Show Notes:
As a business owner or entrepreneur, do you ever feel like having a successful launch is as rare as capturing a unicorn? Plus – not only is it rare, it takes A LOT of work! It’s gut-wrenching, nerve-wracking, and anxiety-inducing.
But it doesn’t have to be!
Launches could be fun.
And they will be if you launch the JW Agency way!
I’m back from a bit of a hiatus. We all need a break at some point to refresh us and keep us energized. And believe me, I am back, post-jumping out of an airplane and all that excitement.
And this week, I talk about the 5 Steps to a successful launch. From your target to your audience to your offer, we dive in on these best practices to pave you the path to a successful launch you’ll actually enjoy!
5 Things you need to know to foolproof your first or next launch:
💡 Get crystal clear about who your target is
💡 Validate your offer
💡 Opt for a launch with less barriers to entry
💡 Build an audience first of high-intent buyers
💡 Understand there’s no such thing as failure
Shareable Quotes:
“Is there a way to make sure that a launch is successful out the gate? There is and there isn’t.”
“If it’s your first time launching an offer, you can’t expect it to convert like gangbusters. That’s just usually not what’s gonna happen.”
“You’d rather go after those who understand the holistic approach. It’s so much easier to speak to that person.”
“Before you put all this time and energy into a launch, will your offer actually convert? Is it something that your audience even wants? How do you know that?”
“There is a learning lesson in everything you do. And you gain experience and confidence through every act you do.”
“Everyone hits bumps in the road in every aspect of their business. But those who learn from it are for the better.”
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If you’d like to know more about how we can support you in your launch, visit https://live.jessicawalman.com/realresults.
Connect with Jessica
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Get the Transcript here:
Do THIS for Fool-Proof Successful Launches
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies.
Jessica Walman: Hey guys. I am so excited to be back and have this podcast going again. It’s 2023. I’ve been on a little bit of a hiatus. If you follow me at all, you will know that I jumped out of an airplane for my birthday. Yes, I did. The crazy thing of Jumping Avenue, airplane, and, It was on a whim, spur of the moment and told myself I would never do it, ever.
But guess what? Sometimes you just get that surge of like, I can do anything. And my birthday was the very next day and I just thought, What a way to end being 38 and going into 39 and starting off 39 on this really big high. And so I did it. It was scary. It was like a lot of adrenaline. would I do it again, was the question I got asked?
The answer is probably no. there was a lot of factors into it, but I am very glad I did it. I’m, glad I got that out of my system so I can say I did it once, right? I can say I did it once and never have to think about it again. Done So now that that’s on my resume, I’m gonna move on to bigger things.
I think the most adrenaline I want is just to go visit another country, drink their coffee, and eat their food. That’s about it. if you’re with me then you know, you that’s all I wanna do is travel and, drink coffee from all over the world eat delicious food. anyways, I’m so excited guys to be back and I thought I would start off this episode on a question, and really not a question, but something that I’m seeing over and over again. I’m seeing people launch, launching a new offer, relaunching an old offer and, struggling. And so everyone’s always, asking, is there a way to have a foolproof successful launch?
Is there a way to make sure that my launch is successful at the gate? And there is and there isn’t. I’m going to give you the steps that we do with our clients to ensure that there is success and success is relative guys. somebody might think that success is I have to make a five x return on ad spend, and that’s successful.
But really, if it’s a brand new offer, you also have to have super clear expectations, On what a, a successful first time launch is for a new product, what a successful launch is for. A product that you’ve sold before, but you’ve repackaged, you’ve repositioned it because maybe it stopped selling at some point.
And so being able to define your expectations is gonna be really important when you’re going into a launch. because look, it’s all about the data, know, if it’s your first time launching an offer, you can’t expect it to convert like gangbusters. that’s just usually not what’s gonna happen.
it might, right? I’ve had some students, launch or they’ve never done a webinar in their life and their webinar converted so crazy out the gate. Fantastic. I bet. I’ve also had seasoned entrepreneurs, launch a brand new offer. They’ve done a webinars over and over again that have converted, but this new offer with this new webinar just months to convert.
the Plus site is though, as you launch, the data that you’ll receive during this launch is going to give you so much ammo and insights for the next launch and the next launch and the next. Okay. So if you are looking to never have a failed launch again, you need to follow. These five steps. All right, so we’re gonna dive right into ’em.
Jessica Walman: Step number one is to get crystal clear about who you are targeting this offer to. I know this is a step that usually people start off with, they create a avatar, worksheet, and they think they’ve got it down. But I promise you it is way more than that. it’s defining who you avatar is, but also where they are at in their journey.
So does your. require substantial education to your audience? And meaning, There could be two things. Are they problem aware and are they solution aware? the easiest audience to go after when just starting out is an audience that is extremely problem aware. And solution aware.
Jessica Walman: So if they’re problem aware, they know exactly what their problem is. you’re not trying to, Hey if this is something you’re struggling with, there are a lot of people who aren’t fully problem aware. They don’t know that this is their problem. Like they have a problem, but really their problem is this, and you’re trying with them really problem aware.
these people know their problem aware. So for instance, if I’m gonna go after somebody who’s problem aware, it’s going to be somebody who knows they need Facebook ads because they already fully understand that Facebook ads are the way you understand that Facebook ads are the way to really fast track their revenue and their sales and their business versus organic.
I’m not gonna go after those who don’t really know what Facebook ads are or who do know what Facebook ads are, but they don’t really think that’s the problem or they don’t really think that’s the solution. So now So you wanna go after those who are extremely problem aware, ready to buy now, don’t need tons of education.
That means you don’t need to educate and provide value in your social content. That just means you want the quickest win with a less education. Right? If, I could give you two options, do you wanna go after somebody who. You’re gonna have to educate a whole ton or someone who really doesn’t need the education, but you’ve got this offer and they’re ready to go after it.
They’re ready to bite. If you can show them that your offer is the one you’d go with. Option B, there’s less education, right? you need to target an audience who is super problem aware. So, Another example is if your offer is helping people with a more holistic approach to like health and wellness, and you’re going after an audience who traditionally follows a more Western medical approach, probably more like me, you may need to educate a ton through paid and organic content before they understand what the holistic approach means and the value it adds.
So instead, you’d rather go after those who understand the holistic approach you’re saying, here’s my solution. Here’s why my solution is better than anyone else’s, and how I can help. That’s who you wanna go after, so that the yes comes easier and you’re speaking their language. It’s so much easier to speak to that person.
So getting crystal clear about who you’re targeting and where they’re at in their journey let me just backtrack here. It doesn’t mean that you can’t go after people Who aren’t as you know, maybe they’re problem aware, but they aren’t social anywhere.
Jessica Walman: Maybe they are slightly problem aware, but they need some more education. That’s fine. Those totally fine. What I’m saying is to get a launch to work out the gate is to go after those who are ready to buy. Then you have your education pieces. You’ve got your nurture content. You’ve got maybe a webinar down the line that is more education based, that goes after all the people that you maybe brought in upfront that didn’t convert, that you can now.
nurture and educate and grow that trust and credibility with them, and then maybe they’ll buy later. next. Number two is to validate your offer. So validating your offer is a really quick way to, you know, before you put all this time and energy into a launch, will your offer actually convert?
Like, is it something that your audience even wants? How do you know that? surveying your existing audience, if you have one, is the first step. If you have an audience, if you’ve got an existing audience, can you survey them so you can do a couple things? Email them just a really quick email asking them questions about, your offer saying, Hey, I’m looking at putting something out there, or, a new offer or a new resource or something.
And, you can ask ’em open-ended questions to get more in-depth answers from. But also it’s sometimes nice to give them options. It’s nice to do both. if you only give options like A, B, or C in your questionnaire, in your survey, then you’re only giving those answers.
You’re not really getting anything extra from them. But also, if you leave it too open-ended, then it could be all over the place and it really wasn’t directed to where you were trying to put it or trying to get insights on, and they start talking about other things. So I like to have a mix of both the survey and your resistant audience through email, putting out in Facebook or Instagram.
In a social post, a social media post of some kind and saying, Hey, I’m looking at putting this together. Who would be interested? It would include these things. yes, it would cost money. You want them to know it would cost. but what is this something that you would invest in if it were able to get you x, y, Z results?
then you can get feedback, right? and maybe you ask questions in that post, there’s different ways to do it. But really trying to survey existing audience. You see as cheapest, It doesn’t cost you anything so cheapest. Doesn’t mean it’s free way to get, insight into whether this offer will work.
The other way is Sue paid ads. I’m gonna do a whole episode on this. but you can actually validate your offer through paid ads. You can run a multitude of, campaigns. It can be, like a lead form campaign. They can be a messenger campaign, they can be an opt-in campaign. And the content in this campaign.
is directly about the offer. It’s very clear. This is an offer. It’s I like to put the price point in there, potentially, unless it’s like a really high price point, but then I just say it does cost money. It’s a lower ticket price point. I always put price in there.
It’s very clear cost money. It’s very specific about an offer, a paid offer. Here’s the offer. If you’re interested, click next for more details or, message me now and I’ll give you the details or, you submit your information. I’ll send you over the details, whatever, option you.
And this is gonna give you insight because you can run paid ads, spend 50, 60 bucks, you can spend up to a hundred bucks if you want to get more data on this. And then you’re gonna know is this something people want? Am I getting enough people to click through? Am I starting conversations with people in a messenger campaign?
And are they qualified? Are they actually interested? is this what they want? Can I ask questions? Do you have more feedback on it? So paid ads is like a really quick way to get insight on if your offer will convert. So I love both of these options. I use both of these options, to validate. I did it for my own offer.
I did it for a multitude of my offers, and it works every time. Okay. And again, I will do a separate episode on the paid ads portion cuz there’s several options that you can use it. And I think a lot of people could really benefit on how to do that. Number three is less barriers to entry. So you’re trying to get your new offer or existing offer to convert, you don’t need a lead magnet to a challenge to a paid event, then to the main offer. , You can, but it’s more barriers, right? And if you’re gonna do that, it’s probably to an audience that needs a lot of education. But even then, that to me is the secondary step. Your first step is going straight for.
A shorter content piece to those who are ready, those who are very problem aware, they know the solution you’re presenting them with higher end solution, a unique, solution to that. instead, I would try to go to vsl, a short vsl. I’m talking like a five to eight minute vsl, or maybe even a mini webinar, maybe 20 minutes max, just to validate the sales vehicle content.
VSL content, the many of the webinar content and the messaging that you’re using. So the sales vehicle is, how you’re selling it. Vias l webinar and this is gonna get those very problem aware people right in front of your content and pitch immediately and get that sale, or get that application or book call versus making them wait days or weeks before they are given the opportunity to move forward with a paid offer with you.
So when you do a lead magnet to challenge a paid event, to offer to main, you know, blah, blah, blah. wouldn’t you wanna sell to those who are ready to buy now? Like, wouldn’t we all, waiting, and doing the lead magnet to challenge, et cetera. That’s great. that is something you can follow up with, not something you have to start with or, you have them kind of happen at the same time.
I’m gonna have my shorter content and then I’ll have this going to anyone who landed on my vsl, my mini webinar, or who opted in and didn’t take the next step. And this is now my next step. They need more education and so I’m gonna educate. . Okay, so less barriers to entry. Again, these are the steps to really make sure you have a successful launch right out the gate when you’re launching.
Okay, so number four is to build an audience, first of high intent buyers. again, people who are very problem aware are searching for a solution and then launch them. First verse going straight to cold. Um, a lot of people want to launch to a cold audience, and we have a lot of clients who do that as well.
Totally fine, but it’s also really imperative to build an audience. Build an audience. We are always building an audience with our clients and nurturing that audience. But you wanna build that audience of high intent, people who are ready to take action. So if you haven’t validated your offer yet, then this is a great way to validate it even further than the paid offer validation exercise, right?
build an audience through video content that speaks solely to those who are super problem aware and already looking for an answer to their problem, then nurture them with a few more pieces of content. Then put your VSL or mini webinar in front of them and see how that converts.
Jessica Walman: Okay, so I’m gonna say this again. You’re gonna create these really short pieces of content, 2, 3, 4 minutes long. This is very specific. You will call out your ideal client. You will repel who is not ideal. And this is content, but it’s specific to your offer and it’s specific to their problem. So you call out their problem.
And anyone who watches this is very high intent. You’re saying This is your problem. Here’s the solution, it’s to get their engagement. And from there you’re going to retarget them. People who wash a certain percentage to another video or to with more content. Now this is like evergreen when you set this.
it’s done . As long as they work, you don’t have to touch them again. they get one piece, they get a couple more pieces, and then you can put them to your vsl. This is just another way, right? So we do VSL to cold and many webinars to cold, but we also build an audience first on the side to then, hey, did they actually engage with this content?
Did this content get enough watch throughs? Were people watching to the end or were they falling off Really? , the content didn’t do its job, which validates your messaging, validates your offer, So putting these pieces of content out actually couldn’t help you before You wanna create your vsl, If you’re gonna create your vsl, you have to be super clear on who you’re talking to and the messaging and the positioning of that vsl, Before you create that, if you wanna create these pieces of content first to see, man, these are two, three minute pieces of content. And I wanna put ’em out there, build an audience and see does this resonate with people?
Is it working? Is am I giving the right kind of comments and engagement with it? Are people watching through? Are they dropping off early? And if they’re doing well, then you say, great. Now I know how to position my vsl. If they’re not doing well, then you say cred, . I was about to create my VSL on that kind of positioning, but now I see it’s really not working.
I need to shift it some. So it’s a great way to validate your messaging, and your offer really before you go and create your VSL or your mini webinar. Okay? building. An audience doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. Obviously the faster, if you wanna do this, um, I do this, who paid.
And the more money you put behind it, yes. The faster it’ll, be, but it doesn’t happen that end of night. But you can build an audience in a week. You can, again, if you put enough ad spend to it, right? but then it does take time to then nurture them. you build it. You wanna nurture them, and you wanna build that trust, But doing it through video make that process so much faster. You guys? Okay. Again. Number four is build an audience of high intent buyers. So you’ve got these people already ready and saying, yes, yes, I’m interested. So I want your VSL so I can take the next step, but also to test your messaging and your offer.
And then five, I know this is gonna sound cheesy, but I promise you it’s so important, is Just change your perspective to understand there’s no such thing as failure. Even though, like I said, it’s cheesy, but it is 100% the truth. There is a learning lesson in everything. Everything you do. And you gain experience and you gain confidence through every act you do.
Just like when you create your first video and you are scared and you’re saying, and lighting is horrible and microphone is flimsy. With each take you learn and you get better. it’s funny cause I just had a conversation with my team today. Talking about creating these videos and the podcast and, I was just saying, man, I was just looking back at some of my old videos from five years ago.
Holy moly. I’m like, I hope I’ve come a long way. I feel like I’ve come a long way, cuz not that they were bad, but definitely not anywhere where I am today. And after practicing and after doing it, you get better. You do. And I’m not ashamed of my videos back then. I’m proud. I’m proud of the progress that I’ve made, so, Know that everyone hits bumps in the road in every aspect of their business. But those who learn from it are for the better because it just is what it is, right? so in essence, just we should all strive to hit those bumps in all launches. We really should. Now, I want you to know that when you’re launching, you will hit bumps.
I want you to expect it. I want you to enjoy it and say, you know what? I’m learning from this. Because that means that the next launch will be that much better. Clear expectations and a better understanding perspective of the launch and the bumps. Those are the five steps everyone can have a successful launch out the gate.
And again, knowing what that success means when it’s a brand new offer versus maybe a repositioned offer, whatever it might be, these are the steps to take to have it successful. Now there’s long term, there’s momentum, there’s nurture in your audience.
there’s a whole funnel process that we do with our clients and I’ll do in other episodes, but these five things. Put these into place, you’ll have a successful launch. It’s what we do with all of our clients. and you I’m excited for you guys, you know, for your launches.
best of luck with your launches. I hope this was super helpful I will see you guys in the next episode. Bye.