Hello.
Hello, welcome back or welcome to my channel.
Today we are talking about launching an online business.
If you watched the previous two videos, you may have a business idea in mind.
You might even have a lead magnet created or at least ideated, but what
do you do when it's time to start telling the world about your new online
business, your course, your product, your coaching service, your full service
marketing company or some other type of company?
Let's talk about that today.
Well, first thing I want to tell you is I do have a new podcast up if you
want to tune into that, which goes into pretty heavy detail about my new program
that I am launching today on cyber week, black Friday through cyber Monday.
So you can tune into that by searching for the freelance Friday podcast.
I'll talk about it a little bit more at the end of the episode as well.
It's a deal you don't want to miss,just believe me.
But in short, the program is going to take you through this entire
launch process step-by-step with accountability group supports and
my expertise helping you through it.
So tune in I'll link it down below, of course, but let's hop in first to the
first thing you're going to want to do when you are planning out your launch.
Your first gonna want to determine what your launch activity is going
to be, or your key launch activity.
Something else I want to say before we hop in is a launch is never really final.
You could always add to it as long as you are still within that open cart
period, you can do multiple different things and see how different tactics or
different activities perform for you.
But you do want to start with a little bit of a plan, makes things go a
little bit easier in my experience.
So figure out what that key activity is going to be.
An example of a launch activity might be a challenge might be some type of
a webinar or live sales experience, an online summit or experience of some kind.
So figure out what that is going to be.
And what I would recommend doing is surveying your audience.
You know, doing some audience research, figuring out what
they tend to respond to best.
I know because I've done several webinars in the past.
I kind of know at what price point those are effective and at what price
point, they're really not worth my time.
So, you know, do some experimentation before you're ready to launch
to get a good gauge on what your audience is likely to respond to.
Now you also want to pay attention to what you're good at and what you like to do.
I personally have no problem hopping on video.
I feel like very comfortable on video.
Some people hate video, they would rather do a podcast or they would rather
write emails or something like that.
So figure out also what you're good at and what you're most comfortable at.
Because you have to be comfortable with this stuff.
When you're launching, you are selling, it can be uncomfortable.
I know I don't like to feel salesy or pushy or annoying to people.
So if I am doing it in a format that doesn't work for me, I'm
going to feel even more so that.
Next you want to look at your tech stack, your tech needs for that launch activity
and figure out all the operational stuff for actual launch day and selling and
making sure that you can accept money for whatever it is that you're offering.
Now, if you're using a course platform like Thinkific, they allow you to pre-sell
and they really help you through a lot of the launch process in my experience.
Things are pretty seamless with a tool like that, but if you are going to be
selling something directly from your website, or if you are going to be
launching something like a coaching service, for example, where you're going
to actually be physically delivering the service that people are paying
for, you're going to need to configure some of that stuff on your own.
Now, if your online business is a service based business, whether it's
coaching or something like marketing or design, I really recommend HoneyBook.
Having a client management system is going to save you so much time
because you can build out workflows and store documents, enable people
to pay invoices and sign contracts.
So I definitely recommend using something like that.
If you were providing services, I'll link, a video up here that goes way more in
depth on HoneyBook for service providers.
I'll also link it down in the description box as a resource for you.
But if you're not offering services, you want to really analyze your
platform that you're using to sell your digital product or download or ebook
or whatever it might be to see what they offer in terms of tech support.
At minimum, for any launch, you're going to probably need these two things.
You're going to need a landing page, AKA, a website where people can go
to learn more about what it is that you're offering, maybe you have a
video embedded there, maybe have some testimonials, and you're going to
need some type of an email platform.
You're going to need to be able to email people who opt in to some kind
of email list at the very least, you're going to want to send maybe a thank
you email or a welcome email to people who have signed up and purchased.
So those are two things anybody is going to need.
So figure out what your sales platform offers.
If you're doing a course or digital product on platform like Thinkific,
you can build landing pages there and really customize those how you like them.
If it is again, a service and you're using a HoneyBook, you can create a brochure
to send out to people, but you may still need an external landing page.
There are a ton of different tools out there for landing pages.
And my recommendation for them is really going to vary based on a lot
of other factors in your business.
For example, if you have a website already, it's probably in your best
interest to just throw an unlisted page
onto your website because you're already paying for that and
you already know how to use it.
So you can create a landing page that way, if you don't have anything yet,
then maybe you do want to explore a click funnels or an Ontraport or some
other landing page specific service.
One of my favorite platforms for free landing pages
it's really easy to use.
It's MailerLite they enable you to put together a sales pages or
email opt-ins really easily, and you can use that service for free up
to, I believe it is 2000 contacts.
So it is a pretty good value there.
Same thing for MailChimp.
All of these free email platforms have some limitations, but if you're just
starting out and you just want to get this thing out into the world, check that out.
For
email you all know if you've been watching this series that I love Flodesk.
I just truly think it is the best email platform that I have used.
They have unlimited contacts at a pretty affordable rate, and I think their
emails are really beautifully designed.
They also have pre-made templates that are really easy to use.
So I'll leave the link for Flodesk down in the description box.
Now, if you are going to launch with something like a webinar or a
challenge, you're also going to need to figure out the tech of that, and
it might get a little confusing.
So take your time with this, make sure to plan your launch well in advance,
you don't want to just say, Hey, I'm launching this Saturday, unless you
have pretty low expectations for it.
I'm generally planning my launches out about 90 days in advance, which might
sound a bit intense, but it really enables me to think through all of the steps, make
sure that all of my ducks are in a row.
For example, with zoom, if I'm doing a webinar, I might need to upgrade my plan
for that month to have increased capacity from 100 attendees to 500 attendees, or
if you're on a free zoom plan, you're going to need to upgrade to enable the
webinar feature little things like that can really create hiccups if you're
not thinking them through properly.
Okay.
Next thing you're going to want to do to make this a success.
Add a bonus to whatever it is that you're offering and my recommendation
for bonuses, you want them to do one of two things you want to give people
more time or more resources with you, or you want to save them money.
Those tend to be the most appealing bonuses.
If you are an online service provider, like a coach or a consultant, this
might be a bonus call for the first 10 people who sign up or maybe it
is a free resource guide, a workbook full of all of your best resources.
If it is a course or a digital product, maybe it's early access where they get
a bonus week of live calls with you, or maybe it's a one-on-one call with you
if they sign up by a certain date, or if they're one of the first 10 or 20 to sign
up, or of course you can always go the flash sale or sort of the discount route.
Getting people to purchase at a special rate during a specific period of time,
really adds that sense of urgency to your offer and encourages people to sign up.
An example of this
maybe you host a webinar for your new online course that you're launching.
And you allow people to enroll in the course for 50% off only if they sign
up while that webinar is playing.
So they have an hour or an hour and a half to get signed up.
Creating a deep discount like that can really light the fire under people and
take away some of those objections.
Now, of course, I don't recommend relying solely on price discounts because that
can just become a race to the bottom, but it can be a fun way to incentivize
early adopters to your program, which can have sort of a domino effect, especially
if they are telling their friends, if they're posting on Instagram about it.
If they're getting really excited about that new experience, itcan kind of get
people to want to follow their lead.
After that you're going to want to write your sales copy.
Once you have the offer fully nailed down, including your bonus.
Once you're sure that you can actually pull off what you're
attempting to do with your tech stack.
You want to go ahead and start filling in that landing page,
filling in those email campaigns that you have set up with sales copy.
Now, if you're not a natural writer, which I am, and I'm not at the same time, I
think a pretty good writer, but it takes me a really long time, outsource it.
There are a ton of people who do a really good job at sales copy,
and this is their full-time job.
So if that is an expense that you need to take on, believe me,
copywriting is something I've pretty much never regretted paying for, it
always ends up paying for itself.
But if you are a writer and you're going to go ahead and tackle it yourself, make
sure that you really take your potential customers through that transformation
that you're looking to offer them.
You don't just want to say, Hey, this is a course with X, Y, Z.
You want to say this course is going to help you become, it's going to
take you from A to B or A to Z.
However it is that you want to phrase that.
You don't just want to list off a bunch of features that you're going to provide.
You want to really talk about the internal change, that transformation
that people are going to go through.
And sometimes people think this is only possible for coaching services
or courses, but that is just not true.
It's also true for services.
If I'm a social media manager, I'm not launching a business just to
post social media content for people.
I want to help CEOs take control of their calendar and their time and do
the heavy lifting that ends up resulting in more revenue for their company.
That's much more appealing than just I'll create Instagram posts for you.
Right?
You also want to play into that urgency, but my recommendation
is to do this ethically, right?
There's a difference between lying about having limited seats in a program
or lying about doors closing soon, and it actually being a real thing.
So you want to be honest, if there are limited seats, definitely call that out.
If doors are only going to be open for two weeks.
Call that out.
If this special pricing is only going to last for a few
weeks, absolutely call that out.
But don't say that just to get people into the door, they'll see through that,
they'll realize, Hey, it's six weeks later and the doors are still open.
And I think I kinda got got, so be careful about that one.
The last thing and truth be told, this is kind of actually the first step.
You need to understand the audience that you have.
Now.
You want to understand where your current audiences in your sales funnel.
So have you developed an email list of people going back to the last
episode in this series, talking about lead magnets and sales funnels.
Do you have a lot of emails in your list as it is based on that lead magnet?
If so, are they actually qualified are they actually the types of people
who might want to actually purchase whatever it is that you are going
to offer, or do you only have a couple of emails in your list and
you're kind of starting from scratch?
It's really important to understand this, because this is going
to help you decide on how long this sales process needs to be.
If you are bursting at the seams and you have 10,000 emails and they are all like
emailing you being super engaged with your emails, your open rates are high.
You're probably good to do a 30 day launch or
something maybe even, maybe you do a week long doors open period.
But if you're pretty much starting from scratch, you're probably going
to want to do a longer launch.
Maybe you offer a couple of freebies in there just to start
to build up that email list.
Maybe you need to cast a wider net and you need to get yourself on some podcasts,
you need to send out some PR pitches.
You need to create some more content for your own existing channels so
that you get more people into that awareness stage of your sales funnel.
Maybe you need to run some paid ads to your lead magnet and get people
to actually download that lead magnet, engage with you a little
bit and build up your list that way.
And if all of those things still aren't working, maybe you need to try
a different lead magnet or a different delivery style to make sure that you're
actually reaching qualified people.
So those are my tips for planning out a launch.
There are a lot of steps that go into it.
That's just kind of scratching the surface.
I am really excited to be launching the online business launch lab today,
which is one part instructional course, one part group coaching experience, and
one part lab where you actually do the work, you set up all of these systems,
the ideation, the packaging, the pricing of your service or digital product.
And you actually implement all the way up until the point
where you are ready to launch.
This is something that I have been dreaming up for years now, and at a super
discounted rate for cyber week only, I'm going to leave the link down below.
I'll also leave the podcast where I go in depth about what exactly this
program is, what success students from similar accelerator format courses
have already seen, and what the special offer is just for this week only.
We are going to be closing the doors
early December, I believe so if you're watching this a little
bit late and you miss out on the big bonus, you can still enroll.
I'll leave all those details down below, but I hope this video and
this series was helpful either way.
If it was please be sure to leave me a comment, let me know
what you thought and subscribe.
I post videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and actually December is coming
up here and I'm going to be participating in Vlogmas, I call it Bizmas.
So I'll be posting content, not only on YouTube, but also on Tiktok
and Instagram so you can follow me @TheLatashaJames for more on that.
And I hope you enjoyed it.
I will see you on Monday.
Have a great one.
Bye.