in a minute.
So, as you know, I’m kind of black and white, I like to get straight to the gun, so I would, I’ll personally be like, let’s just jump straight to the five steps for creating a profitable launch strategy. But in this instance, I think again, it’s important we go back to some of the basics for those listeners out there. You know that don’t understand this concept of launching, or why would I launch my business, or how’s it going to benefit my business? So, I just want you to talk a little bit about, what are some of the things that businesses can potentially launch in their business to have a different monetary stream potentially. You know for example you’re currently working with me on creating my new eight-week business coaching program, that’s going run through August and September, so in this instance I’m launching a business coaching program. But what are other things businesses can potentially launch to help with increasing their overall revenue stream?
PRERNA:
Oh, the list is endless, so you’re right to mention, you’re launching, we’re working on an online program that’s like an online product really. It could be, you could launch an e-book, you could launch a physical product, you could even launch a service, I’ve done an insane number of service launches. You could launch, and this is again something that I’d recently launched is like a co-creative workshop. So, I did one for service-based businesses called Profits on Tap, where we’re working together to create their package services. So, I recently launched it and sold out all six, we had five spots we ended up selling six spots.
You could launch a retreat, a business retreat, or an event. You have one coming up in November so that’s something that you could launch. The list is endless. And again we’re going to discuss this, when we dive into strategy. Your launches don’t have to be stressful, I know launches are general.. I’ve been in a lot of huge launches and they can be overwhelming, but if you have a strategy A, you could relax because you would know exactly what needs to be done when. And B, if it’s your first launch you can always start small. There is nothing wrong with it, it’s better to start than to stay stuck because you want to have this big launch. So, if you’ve got an idea..
ANGELA:
I 100% agree with that, because you’ll know in the launch they we’re doing for the business program that we’re not over complicating things, we’re keeping it very simple, we’re focusing on one set of things. And I guess, I look at the wonderful people like Amy Porterfield, Denise Duffield-Thomas, or all of those beautiful ladies, and there’s also men out there too. I’m talking about those two ladies for now, that they done beautiful launches but you have to remember that it wasn’t perfect at the beginning, and not, and the other thing is, not any launch goes to perfection there’s always little hiccups that get in the way. And Amy Porterfield and Denise Duffield-Thomas they didn’t have a sellout million dollar launch their first time.
PRERNA:
Yeah.
ANGELA:
They started simple and then they re-tweaked it and rebuilt it, so I think that’s a super important thing to remember that it could just be an e-book that you make on Canva, and first of all you don’t have a lot of overhead costs, you only might do a little bit of advertising but you got to start somewhere. And again, I’m always saying it’s better to have imperfect action, than to have no action at all.
PRERNA:
Absolutely I agree.
ANGELA:
So now okay, those are the different things that people can potentially launch, like new products like we talked about retreats etcetera. So then I don’t know about you, but I see this happen all the time, people will build a new product or create a new product, they’ll build a new website, they’ll do a new e-book or even a regular book that they want to sell on Amazon or whatever, but they don’t have a launch. And then I hear them complaining, going oh my gosh, I spent all this money and all this time on doing all these things, but you just can’t create a program or a product or a book or whatever, without some sort of launch in momentum, because how are people going to find you, where are they going to go? Do you agree seeing that, or is it just me seeing these things?
PRERNA:
Oh no absolutely, in fact yeah that’s going to be one of the first steps that we’re going to discuss for the launch strategy is where you use that to get people to pay attention to who you are. You start to attract your audience so I think this is a perfect time for us to dive into launch strategy. I have a four-step framework, that I call the A, B, C, D framework, I’m going to give you a bonus fifth step at the end, that’s going to bring it all together. So, in fact the first step of my launch strategy framework, and this is something that I do for clients all the time is attract. The A is for attract, you need to have authority building content, it doesn’t matter what kind of content, but you need to have content that helps you build authority, it could be blog post, it could be a podcast like this one, it could be videos, like Facebook lives, or YouTube videos or whatever you want to do.
But you need to have a bank of authority building content that you’re sharing on a regular basis. How do you also attract people is by creating a lead magnet by having what we call an opt-in page or a registration page where people can sign up to get your opt-in gift that would then introduce them to who you are and tell them more about you. The other thing is since we’re talking about opt-in pages, is your thank you page, do not ignore that thank you page. Thank you page often most under-utilised piece of copy.
People think it’s okay to just put up a photo and say thank you, you’re all set. But that’s, it kind of ties into what I do as a conversion copywriter is leverage that thank you page to again reassure them that they’ve made the right decision, yeah, again share your authority, right? Give them the next steps so they know what’s coming. And you prime them for taking action, you don’t want them to just sign up for your opt-in, especially for a launch and then just forget about it. You want them to be excited about it, so that’s going to be like part of your attract strategy. You do need to have emails that go out to them once they’ve signed up. Emails that are encouraging, they’re engaging, they’re affirming their decision to take action and finally you also need social media content. Again, in the attract stage, you’re not selling. In the attract stage all you’re doing is you’re building your authority, you’re building your visibility, you’re building a connection with people. There is no selling going on, you’re just attracting your tribe, so to speak. So that’s step one, stage one. And once you do that you have an audience waiting for you to share what it is that you’ve got to offer.
ANGELA:
Yes, so I guess, going back to what we talked about, is in those instances where people have built the products, built a new website, created a book and they didn’t do the step one which is attract. Which there obviously other levels under that, but they didn’t attract their key audience to start priming them, to start creating authority, credibility, visibility that therefore, right off the bat, they’re already shooting themselves in the foot, because they didn’t do any of those initial stages.
PRERNA:
Yeah, so then when they release whatever they’re releasing, no one’s wondering, no one’s excited to get it, no one’s waiting to hear about it. And people are then caught off guard, and that’s like their first offer, they’re like, you know, but I don’t even know you, and how do you expect me to pay you for whatever it is that you’re selling? Whether it’s a service, a book or even check out your new website. Why should I really care? Even if you’re not selling anything, if you’ve decided to launch a new website for example, why do I care? Because again, lives are busy, attention spans are short, and people want to know what’s in it for them? That’s human nature.
ANGELA:
Yeah, no, absolutely, and for those that are again out there listening, some of the information for those, especially who are new to a launch strategy might go, oh my goodness, you’re going to force me to drink some whiskey today, Ange, because this is way too overwhelming for me, or you’re about to start eating eight Krispy Kreme donuts. Don’t do that, I promise it’s okay, put the donuts or the whiskey down, because at the end of it, over on the show notes when this particular session is out, you guys will have an opportunity to download the checklist that you need for this.
PRERNA:
Yes.
ANGELA:
There’s going to be some wonderful resources that are available to you. So yes, don’t freak out if you’re missing this, or you know, your pen’s going quicker than your brain can. We will have this all collated for you, so just sit back take it in and listen, that’s the first step. And we’ll provide you PDFs later on, so you can go through this more intensively.
PRERNA:
Yep, absolutely. We’ve got checklists, I’m going to give you guys a complete PDF of all the launch tools that you can use. So don’t worry about it, Angela’s right. So, the next step or next stage is building buzz, on getting excitement. So you’ve built your authority, you’ve started attracting people, now it’s time to get them excited about what it is that you offer. And yes, this is where I’m going to talk about Facebook ads.
ANGELA:
Yes.
PRERNA:
If your audience is on Facebook, you will need Facebook ads to get in front of them, again this is not the rule, there are exceptions. I’ve launched several, several products without using Facebook ads, several services without using Facebook ads, and they’ve all been a success. Having said that, if you’re starting, if you don’t have a very big audience pool already, you don’t have a reasonable sized email list, I would really recommend using Facebook ads to get in front of the people who are actually going to be interested in what it is that you offer. So again, depends on where your audience is but if you’ve got people who would, your prospective customers hanging out on Facebook or even Instagram for that matter, I would definitely recommend using advertising for both these platforms.
On the other hand, if you’ve got program or services or a business catering more to professionals who may not be on Facebook, then you may want to look at LinkedIn and that is where you would spend most of the time generating buzz. Again, building buzz it’s not just Facebook ads, you can use other forms of content including what we talked about in the attract stage, you can use blog posts, you can use emails, you can use social media updates. All of this stuff will share your, will talk about your free gifts, will talk about your free content, will show people behind the scenes what you’re working on, kind of give them a sneak peek. Remember this is a launch strategy so we are building them up to the offer that you will make.
In the build buzz stage, that’s the perfect time to do a behind the scenes tour of what you’re working on, share, if you’re building a website, if you’re launching a website, share snap shots of that. If you’re launching an event, like Angela is, maybe you could do a venue tour or show the swag bags that you’ll be giving away. So those to build excitement and then keep directing them to sign up for the lead magnet or the opt-in or the launch trigger, whatever you want to call it, which is going to be your free gift. So, get people excited, again remember all of this is where we are planting the seed in their head, in their brain that this is good stuff. You know what you’re doing, you can be trusted, so there is a lot of relationship building happening, but there is also a lot of, it’s not selling it’s like subtle selling. You are getting them ready for the sale, you’re gently and very naturally removing barriers, removing resistance, reducing friction. So when, if the time comes, to take out their credit card and punch in their details, they’ll be excited to do that, they won’t be hesitant, they won’t be wondering should I, or shouldn’t I? They’ll be like, “Okay tell me, where do I sign up?” And this is what you want to do.
ANGELA:
But then again, you said something important there, that again it’s about creating the buzz, but more importantly it’s that relationship building.
PRERNA:
Absolutely.
ANGELA:
And so often, people expect people to go, “Great, I’ve showed you my product now give me your credit card.” But you don’t go, and I say this all the time, just telling this exactly, you don’t go into a bar and say, “Hey Johnny meet me in the bathroom for sex”, it doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to court them, you’ve got to prime them, you’ve got to excite them, you’ve got to buzz them, right? People just don’t do that, you’ve got to be able to have that capacity to build that relationship and in stage two, that’s what you’re doing by creating all that buzz, showing them all the things behind the scenes etcetera.
PRERNA:
Yeah, yeah.
ANGELA:
All right so step three, what do we get next?
PRERNA:
Okay, step three is the call to action, right? Now CTAs and calls to action, are not just fancy buzz words that we use when we’re writing copy, but this stage is all about getting them to act. This is where you do the big product reveal. So, this is where you ask for the sale, you’ve built the foundations, you’ve got your people, you’ve shown that you know what you’re doing, you’ve built a relationship with them, you’ve gotten them excited.
It’s important to not stretch out any of these stages, over weeks and months, people will lose interest. It needs to be very kind of tight, again it depends on your offer, it depends on your audience, it depends on how ready to buy they are, but you want to keep it short and tight, so once you’ve gone through attract and building buzz then you need to put your call to action out there, which is with your sales page and you need to ensure that your sales page copy is compelling and obviously persuasive and engaging to read, and lays out your offer, whatever it is, whether it’s an e-book, an e-course, a service whatever it is, it lays out the benefits. And this is where you switch tracks and all the content that you’ve been putting out on social and in your email lists would be very, would focus on the offer, and your calls to action should include things like benefits. What are the key benefits, why should they really care about what it is that you’re offering?
Success stories, use your case studies, product demos if it’s like a physical product, you may want to show how to actually use it. Even if it’s like a digital service, like a membership site, or an online program like Angela’s, you may want to show what the inside would look like once you log in. These are all very effective ways for reducing the friction that people experience when they’re going to be paying for something. It’s like when you go shopping and if you see something that you just have no idea what it does, or would you just what to fling your credit card at it? No, you’ll want to know more, you’ll want to speak to the sales rep. It’s like when you go to buy a car, for that matter, you know what a car does but when you’re looking at certain specific cars, you’ll want to take it out for a test drive, you want to see how it drives, how it feels, maybe you feel like me, how it smells.
ANGELA:
Yeah.
PRERNA:
You want to know all of those things and then make a decision, and you’ll probably want to discuss it with your family, you wouldn’t just, it’s not going to be an impulse purchase, if especially you’ve got a higher end offer, $1,000 and above. Your prospective customers may want to discuss it with their significant others, may want to think about it, chat about it with a friend, or a mastermind buddy, get a feel, “Should I really go for it?” So you need to remove all those barriers, all those frictions points and while you’re selling remember you’re always building trust, you’re always building the relationship, they’re not a number. People, buyers are not numbers, they’re not your six-figure launch. Buyers are people, so you’re building a relationship that you will come back to over and over again. And that is why it’s so important that you treat this call to action stage with the highest level of integrity, with the highest level of intention and the highest level of attention.
ANGELA:
And I think again, it’s so much easier to retain a customer who’s already bought from you, to then have to try, and prime and do all that building again. So if you treat people right from the beginning as people and as human beings who have feelings etcetera, that if they convert now, because you’ve treated them with that kindness and respect, they also will then talk about your program with other people. They will say how good of a person you are, etcetera so again that relationship building, treat them like a human being, they’re not just a number. I couldn’t agree more with that.
PRERNA:
Yep, and I’m glad you brought that up, because people do talk to other people and that is why the fourth stage, which is delight is just as important, and something I don’t see enough business owners doing. Sometimes I see a lot of, and these are a lot of really good names, really good businesses, so they’ll do the attract, the build buzz and the call to action supremely well and then when it comes to the last, the fourth stage, not really the last stage, one but last. The delight stage is where it just falls apart. The delight stage is the post-purchase stage, right?
After people have bought your, whether it’s a $9 e-book or a $999 e-course, you need to go delight your people. And this again, you don’t need to send them big gifts, or do a lot of fancy things but simple things. Your post-purchase emails that go out, do they thank them for their purchase? Do they congratulate them? Do they welcome them? Do they tell them what to do next? Do you have any surprise bonuses that you may not have talked about, that you send out after a week or 10 days after they’ve purchased? So having these simple things in place, maybe you do a social media event for the people in the paid group if you’ve got a course, most courses have paid groups, so you do a Facebook live over there, personally welcoming them. Maybe it would be great, and again this is something I’m not saying you’ve got to do it, but this would be so cool if you can welcome everybody by name.
So, when you do a Facebook live welcome message you’ll read out everybody’s names, and you say how delighted.. it’s a simple thing, you have all that data with you, you have all that information with you, use it. It will feel so good for someone to see a welcome video with.. you don’t have to do separate welcome videos, again. You could just do one video but saying so wonderful to welcome this batch of XYZ course, I’m welcoming person A, person B, person G or that kind of thing. Here’s what we’ll be doing over the next four weeks, so the next eight weeks, and then just lay out the next steps for them, tell them what to expect etcetera, simple things but just wow them.
If you’ve got a higher end course maybe you could send out physical gifts in the mail. These are just ideas to go above and beyond, but you don’t have to do all of them but I would say just pick something that you can do to delight people. I know, I think Todd Herman does this, he calls up everybody who signs up for his 90-day year, I think that’s astounding. A friend of mine told me about this and I thought that was amazing.
ANGELA:
No, absolutely.
PRERNA:
When I think about the time to pick up the phone and call people who are signing up for your course to thank them?
ANGELA:
Absolutely and I do think that, that’s again, you differentiate yourselves from everyone else, because there’s multiple coaching programs and there’s multiple things etcetera that are out there, but again it’s the 1%, as I call it, it’s the 1% of people that do this like what you’re talking about that they’ve done the first three steps very well, but the 1 percenters are always going to finish up on the fourth and fifth step. And it’s one of the things that I learned early on, I’m trying to think who I even learned it from, but same thing when anyone ever signs up to one of my business coaching, one to one, they all automatically get a welcome personalised plaque that I had made for them with when they had started their business, with their name it’s sent, with a note from me etcetera. So yes, and I can’t tell you, they then share that stuff on social media, they talk about it in groups.
PRERNA:
Yep.
ANGELA:
But I’ve created, I’ve actually validated them again from that human being perspective like we talked about earlier on, they’re not just a number. Because for me in order to personalise each thing, I’ve got to make sure I definitely know the year that they started and what’s the exact name of their business, what’s their address? And it takes a little bit of time but the overall, to see the expressions on their face that, they send me photos and they’ll send me emails. Like I said, it’s pretty amazing and it doesn’t take that much time to do it.
PRERNA:
Yeah, it doesn’t. And again, you don’t have to do it if you’re just launching a program like Angela said, she’s got a coaching service. I have a copywriting service, I send out gifts, and mine are again, it doesn’t have to be a big deal, it just needs to be thoughtful exactly like Ange said, it just needs to have some meaning to it. Just give it some thought, you can think about it and decide how is it that you’re going to go ahead and delight your customers. And there’s another reason that’s more, I would say not very.. it’s very strategic for it, there’s another very strategic reason for delighting your customers, it ties them in with your community, it makes them feel like a stronger part of your brand and it goes a long way in producing refund requests. Especially for more higher end programs or even $400 or $500 program. You keep that feel good purchase feeling alive for way longer with this single step as well. And that makes a huge difference.
ANGELA:
No, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. So, we’ve got.. just kind of recap again, we got step one, the attract. Step two, the buzz. Step three the call to action, step four, we’re at delight, that so many people are missing and let’s tie it all together. What’s our step five?
PRERNA:
Step five is execute.
ANGELA:
Yep.
PRERNA:
You need to execute all this, don’t skip stages, don’t overthink it. I see so many people striving for perfection on their first launch, but remember progress is better than perfection, done is better than perfect. So execute, don’t overthink it, you can always refine, you can always revise, you can always revisit. You can scrap the whole thing, that’s the beauty of launches, so just go ahead and execute, see what it is that you are launching, see when you want to launch it, and then go ahead and yeah, you execute.
ANGELA:
What you also saying in regards to the executing stage, there’s a couple of programs that I’ve signed up for, all remain nameless, but they did steps one two and three, they skipped four but they equally skip five from the point of view from executing. There, the particular program that I bought, everything was recorded, and then they had a Facebook group which was great, but they’d either be late to their Facebook lives or they would not show up, or.. I mean the list goes on. So just because they then have the client and they had the conversion they still didn’t actually execute the program, you know?
PRERNA:
Yes, yes.
ANGELA:
And I think there is something is, that if you’re going to do this, you need to do it from start to finish. Just as many people you can bring on, instead of just like, get Amy Porterfield she’d probably get on board say 3,000 people to a launch right? But if you didn’t execute, you’re going to potentially tick a lot of people off. So, all that good will and good buzz, could turn to negative very, very quickly and not only ruin what you’re currently in, but also any potential credibility and authority for future launches.
PRERNA:
Yep, absolutely and again, this executing at program level ties in really well to delighting your customers as well. So, imagine if you know that you’re going to show up in the group every week live at a certain time, there’s a certain predictability to it. Imagine if they go into all the modules, all the worksheets are already there, they’re not hunting around for stuff. They’ve got everything they need, when they ask a question you’re there to reply. So these are just simple small ways for you to continue to delight them, even after they’ve signed up don’t. Like I said, buyers are not numbers, buyers are people, so they are like real humans, with real feelings. You need to keep all of that into account, and yeah, then just go ahead, deliver. Yeah, that’s the A, B, C, D with the execute bonus.
ANGELA:
With the extra bonus. I like it, I’m loving it. So again for those that are out there, for listening, in order to really create a launch, the five steps for creating a profitable launch. You really need to focus on step one, which is attract. Step two, which is the buzz. Step three, your call to action, step four, the delight stage and step five the execute stage. Now again, all of this we will recap in our show notes and links on our page, you guys will be able to access those at www.angelahenderson.com.au. But tell me why, all these stages, why do you think it’s imperative though to have a launch strategy? What’s it really mean, like icing on the cake? If you don’t have a launch strategy, what do you think it is? Because I think it’s important for us to know why having a launch strategy is imperative for a successful outcome? If they don’t have..
PRERNA:
Oh, for lots of reasons. So A, it keeps everything organised, B, you know exactly where you’re heading otherwise you’re just flinging spaghetti at the wall, and hoping that it will stick. C, you know what you’ll need to fix if something doesn’t work. So, if you find that your build buzz stage did not do as well as you’d expected to do, you would see the engagement taper off, your open rates, your emails would not have been opened as much. Maybe no one really showed up for your webinar, where you were announcing the launch of your program. Or maybe people just didn’t buy your e-book, whatever the stuff you were launching, you would know where to go back and so when you do your launch debrief you will know this is where we kind of fell flat, and this is what we need to fix, so you’re not going to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch. You’ll say okay we did well, we built authority, we started attracting the right people, but then when it came to building buzz maybe the Facebook ads didn’t work. So you know exactly where to fix things and then kind of refine the process, so that’s number three.
Number four, is how do you evaluate the success of your launch? How would you know what worked well on the flip side of what didn’t go well? You need to know what worked well so you can rinse and repeat it. And that is again where having a strategy is going to help you.
ANGELA:
That’s it, it’s not just of the dollars it’s about what’s going to happen after post, what do we improve on, what do we keep, what do we scrap? Without the strategy you’ve got no evidence, or like you’ve said you’re not organised, you’ve got nothing to go back to and reflect on.
PRERNA:
Yeah, you don’t want it to get.. you don’t want to guess as success, right? So you don’t want to say, “Oh okay, maybe this didn’t work, let me switch out the sales pitch.” Or, “Maybe I should just change my emails,” no, you need to look at the numbers. You need to go step by step, stage by stage and see alright, “So we did the attract stage from week one to week two, so we had emails were being opened, this was our email open rate. This was our Facebook engagement, this was the traffic to our page,” and etcetera. So you have all of that data, so we were doing good but then in the build buzz stage it all just tanked, now what really tanked? Emails were being opened, okay fine. Social media was doing pretty well, we were climbing numbers. Facebook ads, we need to probably fix that. Or you could say, “Facebook ads did their job, but our emails sucked. Nobody was opening click through rates were abysmal, that’s where we need to start and fix things.” So you have a plan of action for the future, and you know exactly what needs to be done and you spend your money wisely, right?
ANGELA:
Yes.
PRERNA:
And it’s also less stressful, because you know what you’re doing. Like I said launches don’t have to be stressful once you know what you’re doing, once you know how you’re doing it, it all just falls into place.
ANGELA:
Absolutely, and again, I’m seeing that right now with you, so it’s all little by little working. Slowly but surely. So, for the listeners out there that would like to learn more about your services, or where to follow you on your social platforms, where can they find you?
PRERNA:
Yeah, I would love for you all to check out my website, I’m at Content Bistro, that’s www.contentbistro.com, Angela will drop it into the show notes as well. And you’ll get copywriting tips there, and obviously some of my cool checklists and a lot of real world tested strategies for you to take conversion copywriting principles and apply it to your business whatever it is that you’re launching. And like Angela mentioned at the start, I do have a couple of gifts for you, again she’ll drop the links in the comments but I have a PDF packed with launch tools, that you can just take and use, for different stages of your launch and a launch copy checklist as well. Which outlines all the A, B, C, D, the execute is all on you.
ANGELA:
No, I love it, and again I’m all about a good checklist, nothing better that a checklist. Yeah, before we wrap up I like to open or close with a bit of a fun more question, we already talked about your Starbucks addiction, but tell us something magical about India that none of us might know about?
PRERNA:
Oh so many things, it’s a huge country but because we’re also big foodies, my husband, my daughter and I, what we love about the country is that when you go to a different state, so every state will have its own version of a particular food. So you can have there’s like a rice dish it will be made differently in the North than in the South, and East and the West. So the food is, yeah I think it’s the most fun part, there’s just so much good food to have.
ANGELA:
That’s super interesting, so if you have a particular let’s say korma, chicken korma for example, if I had it in one state and I went to another state even though it would still have the same name, but there could be a different, I don’t know, or a different vibe to it.
PRERNA:
Yes, it would have probably a different way being made, so a chicken biriyani is huge, so my husband’s a huge chicken biriyani fan, and every state, will have its own chicken biriyani.
ANGELA:
Yeah.
PRERNA:
Yeah, they’ll all be chicken biriyani, but they’ll all be either made differently. They’ll have the same key ingredients, so rice and chicken of course, and the spices will be somewhat similar, but the method may be different or sometimes the spices may be different, so the flavour, the way it tastes, the way it smells, all of it is so different, yeah it’s just a lot of fun.
ANGELA:
I think I might need to take a trip to India, it’s on my list, it’s been on my list for a very long time and I do love food.
PRERNA:
Yes, I know, we’ve been talking about it. I know.
ANGELA:
I know, I need to get there. So food, alright. India, there are magical elements of different food dishes amongst the different states, I love it, I love it. Now for those we will wrap up this particular episode but I just want to remind you guys that my team and I will also be putting together the whole transcription for this episode at www.angelahenderson.com.au and of course I cover all sorts of related business and life topics inside my Facebook group, the Australian Business Collaborative. Which has over, we’re hitting almost close to 4,000 businesses, so make sure you join that community as I’d love to see you in there, but for now have an awesome day, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us, I know it’s super early in India, so thank you so much for being here, and be prepared for the next episode, it’s a goodie, it’s all about Facebook e-commerce ads, and you guys are going to love it, so stay tuned for next week’s episode.
Thanks for listening to the Business and Life Conversations podcast with Angela Henderson, 5 Steps to Creating a Profitable Launch Strategy. www.angelahenderson.com.au.
