Aloha, Tom here!
I started my podcast and website with a simple goal: help entrepreneurs succeed in online business by giving away the secrets the so-called “gurus” won’t tell you.
The gurus are everywhere. You can find them on your Facebook and Instagram feed. You can find them in the ads at the start of YouTube videos. They might have even found their way into your email inbox.
You can easily identify them. They promise all the rewards with none of the risks. They guarantee you an income of six or seven figures with none of the hard work, and they always have something to sell to you. Usually, it’s their stellar guide to making money online. The only problem is, there’s only one person making money online in this situation. And it’s not you.
I prefer a different approach. I talk about tactics and strategies I really use, every day, in my agency. I encourage anyone who will listen that they have to work harder AND smarter. I don’t promise instant results. If you’re interested in the road less traveled, this blog and podcast might just be for you.
In my quest to tell you everything the gurus won’t, I want to discuss product launching.
Successfully launching your product is one of the most exhilarating, difficult, and rewarding events in online business. We’re going to talk about one of my agency’s most recent launches and pull out some of the secrets I learned along the way.
By the way, if you want to hear this in podcast form, simply follow this link.
The Tale of Our Biggest Launch Yet
First, my business partner Nick and I built a product to serve our niche. We love working with marketers who help small businesses in their area survive and thrive, especially with how fast our economy is changing. This required identifying the pain points of the small businesses, the pain points of the marketers, and developing something that relieved both.
We set up a four-day launch last year in the summertime. Over those four days, we sold 4,090 units and made $150,419 in revenue. It was our most successful launch yet, adding to the millions of dollars we’ve generated through our launches.
As I reflected on that success, I also thought about all the things that caught us off guard as we learned the art of product launches. There are quite a few things I wish someone had told me before we started out… tips and tricks we had to learn the hard way.
If you want to get set up for success in your next launch, take a look at a few of these considerations.
By the way, if this is your very first launch, I have a guide for that too!
The Practicals
Here are the main takeaways:
- Start building your audience way before you need it.
The best time to start building your audience is right when you start out in online business. The best time to keep building your audience is ALWAYS. It’s literally never too early to build your audience before your launch, and you should always work on it regardless of where you find yourself in business.
Grow your email list and start a Facebook group or a YouTube channel. Post quality and engaging content on a consistent basis. When your launch nears, hype it up on every platform you have.
- Launch on a network.
Nick and I figured out that launching on a product network fares way better than launching without any affiliates. We wish we knew this a bit sooner into our journey.
Check out jvzoo, Clickbank, or WarriorPlus. On these sites, people launch products every day and get affiliates for them. Then, when their affiliates have a launch of their own, they help market it too. It’s all about reciprocation.
Try one out for your next launch, and return any favor someone grants you. You’d be surprised how quickly you can rise to the top of such a platform with consistency, good products, and quality customer service.
- Understand the short lifecycle of launches.
As mentioned before, our launches only last for four days. After that, we raise our prices considerably on whatever we just sold. Some businesses we know close their product entirely after the launch ends. That means you have a few days of cash flow… and then it mostly dries up.
Don’t wait until that moment to move your business forward. Have a plan ready for the next launch, and start building recurring products into your business. This way, you aren’t living launch to launch—the online business equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck. In cooking terms, make sure you use every burner on your stovetop.
- Reevaluate the goal of your launches.
Launches are all about making money, right? Wrong.
A business that looks to the short term uses its launches to make a bunch of money. Then, when their launch ends, they scramble to put together the next one as soon as possible. They don’t have the revenue to support themselves outside this sporadic cycle.
A business that looks to the long term uses its launches to acquire customers. The hardest thing to do in business is to acquire a new customer. We use all our momentum, leverage, and energy during a launch to grow our network and expand our audience. Everything we do is based on our network, Facebook group, and website.
When the money comes in, it just feels like icing on the cake. We’ve really won if we add to our customer base and get them connected to our community. This way, they begin looking at our other products and then buy recurring services. Make absolutely sure your next launch errs on the side of customer acquisition rather than simply boosting sales figures.
Best of luck on your next launch. I hope you can use these tips to avoid some of the problems that plagued us early on!
For more secrets the so-called “gurus” won’t tell you about making money online, check out my podcast.
