If you are running an online business, I am willing to bet that you have had at least one launch fail. We all have. You tease it on your insta weeks in advance. You offer value and freebies in advance of your big offer. Then, with gifs of confetti in tow, you open wide the doors to your membership/course/program/app AAANNNNDDDDD….
Crickets.
An underwhelming number of sign ups (or worse! none).
All your hard work feels like it was in vain and you don’t even know why. Don’t worry, I’ve been there, and because I’ve been there I’m going to walk you through what might have gone wrong.
Not Enough People Saw It
The Number one reason a launch falls flat is reach, and I don’t mean the number of impressions Facebook tells you your post got. I mean meaningful engagements with your offer by people whom your offer would be a good fit for. So often we put our offer out there, but not nearly ENOUGH. Posting to a personal social media audience is often not enough given how few people see it and how low the conversion rate on social media is. Sending it out to your email list may not be enough. Talking about it in your social circles is not enough. In order to have the kind of launch you want to have (one with champagne at the end of the day and waiting lists for the next launch), you need an AUDIENCE. (Check out this post for more on building an audience). You need to have people listening, so that when you have something to say (sell), they are waiting. To have a successful launch, enough people need to see your offer. The best way to make sure that people have seen your offer is to individually invite. Before you launch, make a list of the people you think this product is perfect for (and I mean real names here not an avatar or market profile). These might be people who have engaged with you on social media, connections you know from networking, or that random person you got seated next to at your third cousin’s wedding. Make a list of people and DIRECTLY invite them to check out your offering or sales page. When you are just getting started in particular, a direct “Hey I think you would really benefit from this for X Y and Z reasons” is your most powerful sales asset. I never rely on a company owned by someone else (Meta for example) to get my product in front of people; that’s my job.
Not Enough of the RIGHT People Saw It
It doesn’t matter how many times we are told to niche down, it is so tempting, so comforting to keep your options open and aim wide. DON’T. Narrowing your niche opens you up to so many more people. More importantly, when you have a razor thin niche the people within that niche are WAYY more likely to be able to identify that your product is for them. Do not skimp on the niching down. The narrower your niche is, the higher conversion rate you are going to have among the people who are ideal customers for you. The narrower your niche is, the higher conversion rate you are going to have among the people who are ideal customers for you. When you are able to target your marketing and your offer more precisely, you get the same amount of “no’s” from the people who were never going to buy and who weren’t a good fit, but you get MORE “yeses” from the people who are a good fit. When your offer is too open ended and broad, the people who are a good fit have a harder time identifying that it is right for them. Start with a narrow niche, you can always expand later when you have the traction.
The people you want to serve aren’t looking for what you are selling.
Before you get discouraged by that little bolded sentence, let me explain what I mean by it. If I am searching for a bigger car because my family outgrew a sedan, then when I walk onto the car lot and the salesperson says “we’ve got SUVs” great, perfect, I just have to pick the color. My pain point is that I need a bigger car, the salesperson can jump all the way to “let me show you the SUVs” because we both know that an SUV is a bigger car that will solve my problem. SUV is synonymous with bigger car and therefore synonymous with “this will solve your problem”. This is how it works when people know exactly (or even approximately) what they need. In the world of online sales, we are not always dealing with people who know that our product will solve their problem. So in online sales we need to sell the result, the “fix”, to our ideal client’s pain points as opposed to selling the product itself. Let me illustrate with an example. If “Jane” feels dissatisfied in her marriage, she might think she need couples counseling, when you know (as an expert) that most dissatisfied marriages can be traced to the bedroom and what Jane actually needs is a 30 day challenge to increase her confidence in the bedroom and reconnect to her partner. If you try to sell Jane a “Teenage Dream: Reignite your sex life Challenge” Jane is not interested even though Jane is perfect for your product and you can genuinely help her. However, if you speak Jane’s language, paint a picture of the loneliness and flatness of a sexless marriage, she is going to identify with that problem and see herself in the promised transformation you provide. You are selling her a version of her future that you are going to lead her to (one where she has a vibrant marriage). If your launch fell flat, then your ideal client may have had trouble seeing themselves in the language you used.
And the sneakiest reason your launch failed….
You never believed it would succeed.
If you entered this launch with a “well… I’ll try it, but I don’t think it will work” attitude, you probably didn’t give it your best. You probably didn’t look under every rock for the people who needed to hear your message. You probably didn’t infuse your copy with the passion and persuasion that you could have if you believed. Other people can’t believe in your product if you don’t. This isn’t just some manifestation-y thing, when you change the way you think, you change the way you speak and behave. (I talk about this more here) When you hedge your bets and go in negative, you reap what you sowed. Step back to examine what you didn’t think would work about this. Were you questioning your ability to provide the value you promised? Were you skeptical of the formula or process you used to launch? Do sales make you feel icky so you just put something out there just to get it over with? Any of these things (and a hundred more) can cause you to show up differently to a launch. Your focus, your commitment, your confidence in your business all MATTER in the success of a launch.
So here is what you do next…
(and the great thing is that it’s not sequential, these are simultaneous actions for you to take).
Don’t get discouraged. You probably don’t need to completely change your product or go back to the drawing board. You need to course correct, not start from scratch. Now is not the time to get in your head about the core of your business or get caught up in imposter syndrome. Now is the time to assess and redirect.
Do get your mindset in shape. Spend some time journaling or with a coach to identify what you need to believe in order to behave like the person you need to be to nail your next launch.
Build your (real) reach. I’m not only talking fb impressions and followers who don’t actually remember your name, I mean real people who know your message and are LISTENING to you. The best ways to build your reach are guesting and content marketing.
Talk to your market. Reach out to 5-10 people who you KNOW would benefit from your program but who didn’t buy. Set up market research interviews with these people. You are not going to sell them your program, you are going to ask them about their pain points, their priorities and parameters, and the current things they are doing to solve their problems. You are only going to ask questions. If you ask the right questions, they are going to LITERALLY give you the sales copy that would have led them to buy.
Revamp your launch content and sales page. You have the language, now to speak directly to the tiny niche of clients that really really should say yes to you. Nail them between the eyes with the pain points of the reality they are in now, and inspire them with the version of the future they can be living in if they choose your product.
And you are ready to launch again, strong, narrower, and successfully.