mastering_product_launches.md

Mastering Product Launches

How to launch products course by Nathan Barry available at http://buildingprofitableaudiences.com.

Foundations

It doesn't matter if you have a huge email list, you need to plan out your launch to avoid failure. This course will teach you systems to put into place. Some foundations:

• teaching is the best form of marketing
• teaching establishes credibility and builds your audience
• emulate chefs: all the chefs you've heard of shared their recipes
• use email to connect with your audience
• email converts better than social network (~15x)
• emails act like a todo in an inbox
• emails are surrounded by important content in the inbox
• emails have much higher engagement and provide a personal connection
• don't use heavily branded/designed templates, strip it down to basic almost plain-text emails so it's more personal

Building an Email List

Create an effective landing page:

• what is it -- describe your product, preferably with a large centered graphic
• have a bold header that catches attention and draws visitors in, talk about the pain you're fixing
• follow it up with paragraphs on benefits and how to solve the problem
• email opt-in form which is the call to action for this landing page
• the email opt-in is the logical conclusion
• add "We won't spam, promise."
• remove anything that distracts from your call to action (other links, buttons, etc...)

Getting traffic:

• think of 10x actual people who would be a good fit for your product
• if you can't think of 10x, re-think your product
• where do these people hang out online, what sites do they read, do those sites accept guest posts?
• ask friends to promote it with individual emails
• find subreddits where your audience hangs out, participate on community, share your landing page
• other communities: Hacker News, Product Hunt, Beta List, iOS Dev Weekly, Ruby Weekly, Founder Weekly

Conversion rates:

• conversion rates are correlated more with your traffic than your page itself
• for higher conversion rates, use highly targeted traffic

Consider buying ads:

• it's a great way to collect emails
• keep track of average cost per subscriber and cost per sale
• Nathan's ROI on Twitter ads were 11x

Pricing and Pre-orders

Price based on value:

• higher priced products require less conversions and increases revenue
• higher prices are essential if you have a small audience
• teach a skill that makes money, to people who have money, so you can price on value
• deliver a ton of value and charge accordingly
• charge more if your product caters to businesses (who have employee costs)

Double revenue with multiple packages:

• use tiered pricing to gain more revenue
• charge more for products that deliver more value
• Nathan saw 60% of his revenue come from his top tier
• multiple packages utilizers price anchoring: how much is a book worth vs video course?
• your customers have different budgets

What to put in each package:

• base package tells them what to do
• higher packages does as much as it for customers as possible
• people who value time over money can purchase higher packages
• consider adding consulting time to highest tier
• example for fiction: base book, higher package includes behind-the-scenes and short stories

On pre-orders:

• offer a discount and collect money upfront
• the people who pre-order are biggest fans of products, reward them with a discount
• but don't discount too much that it hurts your revenue
• do a pre-launch for the pre-orders by building up anticipation and adding urgency

Working With Others

On guest posts:

• borrow other audiences as early as possible
• from your ideal customer, find out where they hang out online -- do these sites accept guest posts?
• if a site is multi-author, they are much more likely to accept guest posts
• people with guest posts get pitched many times so you have to be compelling
• write a relevant guest post, include entire article, and link to it in am email
• schedule your posts to work around your launch date but remember big sites have editorial calendars

Launch Tactics to Consider

On webinars:

• webinars are useful for its personal connection and to teach as marketing
• add urgency in your sales by only selling during webinar
• use Google Hangouts or Go To Webinar (Nathan recommends Hangouts)

Getting customers to sell for you:

• consider adding referrals
• Coin's system was refer 4 and get it for free, this spread virally
• Wealthfront offers a referral system where they'll manage more for free if you refer friends

Multiple Launches

Why launches are important for sales:

• urgency, such as limited discounted prices, drives sales
• consider closing off sales after a period of time so you can launch again later on
• consider re-launching products once a year

How to launch multiple times:

• drive people to an email list
• launch first time, then replace landing page with email opt-in again
• have auto-responder drip emails to stay in touch with leads
• every quarter or once a year, launch again
• Micropreneur Academy got 3x conversion rates by closing off signups and rolling launches

Creating systems to automate launches:

• think about Apple: multiple products and a refresh about once a year
• commit to a schedule so you don't launch too often but make sure each product gets refreshed continually
• John Lee Dumas launches the same product every week, systematizing via Facebook Ads -> Webinars -> Sales of Podcasters Paradise

After the Launch

How to drive ongoing sales:

• typically visitors will forget about your product after visiting your landing page
• use email opt-in forms with lead magnets and email courses
• teach topics related to your product, this reminds visitors about your product
• in 3rd/4th email have a soft sell that points them back, maybe a hard sale in a later email
• continue writing tutorials, guest posting, and teaching

How to up-sell and cross-sell:

• if you sold in multiple packages, you can up-sell (but don't expect great conversion rates)
• sell another product that targets the same audience
• stick to one audience so you don't have to build another audience

Continue growing your audience:

• look at paid ads to drive new visitors/subscribers
• go back to doing guest posts
• have a free email course or sample chapter, drive people at end of guest post to that
• after you write a guest post, promote it -- the better it does the better chance that you'll be asked to return

Urgency

Why does urgency matter?

• visitors think they'll come back later to make a purchase but they never come back
• urgency prompts the visitor to purchase now
• three ways to do it: sales, bonus, or limited launch

Run a sale:

• example: 20% off for first 24 hours
• rewards your early customers and people on email list
• don't run too big of a discount, you'll be missing out on too much revenue
• too small discount won't motivate sales and is kind of insulting

Provide a bonus:

• example: buy within first 72 hours to get course + one-time webinar
• consider adding more content for early customers

Limit sales:

• example: only sell the product during a limited window, such as during a webinar
• another example: limit number of seats sold
• this works great for ConvertKit and Podcasters Paradise

Building Anticipation

Silence can kill your launch:

• if you don't stay in touch and then send an email, that email will be marked as spam
• be in contact about every 2-3 weeks if the launch is far away out
• be in contact every 1-2 weeks if the launch is coming up
• provide updates about product or teach valuable content
• consider providing behind-the-scenes updates

Use epic blog posts to grow your list:

• write great blog posts or tutorials to grow your list
• if you were writing a book, a blog post would be good enough to be in that book
• don't write "5 ways to do X", write epic posts that are valuable
• re-use that content for your email list

The Launch Sequence

How to build anticipation:

• last 3-4 weeks from launch, let people know that the product is coming for sale
• ask subscribers questions "PS is there anything you'd like to know about this product?"
• reply to those emails, collect the questions, and form an FAQ
• provide plenty of information about the product before offering the sale

What to do one week before launch:

• put sales page live
• swap it out with opt-in landing page
• test purchasing flow
• send email to list that your product is live
• check on guest posts that were supposed to go live today
• take a break

Use reminders to drive sales:

• on launch day or right before, send an email to your subscribers
• 24-48 hours before the sales end, send another reminder email
• make sure there's enough time to deal with time zone differences