5 ways to have a successful digital product launch

Whether you sell online courses, coaching programs, or access into a monthly membership site, there’s one strategy which has proven to be effective in generating new customers…

A Product Launch

A launch can be short and simple, or as complicated as you desire. Everything is determined by what works best for your business, audience, and the product you’re selling.

The typical format contains four fairly common elements:

1: Delivering valuable content pre-launch.

2: Opening the cart with any chosen bonuses to help create urgency.

3: Marketing emails throughout the cart open.

4: Hard deadline and cart closing.

Some launches last a week, while others last for only a few days. It all depends on what you feel is best. Our advice? Test to find what’s best...for you!

Here in this article, we’ve summarized some of the top advice which has been shared within our Kajabi Facebook Group about successful product launches using the platform.

#1: The “JLS” Formula

How often have you had a light bulb go off and think about a course you could sell or a coaching program you could release? If you’re like most of the entrepreneurs we work with, our guess is this happens a lot.

But unfortunately many times that lightbulb only flickers or even quickly fades away because we end up talking ourselves out of that idea.

Well here’s a summary of some extremely good advice to help you overcome that habit...

“You can launch WITHOUT having the perfect landing page, the perfect funnels, the perfect offer, the perfect product, the perfect list, the perfect anything.

What matters is making something that helps people do something or be something or even simply shift their perspective on something. The smallest thing can feel like a superpower, and why shouldn't you be the one to help someone else find that superpower?”

The full post can be read here: https://bit.ly/2P4OuCn

Here’s her 3 step process in “Just Launch Something” formula:

1. Offer Something
2. Let People Know About Your Offer
3. Then Make The Thing You just Offered As You Go

She then shares brilliantly about how she experienced a huge breakthrough by focusing her first launch on a “mini-product” instead of her ultimate BIG thing that she knew she wanted to create.

This helped her get started, get momentum, and ultimately get launched!

So if you’re launching for the first time, how can you use the JLS Formula to get the ball rolling even faster?

#2: Everything’s A Build Up

This advice comes from one of our Kajabi Hero’s who made $170k in 7 days with an online course launch to a list of only 2,500 people!. Here’s some of his advice…

“In February 2017 I made $170k in seven days with a product launch for an online course. And I've done several big five-figure and six-figure course launches since that day.

The big takeaway?

Everything is a build up.

It's all practice for the "big show".

When it comes to selling online courses you should build up a lot of hype before people can even buy your course.

Around 30 days before your launch you should be posting daily relevant content on social media and speak directly to your ideal customers. Share awesome stuff, be omnipresent and plant some seeds. The purpose of this is to build anticipation and curiosity for your upcoming course.

You should also create a separate email list for your course launch. Don't just post your signup link on social media.

Create an early-bird waiting list.

This is awesome because it separates the freebie seekers from those who have buying intent. Having a small list of qualified people who have indicated interest in a product is a lot more powerful than a large list of freebie seekers.

The email list I used to make $170k in a week only consisted of 2,500 people. This proves that list size doesn't matter.”

You can read the full post here: https://bit.ly/2MGSQxG

Ultimately his success in launching boiled down to getting his email list excited for what he was about to launch. He did this by simply delivering valuable content and building up to the “big show”. 

#3: Creating Reusable Marketing Assets

Whether you’re getting ready for a launch or creating content for your business, it’s important to remember that when creating content, you’re actually creating long-term assets.

In this case, it was pre-launch content videos.

But one of the things that got this Kajabi Hero excited, was not only how proud he was of the videos he made for his launch (which did $84k), but that all that hard work could actually be leverage again down the road.

He created reusable marketing assets during his launch process.

Here it is in his own words:

“I wanted to try something different this year, so I used a Walker-style 4-video launch. (I used Kajabi to deliver all this if you’re curious.)

I was really proud of the videos and put a TON of effort into them. I actually did everything myself — the script, the video shooting, and editing, the music, the b-roll footage, the tech stuff, everything.

I sent the launch videos to my email list of 9528 (at the time). I also had about 40 affiliates sending to their (mostly small) lists.

Post-launch, I’m at 10,213 on my list. I’m happy about that because I always lose a lot of subscribers during a launch. So a 7% increase in 3 weeks is great in my book!

The good news is that the program requires less and less of my time each year, allowing me to pursue other revenue streams.

And the launch videos I worked so hard on — those can be reused next year too!! Woohoo!”

You can read his full post here: https://bit.ly/2MHWgR4

Remember, the hard work you’re putting in now is worth it! Not just for your big launch, but for the way you can leverage everything again for your next one.

#4: Closing Cart Is Critical

One of the easiest ways to boost the success and sales of your launch is to simply email more on your final Cart Closing day. You put all this hard work to get to this point and to not promote as hard as you can on that very last day would be doing you and your customers a huge disservice.

How many emails do you send or how many Facebook lives do you do to inform your people that it’s the final day? Well, that’s completely up to you.

But our advice is to do more than you typically feel comfortable with.

If you currently just send 1 email, send 3. If you’re sending 3, great. Maybe you can also do a live or find other creative ways to promote your closing day.

Some even introduce unannounced last day bonuses which not only gives you another reason to email but also gives your prospect another reason to hop on.

A sample email schedule for the last day could look like this:

Email 1 (morning): Let them know it’s the last day. Reiterate the offer.

Email 2 (afternoon): Introduce new last day bonus which all buyers will now receive.

Email 3 (early evening): Reiterate guarantee.

Email 4 (evening): Last call.

Our advice is to not be afraid to email or promote a little harder on that day. Especially if you’ve given great content on the front end.

Will you have some people unsubscribe? Of course. But you’ll have far more buyers, and last time we checked...that’s what will help you ultimately serve more people!

#5: It’s An Experiment

Sometimes the one thing that holds us back from having our first sale or our first winning launch, is the mindset that it’s either “all or nothing”.

But as you’ll see in the advice below, by viewing your launch as more of a  “Little experiment” instead of this “all or nothing” event, you too could possibly create another $30,000 out of thin air.

Here’s how it happened for this Kajabi Hero...

“This launch was just supposed to be the next little experiment, not An Actual Thing That Would Be Meaningful Financially.

It was launched with no ads and, for that matter, NO content created (still making it as we go, still no sleep, etc.) It's been a labor of love, not money, but something magical happened.

It went SO well compared to expectations... ahhhhhhhh that extra and unexpected $30k from this gave us the extra we needed for a down payment on buying our own farm. Which just closed. Packing now.

This is quite literally my LIFE-long dream, and though we've been *trying* to do this for the past 10 years, it was the unexpected $30k from the launch (I'd been hoping for $10k) that pushed it the rest of the way to reality.

So, yeah, Kajabi. Not sure I could be more grateful right now. We are literally packing up the house, 7 horses, and moving to an amazingly beautiful island (in the San Juans), to a 30-acre horse farm where we can finally hold LIVE EVENTS. Oh, yeah, so now I can use Kajabi for that too.”

You can read her full post here: https://bit.ly/2MKaCAs

Pretty amazing right?

Well to be quite honest, we see some form of this “magic” all the time! It happens when people take action. Does it always work as perfect as the story above? Sometimes. Sometimes not.

But one thing's for sure...nothing happens without action. No wins. No lessons from what didn’t work. No progress whatsoever. So if you’ve been thinking about doing a product launch...our very best advice...DO IT.

5 Proven Ways To Make Your Next Launch A Success

Remember, you can do this. Others just like you have already shown it’s completely possible. Everything doesn’t need to be perfect, and in some cases, products don’t even need to be built in order to launch!

Here’s a quick summary of what we covered which can help you have a more successful launch...

1: Follow the “Just Sell Something” formula.

2: Everything’s a build up.

3: Create reusable marketing assets.

4: Closing cart is critical.

5: It’s an experiment.

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Use Kajabi to Turn Your Knowledge And Content Into Products You Can Sell

Ready to be your own boss? Ready to monetize your knowledge? You need Kajabi - It’s a full-featured platform that allows professionals like you to create their own businesses from home.

Create online courses, establish membership sites, offer coaching programs, host a podcast, and sell other digital products. Plus, you'll get marketing tools like a website, CRM, email marketing, landing page templates, and helpful analytics to help you spread the word about your products and earn more revenue.

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Fully explore what Kajabi has to offer and start building your business during a free trial. Start your free 14-day trial of Kajabi today!

‍Still researching? Check out Kajabi’s free downloadable ebook guides on launching and growing a knowledge commerce online business!

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