Wondering what goes on behind the scenes of a successful launch? The good, the bad…
Love diving into the nitty gritty behind the scenes of other people’s launches? Want an insight into what works, and what doesn’t? Looking for some inspiration for launching your own online course or program?
The recent launch of my Socials That Sell Instagram Marketing Framework was an $87,000USD launch, executed in two parts. In this episode, I’m into a full breakdown of the stats, launch strategies, expenses, wins and failures that contributed to that number.
Let’s dive in!
The Socials That Sell launch included two phases – the pre-sell phase, and the full launch.
The pre-sell phase was unique, in that it was also a ‘final, closing down sale’ for my very first signature course, Hashtags Aren’t the Answer. That course first launched in January of 2019, and was a full roadmap for social media success. It covered both Facebook and Instagram, with a complete path from branding, to social content, to sales funnels and ads.
As the nature of my business shifted and social media changed, I decided that I wanted to narrow the focus of that program to more specifically focus on Instagram and the three step strategy that was working for me on the platform. And so, Socials That Sell was born.
Instead of simply retiring the course and launching a new one, I decided to bundle Hashtags Aren’t The Answer and Socials That Sell into a pre sale campaign in which purchasers would essentially get the two courses for $100 less than the price of Socials That Sell when it launched.
The Pre Sale campaign was a very simple one.
It involved a series of emails announcing the bundle to my existing list along with a few social media posts and a podcast episode.
In total, the campaign was four days long – a coming soon email, doors open email, two days of cart open emails and three emails on the final day. The open rate for all of the emails was unusually high for sales emails, ranging from 33% to 20%.
Fun fact – there were also between 28 and 43 unsubscribes for each email, something which really doesn’t bother me (and shouldn’t bother you, either!) If people aren’t interested in your core offer, you don’t need them on your list.
In total, 750 people visited the sales page, 150 people visited the order page and 45 people purchased.
The total conversion rate from the full list to a sale was .45% – which seems low, but keep in mind that an average conversion rate for a full launch is 1 – 2% of a launch list. This was just a few email and very little work, so I was very happy with the result!
In total, 28 people paid in full and 16 took the payment plan, which very interesting. Usually the split is approximately 50/50%.
In total, this bundle pre-sale netted $19,572USD cash collected and $17,000USD in payment plans for a total of $36,572USD (or $50,000AUD).
The best part? There were zero expenses on this portal of the launch, and very little time was spent on it. The entire pre sale was profit.
After the pre sale, I began working on the materials for the full launch of Socials That Sell.
Because I was really starting from scratch, I need to create the whole she-bang – new funnel, sales page, new course, new marketing materials, emails… the lot. It reminded me of the amount of work involved in the early days of a new course. It’s a lot. The good news was that I had validated the demand for the course with the pre sale, so I know that people would be interested in it.
My full launch process involves a pop up Facebook group, live warm up trainings and a webinar on cart open day followed by a week or so before doors close.
The process is extremely effective at warming up even cold audiences who have never heard of me, and I think it’s a winning launch strategy. Because I have the system down pat and every step documented, it’s relatively easy and straight forward for me to roll it out each time.
Of course, the FIRST time it is rolled out for a new course, it means creating a lot of new assets but the benefit over time is that as you re-launch, it truely gets easier and easier and the results get better and better (as long as you are committed to growing your audience as you go).
Here’s a summary of the things that worked well:
Let’s break down the results from the full live launch component of the promotion.
In total, there were 34 full pay sales and 31 payment sales for a total of 65 sales.
There were a total of 2041 leads generated, and overall the conversion rate from leads in the promotion to sales was 3.1% To break that down further, the ads conversion rate was .4% and the warm list conversion rate was 4.4%.
Even without the ads issues in the mix, this really emphasises to me the value of playing the long game and the positive impact that things like starting my podcast have had on my business.
Here’s an interesting break of the main sources of organic traffic, in order:
This really tells me how powerful an email list is, and also how powerful my DM strategy is!
And so, there you have it: a complete breakdown of my latest online course launch.
Want to launch your own course? I will be opening the doors to my group coaching experience Launchpad very soon. I’ll be releasing it by application only at a VERY special one time only pilot price to my waitlist soon. To join the waitlist to be notified when it launches in November, click here.
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