I remember my first launch that flopped. I spent countless hours and lots of money developing a really awesome product. I knew that when I pushed “live” on the product page I would become an instant success! Boy, was I wrong! My launch results were not what I expected.
In fact, they weren’t even close to what I was expecting. What went wrong? What did I do? Or better yet What did I not do? were all the questions swirling around in my head. I knew I had a good product but why didn’t people buy it?
5 Reasons Your Launch Flopped
It took me a little time and a lot of testing to figure out exactly what makes a launch a flop and what makes it a success. You will hear a lot of different strategies online and most of them are valid but I caution you to rush into a launch without a good understanding of the foundation you need first.
After working with hundreds of students and clients I have a formula that will help you avoid launch flops. Let’s dig in.
They Didn’t Know You Launched
I know you may think you did everything you could to tell as many people about your launch as possible but I want you to step back a second and really ask yourself, “Did I promote my launch enough?”
What is enough promotion? I’m so glad you asked. There’s no exact number of times you need to post on social media or email your list, however, I can tell you if you emailed your list less than 5 times during a 14 day launch period you didn’t email them enough. If you only posted about it on social media a few times… that’s not enough.
People are busy, they forget to check email, they need lots and lots of REMINDERS. And if you are scared that you are bothering them and they will unsubscribe, don’t be. The ones that want to invest in what you have will stay the others will leave and that is ok!
You Didn’t Launch Something They Wanted or Needed
I know you are the expert but sometimes as experts, we tend to forget exactly what our customers want or even really need. Think about where your customers are right now and what outcome you want them to have.
Typically your program or product is not going to teach them everything you know about your subject but it will get the ball rolling and move them in the right direction in order to start getting results.
Make sure what you are offering them is what they want and need not just what you think they want.
You Didn’t Validate Your Idea First
Validating an idea may seem like a big investment when you are short on time but let me tell you what’s a bigger investment, creating a product that no one buys! Whoomp. Whoomp!
Instead, I always encourage my students and clients to validate their ideas first. You can do this in a variety of ways, through surveys, through phone interviews, and through preselling first.
This is my number 1 tip that will prevent a launch flop!
You Launched to a Non-Existent Community
Here’s where I made my biggest launch mistake. I had viral traffic to my website and I misjudged this traffic as a community of people that I could launch to. The problem was that people were coming to my site and not ever coming back and I had no way of reaching out to them to ask them to buy my product. Do not mistake traffic for a community. If you are lucky enough to have traffic start building a community to launch by building an email list and a Facebook community.
You Launched to Non-Engaged Community
Oh, you’ve built a community! Great, really that’s fantastic, but are you regularly engaging with that community? I’ve worked with so many clients that have huge communities but they forgot to engage with them as they were building! That’s no Bueno, at all.
But don’t worry the good thing is you can start engaging with that community today! Make a plan to engage on a consistent basis and stick with it.
What to do for Your Next Launch
Don’t let a launch flop scare you into never launching or never launching again! With every launch, we learn and grow and change. Analyze your launch strategy, reflect and move forward. Each launch will get better and stronger!
