4 Ways to Increase Conversion Rates in Your Next Launch
Launching can be very stressful. You know it and I know it (and I actually loooooove launching). You may have learned the secrets to writing a great sales page or even emails that can help you persuade like a boss, but what I don’t often see is people crafting a holistic launch plan.
A good launch is done from “open cart” to “close cart” alone, but a great launch is started weeks or months before you even give people the chance to buy. The best part is that if you take the time to be intentional before your launch, you take some stress out of the launch itself while also boosting your conversion rates. (Hallelujah!)
And I think you, your offer, and your audience deserve something complete and holistic. Your bank account will thank you too! So I’m gonna share with you four keys I’ve found that can take your launch from mediocre to massive success.
Have a solid pre-launch plan
Everyone thinks of the launch plan. You know what emails you’re sending, what bonuses you’ve got, and when it’s all going down. But what most people don’t think about is how to actually prepare their audience for the offer that’s coming their way. There are four main things to focus on in pre-launch that can prepare your audience and uplevel your conversions.
Priming Content
Whether they know it or not, your audience already has certain beliefs about your product or service. They think they know what they need when they see it, but they’re not always right about all those beliefs.
That’s why priming content can be so powerful. You can address the mindsets, myths, and mistakes around the subject matter of your product that are keeping it stuck. Turn those into emails, blog posts, podcasts, and social media posts and you’re on your way!
It’s still highly valuable content, and it creates real shifts for the audience that prepare them perfectly for your product.
Aligned Launch Trigger
Launches often kick off with some kind of high leverage event like a challenge, webinar, or video series. All of those and then some can be extremely effective if they truly lead into the product.
But often, I see people doing these events around the subject matter, but forgetting to prepare their audience for the new product. To make your high leverage events most effective, ask yourself:
What does my audience need to have done or accomplished to be ready for my offer?
What challenge does my product solve and what challenge often comes before that?
What do they need to know, understand, or believe in order to be ready for my product?
Is there part of my product from the early stages of development that could be split off for a free lead in?
These questions will help you create a perfectly aligned launch trigger to build excitement around your expertise. Then your audience will be perfectly prepared for your offer.
Creating a Warm Leads List
There is always a portion of your audience who are your warmest leads — the ones that listen to your podcast every week, jump on every livestream you host, and open every email you send. You want to start taking note of those particular people and connecting with them more deeply.
Another great way to create more warm leads is to have special free offers for them to experience you and your expertise first-hand. Invite engaged audience members to free calls, special training sessions, and other exclusive content so they feel even more special and you get to know them well enough to know how to communicate with them when the time comes to launch.
Personalize Your Communication
We have the potential for great communication at our fingertips every single day, but we often don’t utilize it as well as we could. Instead, we settle for mere “mass” communication.
A launch can be made even more powerful with a more personalized communication plan with your audience. Because no matter how hard we try, we always end up with people who are in different stages of their journey. It’s important that we respect that and communicate effectively.
Here are a couple of ways to start.
Segment Your Email List
What if you knew exactly who was most excited about the subject of your next offer? What if you knew what stage of their journey people were in? You absolutely can!
I love to kick off a pre-launch plan with a new opt-in freebie that I offer to my list (no opt-in required) so that when they click through to get it, I can tag and segment them accordingly. They have now become warm leads that I can continue to nurture and get more personal with in the pre-launch period.
Another quick trick is to do a one-click survey. Ask one question and give a few answers that help you know exactly where people are or what they’re struggling with. Make sure to link all those answers with specific tags or actions in your email provider and now you’ve got a list of people who might be ready for this or your next offer.
Bonus points if you add this to an autoresponder so everyone who comes into your business can segment themselves.
See who is opening, clicking, and inactive on your list. Most email systems give you these statistics. Pre-launch, you can do a list purge of those who are inactive by giving them the chance to get your new freebie. If they don’t open it, let ‘em go.
During your launch, you can send personal emails to those who click through inviting them to ask more questions or see what their objections are (which becomes awesome launch content, by the way). You can also re-send important emails to those who haven’t yet opened them. Change the subject line and add a message like, “I didn’t want you to miss this email I sent yesterday.” This gives you the chance to re-engage them.
Have a Personal Outreach Plan
This is an often overlooked part of a launch that can give a major boost to your bottom line results. The truth is that everyone loves a personal touch. While some of the activities I listed already give that, you can go a step further by actually reaching out.
In your pre-validation phase, if there were particular people really interested in what you were saying about the subject or potential offer, make sure they go on a list for personal invitations. This also goes for any of those on your warm lead list that you think are a perfect fit.
Create a feedback loop for yourself during the launch, like a few free calls or a chat box on your sales page, to get information and personally connect with those most interested in your offer. This gives you a chance to learn more about your audience, and gives you info that you can use in launch content. You can also use it to go deeper with warm leads who might not be right for this, but may be perfect for your next offer (or even give you ideas for your next offer).
Have those who’ve already purchased the product recommend it to people who they know might be good fits. We all know we love to share something that we’re excited about. Personal outreach can mean utilizing this excitement by giving your biggest fans the opportunity to share your product with others. You can obviously incentivize this as well!
Tell More Stories
Stories are the brain’s native language. That makes them an incredible tool to utilize when sharing about your offer. There are a few main stories to utilize to be most effective.
Your Stories
Everyone wants to know that an actual human is selling them the thing they need, so don’t be afraid to be, well, human. Empathy always wins the day. Don’t be afraid to get really vulnerable and transparent here.
You can share your stories like:
Why did you create this offer?
How did you learn the lessons you’re sharing in this offer?
What big failures and aha moments lead you here?
Why do you care about them, anyway?
Client Stories
The next story you need to key in on is the success stories of others you’ve helped. This helps because it connects emotionally but also shows your authority. So ask yourself:
Who have I worked with that has come through similar things?
Who has seen big results from our time together?
Who would help the audience see themselves getting their desired outcome most clearly?
Whose story shows that I know what I’m talking about?
But even if you don’t have client stories just yet, it’s okay. You can still paint a picture through story of your audience’s present struggle and their desired outcome with your offer being what binds them together. This is a powerful story that should certainly be included.
Go Multi-Media
We often leave launching in one particular place where our tribe gathers — like our email lists — and forget to get out there and have multiple touch points for them to find us and our offer. But by creating relationships and excitement in multiple places, we’re giving ourselves the best chance to connect and convert.
Get Visible Before Your Launch
Part of your pre-launch plan needs to include a time to get yourself high-level visibility and start expanding your reach. Yes, we want to love the leads we have, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be looking for more.
So start with finding guest post, podcast, and other interview opportunities that are aligned with your business and audience. To take full advantage of this, be sure to keep the topic in line with your upcoming offer and drive everyone to that awesome new freebie you created. (Hello, segmentation!)
Also, don’t be afraid to get in your followers’ newsfeeds with some light Facebook ads. You can target your existing audience with your freebie offer, and you can target a lookalike audience with some of your pre-launch content to warm them up, then hit ‘em with that freebie.
Talk About Your Launch Everywhere
You’ve spent a lot of time building a community and following on multiple platforms, so make sure you’re telling them about your awesome stuff!
Many people go through their launch and leave their social following out of the mix. Big mistake! That means you’re leaving a whole heap of people who you could be serving behind. So break up your launch and pre-launch content into stories, tips, and promotions that you can share everywhere.
This is also a great time to use live video to talk to your people. Remember those objections and questions you’ve been getting? Live video is a great way to connect and educate in relation to those very things — and it becomes a way you can engage your audience that feels more personal. (Not to mention that you can actually then email these to your list, too!)
Host High Leverage Events
The launch trigger is just one high leverage event you can hold. During your launch (and even before), there’s no reason that you can’t also host more webinars or other live events to bring more people to you.
List out a few topics related to your product that you could share about and decide on the best format for them, then get out there and host away!
Retarget Your Hottest Leads with Ads
I talked a little about Facebook ads above, but these can be especially powerful with retargeting. If people visit your sales page (and it’s pixeled properly), then you can actually target them in a Facebook ad. You can remind them of your offer or deadline or you can even give them an opportunity to message you right there with questions.
Plus, all those livestreams you’re doing? You can boost them and even retarget those who watched them with a link to your sales page. You’ve warmed them up and now you can send them to their solution.
Lastly, those who were most segmented for your offer can be reminded that you have the solution they’re looking for with an ad specifically targeted to them and that custom audience list.
Conclusion
In the end, all of these tips come down to you needing a holistic launch plan. You can’t just drop out of the sky and deliver your amazing product. Most people need a little warming up first, so don’t be afraid to do that.
Yes, it takes a little more time and intentionality, but it makes it much more worth it when you convert in a bigger way and have even more people to serve with your product. And in the end, that’s what this is really all about, right?!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate is a launch + marketing strategist who helps entrepreneurs to make a bigger impact with less hustle by optimizing, automating, and delegating the marketing tasks they don't enjoy. She combines a journalism degree, 3 years of online business experience, and 5+ years in nonprofit marketing to help others grow, nurture, and mobilize their tribes so they can have success and have time to enjoy it too.
