This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up everyone? Chris Guillebeau here. Welcome to a new week in a new classroom episode. Now you have put a lot of work into developing your product. Let's say, I mean, if you just discovered the podcast today, then perhaps you have not.
But assuming you've been listening for a while, assuming you've been working for a while, you've put a lot of work into developing your product. And if you haven't, well, at a certain point, you're gonna develop your product and you're gonna design a smart launch strategy. How can you make sure that people notice, well, let's talk today about product launches and designing that strategy. Now, right at the top, I wanna just make a disclaimer and say, I think it's just as important to think long-term as opposed to just thinking about your product launch because I've seen a lot of people make the mistake of focusing only on this compressed period of time known as the launch. And this is especially true with books, which is my world as an author.
I see a lot of authors kind of go all in for that first week of publication, which is important to make an impact. However, they don't really think about what happens afterwards. And so then their book does well in the first week perhaps, but then it sinks like a stone afterwards. And it's really not pleasant. I actually have had that experience one time myself several books ago.
So I definitely learned from that. Focus much more on the long-term. At the time I'm recording this, we're also in the midst of COVID-19. And guess what? People aren't responding to product launches very well.
This is all the more reason why it's better to think long-term. Now that said, this classroom episode is about launching, specifically how to design that smart launch strategy. I just want you to be aware that if for some reason you don't have an amazing launch, all is not lost. In fact, the opposite is also true. That example I gave of authors who haven't done well, there are also a number of authors who have not had a strong launch, but the book actually picks up momentum and gains popularity over time.
And that is actually an ideal experience because that shows that there really is a grassroots movement behind it. People really do like it. They're talking about it. And the same of course applies to more than just books. Okay, so my most referred to resource for product launches is a checklist that I first wrote in the $100 startup many years ago.
And I will include a free PDF of it in the show notes page, which you can access and get the complete 39 step checklist at sidehustleschool.com/1234. Which by the way, I just noticed that. Isn't that interesting? Today is episode one, two, three, four. We're not gonna have that sequence again for a long time.
Okay, wow, fun fact. So let's go through some basics. There are a few different phases for the tasks you need to complete based on a timeline. And the broad analogy that I use is of a big summer movie. Think about a big Hollywood summer movie, superhero movie, one of these movies that is not that great, but yet everybody goes and sees it.
Everybody talks about it. Well, the studios start hyping this more than a year in advance. They want people to pre-commit. They want people to be like, I'm gonna go see "Fast and Furious" number 48, even though it's probably not that different from one through 47. I'm gonna make that commitment before it comes out.
I'm gonna be there. And they want people in fact to say like, even if the movie is bad, I'm gonna go see it. I always thought my dad was really strange about this because he would go and see movies knowing that they were bad. Like he'd read the reviews and they would be terrible. And he would say, well, I wanna go see for myself.
And then afterwards we were like, dad, how was that movie? He was like, yeah, it was really bad. Like, okay. Well, in fact, there are a lot of people like my dad. And to get back to that analogy of, pre-excitement, pre-commitment, the studios want people to decide in advance.
They want to have heard about it. They want to know this is the release date, et cetera. So how can you inspire such a feeling with your online course, with your product, with your whatever it is that you are trying to sell? Well, there's a few things that you need to do before, during, and after the launch. Let's break it down.
The first thing you wanna do before the launch is set a goal. What are you trying to accomplish here? What are you trying to achieve? If this is brand new to you, if you don't have a big following or even a following at all, if you've never launched a product before, then your goal might be, I wanna get my first customer or my first client. Totally reasonable.
Your goal may be to make it across the finish line of actually having something out there for sale, regardless of the initial outcome, because your long-term efforts are going to be more important, as I said. But if you've been doing this for a while, then maybe you have some experience that points to what might be a good number for you. How many copies, how many versions, how many units, whatever it is, do you think you can sell? And what will be a good goal for you? What will you go away feeling satisfied about?
What will you go away feeling satisfied about? What will you go away feeling incredible about? And of course, what will you go away thinking, hmm, I wonder what I could have done differently? So just make sure you know what you're trying to accomplish. And then have you built urgency?
This is the next question. Have you built urgency, not the false kind, but a true real reason for timeliness or scarcity into the launch? Remember the six elements of persuasion? We talked about this in two previous episodes, classroom episodes, that is, and you can always access every classroom episode at sidehustleschool.com/classroom. So the six elements of persuasion, one of those was urgency, scarcity, timeliness.
Why does this matter now? Why should somebody be interested in what you're offering, not just at some point in the distant future, but why should they take action right now? Next, if your launch is online, assuming you're doing some kind of website or it's gonna be up somewhere online, have you recorded a video or made an audio message, something to compliment the written copy, some kind of multimedia, if it's relevant to what you're selling, and it usually can't hurt. And speaking of copy, write everything that you need to in advance. Don't forget things like the confirmation message your new customers will receive.
I remember we talked about that a couple of classroom episodes ago and talked about how you can use that opportunity to do something fun, to truly affirm your customer and make sure they understand that they made a good decision in choosing to purchase from you, as well as whatever info they need for onboarding. Have all that stuff written well in advance, then proofread everything, check all the links in your shopping cart or payment processor, double check them again from a different computer with a different browser, print out anything that's online and review it by hand. Make sure you check with your cell phone. A lot of people these days, a lot of websites have a lot more mobile traffic than they do desktop traffic. So it's easy to run into this trap.
I know I have many times, like I work on a desktop computer most of the time. And so I often don't check things until the last minute on my phone. And then I'm like, oh, this is actually how most people are going to experience this. And there's often errors, or something that can be done better in the mobile version. So do that earlier.
And as you're checking links, go through the purchase process yourself to make sure it works, like buy your own product. And if you change something, if you change some variable somewhere in the shopping cart on the website, whatever, then test it again. Just make sure it works. You'd be surprised how often you've made a small little mistake that seems obvious at the end. You're like, oh, why didn't I catch that?
Well, you didn't catch it because there's just a lot of stuff going on. But when you complete that test purchase, you'll notice. You can also get momentarily excited because you just sold a product. And then you realize, wait a second, I just sold it to myself. But still, mostly you do it to test.
Last but not least, and probably the most important thing of all, assuming everything works, assuming your copy is good, assuming you feel confident in the process, you want to spend some time asking for help spreading the word. A lot of your readers, prospects, acquaintances, your friends, even people you just know on Facebook or elsewhere, they will help by telling their friends and followers, but you have to ask them. I think it's totally fine to ask in a non-salesy way, hey, I've got this cool thing. If you have a chance, will you share it? And then if they do share it, follow up and say, that's amazing.
Thank you so much for doing it. If they don't, that's okay. Never make anybody feel guilty for not sharing. They might just be busy. They might not have time right now.
They might be doing something else that this would kind of be a distraction. But if you keep building relationships over time, those will pay off. And those people will be happy to hear from you again, whereas if you're always asking for something and then following up and getting a little upset, if they don't help you, then they're not going to want to hear from you. So build relationships the right way. And if you do all those things, then chances are by the time the launch comes around, you're going to be in a good position.
So let's talk about that. After the sponsor break, what do you do during and after the launch? How do you make sure you start well and then continue? All right, I really appreciate our sponsors allowing this program to be completely free to you. So here's a message on their behalf and then we will keep rolling.
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All right, the big day has arrived. What do you do? Well, you change over your sales page. You do it a little bit earlier. You do a soft launch to make sure still once again that everything is working.
You post on any social networks you're active in. You don't join a new social network just to promote something. Usually best just to promote things on a network that you've already been participating in. You use Google Analytics, which is completely free to monitor your website traffic. You can actually see in real time how users are coming to the site, how they behave and navigate.
It can just be like a helpful little monitor, a little metric to keep an eye on. You also want to write to the first three to five buyers first to say thanks, 'cause like they're your awesome first three to five buyers. But also just to ask, hey, did everything go okay in the order process? What was it like for you? They were already pre-committed just like those people lining up for Fast and Furious number, whatever it is.
So they might also appreciate that personal check-in. There are a number of other steps on that PDF. Once again, you can go to sidehustleschool.com/1234 to get a more comprehensive list of things to do before, during and after. But I wanted to mention two things to do afterwards. Number one is celebrate your wins.
Assuming you accomplish at least one of your goals, whatever it is, it takes some time to be like, yeah, you know, I did that. So like we did that. I worked on it for a long time. I chose to really kind of hunker down and instead of watching Netflix all the time, I worked on this project and now it's out there and now it can be earning money for me in the long term. There's still more work to be done, of course, but this is what it's all about.
So you're gonna celebrate that and just kind of honor that moment. And then before too much longer, you wanna start thinking about the next launch. Okay, what can you build on from this one? What did you learn that can help you create something even better next time? If you do it right, this can be a very positive, virtuous cycle.
I'm not doing a whole lot of launches these days, but long ago I went through a series of like, you know, every couple of months I'd have a product launch and it was really fun to just learn the process and to see, you know, like I said, what I could do better, what I learned each time. And the only way that you're gonna learn that for yourself, for your products and services, for your ideal customers is to experience it. Now remember as well, it's also okay to not put all your hopes in a launch. You know, I had my own COVID-19 experience of launching the money tree in a very difficult environment. Fortunately, I'm in it for the long term.
And so if you are making something you plan to support for a long time, then the launch becomes less critical. You know, I still did everything and still I'm doing everything to support this new book. I want it to go far and wide, but I also fundamentally believe in the message. And so I know, you know, despite the distractions and despite everything that's happening in the world, it's still going to be relevant, you know, many months from now. So I want you to hear that because if you're feeling discouraged, if you're not getting the response that you would like right now, just know that lots of other people are struggling as well.
So you're definitely not alone in that. And of course, as always, there's more than one path. So find a way that works for you. All right, each classroom feature will include an assignment. Your assignment today is to review the 39 step launch checklist and set a goal for your first or your next launch.
You can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom. And as mentioned, this has been episode one, two, three, four, 1,234. Thank you so much. Thank you for being part of this community. We've got more stories, more questions and answers, more listener updates, lots of good stuff coming up.
And it is such a joy for me to be able to make this show for you every day. All right, once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
