Your Launch Planning Tools

Ok lets kick off looking at Your Launch Planning Tools.

First we have my own Launch Planning Template.

Think of this as your heads up display for your launch.

I always start my planning process in Excel because it helps me visually map out the elements and move things around quickly and easily.

Sure there are lots of software programs that you can give you this view but none of them are as flexible, convenient, or quick as Excel

Once we have the outline of the plan I then move the project over into Asana for my detailed day-to-day project management.

You can easily import projects, sections, and actions from Excel into Asana.

Now some people love Trello, others Microsoft Project, and Monday is another tool that I have used.

They all work and a lot depends on what you are used to but I love Asana and if you are really visual you can connect Asana to a low-cost service called Instagantt which turns your Asana project into a Gantt chart view.

You can build in estimated timelines for actions and task dependencies to really see your critical success path.

This is especially useful when you are coordinating a larger team or when your launch become more complex.

Your Launch Planning Timelines

Next, let’s look at your launch planning timelines.

I plan in 90-day cycles with the first day of the new cycle 80 days before open cart or when you first make the offer for your launch.

The reason being I believe that as an online business owner you should have 4 promotions a year. These don’t need to be primary promotions.

You may do 2 primary promotions and 2 secondary promotions. The primary promotions are for your signature product or membership.

Your secondary promotions could be for a front-end membership or program a virtual event or even a JV launch that you want to go all-in on.

If you are just starting out I encourage my clients to go all out and launch their primary product or membership 4 times a year. Getting the reps in early in play is extremely important to optimize your funnel, launch copy, campaigns, and offer.

I love the quarterly promotion model because it gives you plenty of time to build your email list, build trust with your new subscribers and work on optimizing your launch.

5 Launch Planning Phases

Third, we are going to look at your Launch Planning Phases.

90 days break down into 13 weeks.

The first 6 weeks are what I call the Build Phase. Because your next launch starts the second your previous launch has finished.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is they wander aimlessly between their launches. You have to plan your weekly content so that it lines your email list up for your launch.

Including this phase in your launch planning will force you to be more strategic in the content that you create. Every piece of content should be positioning you, your audience, and your concepts so that when it comes to your offer people are pumped primed and ready to go.

Phase 2 is the Awareness Phase.

This is where you build Awareness of both the specific problems that you solve with your signature program and the opportunities that exist for people if they were to achieve the ultimate transformation that you know is possible for them.

One of the best ways you can do this is by sharing case studies and success stories. Depending on the format of your Pre-Launch this phase can be 2 to 2 and a half weeks. During this period I like to step up the frequency of my emails from once a week to twice a week.

Phase 3 is the Pre-Launch Phase

This is where we invite people to join a Masterclass / Workshop / Challenge / Coaching Week. Whatever phrase or approach you want to use to describe your Pre-Launch content

Your Pre-launch will normally be free but does require registration

In some cases for the likes of challenges or coaching weeks, you can charge a low ticket amount, traditionally – $7 – $47.

The format of your Pre-launch can range from a single piece of pre-recorded or live content to the traditional 3-part workshops all the way to 5 and 7-day challenges.

As a result, your pre-launch phase including the registration and delivery period will be from 2-4 weeks

Phase 4 is the Launch Phase.

This is where you open up doors for your program or membership, make your offer and start welcoming new members.

This phase can last anywhere from 3 days for a quick launch to 5 to 6 days for a standard launch.

In this phase, we go all out emailing at least once a day and I encourage people to go live every day if possible.

Phase 5 the final phase is the Onboarding Phase. This is a hugely important phase for the long-term success of your business.

It is so important you create a wonderful experience for your new members in that first 7-14 day window. Spend as much time working on your welcome sequence as you do on your pre-launch and launch sequences.

Ok so now that we have looked at our Launch Planning Phases let’s dive into the planning of the deliverables.

The 10 Launch Planning Deliverable Categories

Diving into the plan in a little more detail you can see I have broken each day down into 10 sections.

Part of how to use this planner is for my weekly and daily team meetings. Even if you don’t have any team these daily launch check-ins are essential.

I want to be able to see all the key date-driven actions on a day-by-day basis but I also want to be able to see what’s coming up on a week-by-week basis.

Finding this balance between the micro and macro planning in the visual launch plan is essential

There are 10 areas that I like to plot on this visual plan which includes:

Copy

This is the drafting of all the copy for your lead generation and launch, emails, opt-in pages, ads, social posts, and offer pages. It is important you have your copy drafted well before it needs to go live so you have an opportunity to review, proof, and optimize.

Lead Magnet

This is everything related to the production, publication and promotion of your lead generating lead magnet, when it needs to be created by, promotion deadlines, optimization, updates, new lead magnets, launching a mini-front end self-liquidating product

PLC Content

Here we include the date that registration for your masterclass opens and the delivery of each module of your Masterclass or Workshop

Email

This is for the delivery date of each email. I plan and label each email to be sent during each phase of my 90 Day Plan. This is a great way of planning and building a cohesive, fully aligned email campaign which gently easy your email subscriber from cold contact to raving fan and recurring long time customer

Funnel

This part is for everything got to do with the design, design, development, integration, launch, and optimization of your launch funnel. The opt-in pages, thank you pages, the pre-launch video or livestream pages, your concierge page, opt-in analytics, and tracking, offer page, checkout and payment integration, course or membership set up, and onboarding. So every webpage, integration, and step required for a member to move from prospect to lead to masterclass registrant, paying customer and member.

FB ads

This is the planning, launch, and optimization of your lead generation, pre-launch and offer promotion. You will have multiple layers of both top of funnel cold targeting ads and middle of funnel retargeting ads for each promotion

Social

You definitely want to have drafted and scheduled your social posts in advance. Yes, you want to sprinkle in reactive and “in the moment posts” but trust me when you are under pressure social is the first thing to get dropped. I like to build out at least one social post per email. No need to get overly cute, especially in the early days of launching. Use your email copy as the basis for your social posts

Livestream & Webinar

Going live in any format is one of the best ways to engage with your audience. Even if your audience is small. I like to start building momentum with my livestreams during the Awareness Phase. During your open car of offer phase, you want to schedule a number of livestreams and webinars to make sure you help the people sitting on the fence jump off it

Open Cart

This is where we schedule our Open Cart and Closed Cart dates. As this is a key part of the launch I want to have these dates in constant focus throughout the planning and delivery process. Here we should schedule the in launch bonuses and any special initiatives we are going to undertake during the open cart period

Onboarding & Delivery

Ok so finally we come to one of the most forgotten periods of a launch which is the onboarding process. You need to have an email sequence drafted and scheduled well in advance of your open cart date. One thing that people often forget is that some people are going to sign up on day 1 of your launch. If you have a 5-day open cart you can’t leave these people sitting waiting until your launch is over for their next communication. Likewise, you can send these people critical onboarding information that people who register on day 5 are not going to get. You have to think carefully about this phase of your launch to ensure you create a wow experience for your members and build all-important momentum immediately

Launch Planning Setting Your Key Dates

Ok so now we are getting right down to setting the key dates for our launch.

I always start with the open cart day. I figure out the day I want to open up my program for registration and start driving traffic to the offer page.

We have to be careful that this open cart period avoids key national holidays, industry holidays, known black spots like mid-term and back to school, big competitor launches, and anything else that is likely to have a negative impact on our launch results.

We also want to pick what we think are the days of the week when we think we are going to get the best results. For instance, I avoid close cart on Fridays and Saturdays. Likewise, I avoid open cart on Saturdays. Much of this is going to depend on whether you are B2B or B2C

Once we have our open cart date we can then pick our close cart date. This will normally be in the range of 3-6 days following open cart.

Then we can start working backward. Are you running a Seed Launch, traditional 3 part workshop, live launch or maybe you are going to run a 5-7 day challenge or coaching week?

I think live launches work best 3 days in a row with open cart directly after the 3 modules of the workshop.

The traditional 3 part workshop will normally have a 1 – 2 day gap in between each module of the workshop. The trend is toward more compact launches with fewer gaps in the pre-launch phase.

Once we have figured out our Pre-launch masterclass we can then work on our pre-launch promotion phase. I will always give at least 10-14 days from the Pre-Pre-Launch survey to the first module of the masterclass.

This will give the opportunity for at least 3 workshop promotional emails and then individual emails for each one of the workshop modules.

As your launches grow and you establish a baseline of copy the number of promotional emails sent during this phase will increase.

Working backward from our Pre-Launch promotion we can then move into scheduling our Awareness phase with our shot across the bow survey and also the case studies and success stories.

During our awareness phase, we are also going to start building momentum on social by upping the frequency of our livestreams.

If you notice in my plan you can see this is where the drafting of the email copy starts to kick in.

In fact, I kick off the copy project 42 days in advance of open cart. This gives us plenty of time to get all our emails and offers drafted well in advance and not leave us under massive pressure during key phases of our launch where we should be focused fully on engaging with our launch participants.

Bonus Session: 5 Tips to Supercharge Your Launch Planning

This is the exact process that I follow for every launch I deliver or advise on.

And having delivered just shy of 60 launches and advised on countless other launches here are 5 tips to supercharge your launch planning for maximum results.

1. Map out your launches a year in advance. I brought you through a 90-day process. You should be mapping out your 4 promotions a year, at least a year in advance. This keeps me on track and focused. Whether you strike gold or a launch flops, you have a plan and you are committed to the long game
2. Set your annual financial goals and the launch-specific financial goals. It is important to know what is on the line. Building an online business is tough. When we hit a hurdle we need to know what reward for preserving is and what is potentially at stake
3. Remember it’s not just about your financial results. I believe that online businesses have the ability to impact the lives of those we serve in a way that few other businesses can. Connect to what your future potential clients would be missing out on if you stumbled or didn’t follow through on your plans to launch.
4. Set yourself launch rewards. Take 3 levels of revenue. Your target, a stretch target, and an outlandish target. Tie a specific reward to each level. The reward size-matched to the target level. Make them so exciting that you are willing to run through walls to hit that target, whether it be a weekend away in a posh hotel or a foreign city break. And if you hit the revenue target follow through and do it.
5. Keep your plan visible at all times. Your launch plan is core to developing your online business. Find a place in your office to hang your 90-day plan. Every morning walk into your office spends a minute or two reviewing your plan. Dedicate the first portion of your day to completing your Launch tasks due for that day and moving your launch forward.

Ok so now that you how to Plan an Online Launch you are probably going to want to take a deeper dive into The 5 phases of a launch. You might also want to take a look into building recurring revenue in your business

So make sure to check out some of my other posts.

How To Build Your Product Launch & Promotion Calendar

First, let’s talk about the overall strategy of promoting an online business.

Whether you have an online course, membership, or group program the best way of building your strategy is to break your year down into 4 cycles of 90 days each with each cycle ending in a promotion.

Now that might not be a primary promotion and as your business grows you probably will not run 4 promotions for your primary program a year. You may have 2 primary and 2 secondary.

Your secondary promotions could be for a smaller product or front-end membership, event, or even a JV promotion that you are going to go all-in-one.

One of the things I love most about this approach puts very defined timelines on your marketing focus and attention.

It gives you time and space to build your list between promotions, not just that but build a relationship and connect with them making sure that they understand who you are, how you can help them, and what makes you the perfect person to help them achieve their deepest dreams, goals, and ambitions.

Ok, so now that we have dialed in on a 90 Day cycle I want to break down the 5 phases or steps and bring you through the key components of each and what you need to do to maximize your results in each. 

Phase 1 – The Build Phase – Lead Generation & Engagement Strategies

List building into a launch is the best strategy except for JV traffic

Time to engage, build trust, and build relationships with engagement sequence (3-10 emails)

• Share personal insights – build a connection
• Share the best content
• Raise and eliminate big objections
• Share your dreams and your plan for them
• Demonstrate your unique mechanism
• Prove to them why and how you are different.

How You Show up here dictates the success of your launch. What do people need to believe to purchase your offer? You need to provide evidence. Think of it like a court case. What questions are holding people back and how can I get them to start taking action.

Phase 2 – The Awareness Phase – Preparing Your Email List For Launch

2 Weeks before you enter your pre-launch.

Share very focused stories of how ordinary people achieve remarkable results using your methods.

Build awareness of the problems your program solves and how it solves them through the results that your previous students have achieved

Call out the big objections and answer them in advance

No mention of your product but start building excitement for your Pre-Launch

Culminates in the Shot across the bow survey

Phase 3 – The Pre-Launch Phase – Promoting Your Launch Masterclass

Principle-based marketing

Registration for free Masterclass / Workshop

Build excitement, anticipation, energy and momentum

Deliver huge value – content density – strategies rather that tactics – big mistake people getting bogged down

Psychological triggers – Reciprocity, authority, proof, social proof, community, conversation

This has evolved and lots of people have built onto this model

Seed Launch

Traditional pre-recorded 3 module course

Live launches

Challenges

Coaching week

Opportunity

Transformation

Ownership

Phase 4 – The Launch Phase – Making Your Offer and Selling Your Online Course

3-6 day period

Increase the dream outcome, increase the likelihood of success, decrease the time delay and decrease the effort required

Bonuses

Destroy objections

Help people get the result they desire faster

Day 1 release sales video and offer page

Daily emails

We’re open

Transformation

Bonuses

Case Studies

FAQ’s

Deadline

But remember you don’t have to stop providing value.

Weave in livestreams and webinars

One of the key reasons why launches work is because of the deadline

Phase 5 – The Post-Launch Phase – The Secret To Making Money Online

Your success will be directly related to the success you help your clients achieve. The start is essential.

When someone purchases you pull them out of the offer campaign and you need to have daily emails until your first deliverable.

Remember some people are going to get all emails so save essential info until after close cart.

Put as much effort into this experience as you do into your launch.

And remember this is the perfect opportunity for a down-sell. Lots of people are all reved up. Not ready to step up to your primary product but they want to buy something.

Offer them something that is going to get them results and prepare them to step up to your signature program the next time you launch.

How To Launch An Online Product Overview

Now at the start of the post, I promised a bonus session on how you can add an additional 10-15% launch revenue guaranteed with hardly any additional work, and if you stay tuned I will get right to that but first let’s do a quick recap on what we have covered today.

Phase 1 – Build – all about lead generation and all about positioning our list for the launch

Phase 2 – Awareness – Building awareness of the opportunities and the successes others have had while overcoming the most common objectives

Phase 3 – Pre-Launch – Promotion and delivery of our Masterclass or workshop

Phase 4 – Launch – where we offer our signature program or memberships

Phase 5 – Onboarding – lay the foundations of success for our new members

Bonus Session – How To Add An Additional 10% – 15% Launch Revenue

Ok so let’s look at a way that you can add an additional 10—15% guaranteed to your launch revenue.

So you have whipped your audience into a frenzy. You build huge reciprocity, excitement, and momentum. You make your offer and a certain % of people sign up.

Now for every person who signed up, there is another person who was on the fence. Who wanted to buy but either didn’t have a bad enough need at that time or who couldn’t justify the value proposition. But they would love to spend some money with you.

Well, let’s give these people something to buy.

Now if you have a low ticket course or membership that is aligned with your primary offer then you can run a down-sell starting a day or two after you close cart for your primary offer.

This will be a lower dollar offer and based on the momentum you have built will, as long as it is a solid offer in its own right convert like crazy after all the heavy lifting you have done during your launch.

I have seen some crazy figures with these down-sells, especially with bigger lists but no matter what you can definitely add an additional 10-15% of launch revenue with a down-sell.

Ok so now that you know the phases of a launch you are probably going to want to take a deeper dive into Lead Generation.

So make sure you check out some of my other posts for lots more on how to get started with lead generation and how to design landing pages that convert.

The 3 Freedoms We Seek

Having built a multi-million dollar consulting and training business that started as a traditional brick and mortar business and then moved online, one of the reasons I love the online business model is because I see it is the shortest and most direct path to achieving the 3 primary freedoms we all seek:

Financial freedom

Time freedom

Lifestyle freedom

I also believe it is the very best model for helping people achieve the transformation they seek.

Not alone does it give you the opportunity to reach a much wider audience, but this reach gives you the opportunity to niche down and really focus on solving one big problem for people.

And in doing so the results you can help people achieve will be far greater than when you are trying to serve a broader spectrum.

As an online business owner, you almost have access to the entire population of the world and as a result, you only need to focus on serving those who you are meant to serve. The people for whom you, and you alone are the perfect leader.

The focus is no longer about making the world a better place but just making your corner of the world a better place

And creating a safe space for the people who need you the most.

I have yet to come across a business where there wasn’t an opportunity to add on or scale a knowledge commerce element.

Whether that be through subscriptions, memberships, or online courses.

The opportunities are endless but in order for you to be successful there are 3 fundamental, foundational, building blocks that you absolutely must get right.

Building Block 1 – Develop A Repeatable Process That Gets Results

Now I don’t care what stage you are at in your business, whether you want to launch an online knowledge product or a membership or whether you are planning a subscription service, automated evergreen delivery, or fully-fledged coaching program you have to have a step-by-step process that is repeatable and is proven to get people the result that they seek.

When it comes down to it the currency that you trade-in is results.

In order to get people results in any area of life or business, you must give them a specific set of steps they need to take in a specific order to achieve the desired outcome.

All people care about are results. You can have the best content in the world but if it doesn’t move people towards an outcome then it is pointless

And by all means, if you have achieved the promised result yourself you can document your process as a starting point but I think it is essential that you then take that process and see if others can get the same result as you have while following it.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that others will be able to do the same.

And if you are just starting out find people you can work on one-on-one to implement your process and get results before you launch your online course or membership.

And very often when I’m working even with established online business owners this is the starting point because unless you have a defined transformation and very intentional process or stepping stones to achieve that transformation you can struggle to hit your full revenue and impact potential.

Building Block 2 – Build A Knock Out Offer

Now when I say knockout offer I am not talking about a discount or any one deliverable of your program.

I am talking about how you describe the promise that you make about how someone’s life will be better once they have implemented your proven process.

Your offer should make someone feel stupid to pass up on it irrespective of the price. In fact, the job of your offer is to make price a tertiary consideration because you paint a vivid picture of exactly how they envision their perfect life or business to be like, devoid of the pain and problems they are experiencing right now.

People will come to you because they need a specific problem solved but if you can paint a better future for them that they have even imagined for themselves and they believe that you have the ability to help them achieve it that’s when you have a knockout offer.

One copy technique for building this is the Value equation.

Above the line, we have two elements. Below the line, we have two elements.

Above the line, we have The Dream Outcome X Perceived Likelihood of Achievement.

When drafting your offer you want to increase both of these elements.

Now the dream outcome is the Utopia that I spoke about a second ago.

But let’s face it everyone especially in the online world promises the sun, moon, and stars.

And this is one reason you need to have a proven process because people have to be convinced that you don’t just talk a good game. You have to have some way of justifying why this time it will be different for them. Why this time it will work for them.

Below the line, in the value equation, you have Time Delay by Effort and Sacrifice.

Our job is to reduce both these elements.

Now, I work with lots of people in the health, wellness, yoga, and nutrition space and there is always some hesitancy here, and I think this is true in all disciplines, there are no shortcuts.

But bottom line people are lazy. They want to get the maximum results in the shortest time possible with the minimum effort.

And while the last thing we should do is mislead or promise something that isn’t possible what we need to do is make people feel like our process is the ” shortcut” that they have been looking for.

But only the most refined and tested processes can help people achieve this which is why that was included as point 1.

Building Block 3 – Build Your Audience & Community

No amount of marketing can overcome a weak offer or a cold audience.

Having delivered just under 60 launches personally and worked on countless client launches I can’t stress how important having an engaged audience is.

If you have a really hot audience even a weak offer can get great results.

No matter where you are in your online business journey building an audience and community is going to be key to your future success.

First off what is the difference between an audience and a community?

Well, imagine a big ballroom with 2,000 people. If you are standing on stage, everyone is focused and facing you, with you talking to them, you are building an audience.

Whereas if the 2,000 people were seated cabaret style talking with each other as you facilitate the conversation you are building a community.

Community is infinitely more powerful but you have to start by building an audience.

Now there are lots of different ways you can build an audience. There’s social (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Linkedin), Email, Blog, YouTube, Podcasts just to name a few.

When I’m working with my Lead2Launch Coaching clients and members I always get them to focus on building an audience on 1-2 primary channels first

Now the social channels can be the easiest to get started and you can certainly see results quickly, building a blog, YouTube, or Podcast audience can take much longer.

No matter what you choose, your key focus should be to convert your audience into email subscribers.

Email provides the single highest ROI of any marketing channel and when it comes to making sales there is no dispute as to the crowned champion.

Whatever 1-2 channels you choose go all in. Learn everything about how they work and what gets the best results on that platform. Play by that platform’s rules and customize your messaging and approach to suit the platform. Sometimes to stand out you have to fit in.

And most importantly building an audience on any platform can take time. And I am talking months and years as opposed to days and weeks.

You have to look at it as a long-term play. You are investing in your future success.

This is especially important in the early days when you are not picking up the followers or engagement that you would like or that you feel you deserve based on the effort you are putting in.

The best bit of advice I can give you is to fall in love with the process, not the outcome. Fall in love with getting your message into the world.

If you take consistent action over long time frames you will get the rewards even if it doesn’t feel like it initially.

10 Questions Every Online Business Owner Should Ask Themselves

Now at the start of the post, I promised you 10 questions every online business owner should ask themselves on a regular basis to ensure that they are on track and on purpose.

And I’m going to get to that in one second, however, before I do let’s recap on what we have spoken about today.

There has never been a better time to launch or scale an online business and I believe it is the best business model for helping the most people achieve the greatest results while working toward building your own freedom: Monetary, Time, and Lifestyle

If you are starting or scaling your online business the 3 fundamental elements you must get right are:

Build a proven, repeatable process that gets people results

Craft a knockout offer that people would feel stupid to pass on

Take a long term view on building an audience for today and tomorrow

Now for the bonus session.

When it comes to launching and scaling an online business it is essential that there is complete alignment between your business and personal goal.

I am a firm believer in strategy first and I have seen the repercussions when your business is going in one direction but personally, you want to go in another direction.

One of the key ways that I help my coaching clients is on the development of their overall personal and business strategy.

The following ten questions are a tiny extracts from my Self-Facilitated Strategic Planning process.

So here we go

1. .What are your personal goals and dreams?
2. What are your non-negotiables?
3. What are the most important things to you about being in business?
4. What dreams and ambitions do you hold for those who you serve?
5. What makes you angry about the niche you operate in?
6. What makes you excited about the niche you operate in?
7. What are your greatest fears?
8. What makes you feel successful as a person?
9. What makes you feel successful as a business owner?
10. If you could only help one specific type of person get one specific result for the rest of your life…Who would they be and what would you help them do

Let me know here where I should send them and we will get right on that.

And now that you know the steps that you need to take to start your online business you are probably going to want to take a deeper dive into Lead Generation which is the lifeblood of every online business.

So make sure you check out my other posts lots more on how to get started with lead generation and how to design landing pages that convert.