After many late nights and early mornings, fuelled by buckets of caffeine, you’re finally finished your first product.
But, you’ve got questions. Chiefly, how do you make your product into a success that validates all the time and effort you’ve put into creating it?
With a product launch.
Do you really need to launch though?
You’ve heard the old adage: if you build it they will come.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to your first product.
If you want to make sales, then yes, you need to launch. You don’t need to launch big. You might choose to have a quiet and low-key launch to just your subscribers.
A key component to any launch is the email sequence you send to your subscribers. The purpose of this sequence is to convert your subscribers into customers.
But, what are you supposed to send in your product launch emails? And, is there only one way to launch successfully?
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to launching. How you decide to launch your product will depend on the cost of the product, your audience, and what you want to use to launch it.
Why do launches work?
The reason launches work is rooted in human psychology. There are innate psychological responses embedded in our brains that can be triggered by marketing and launches.
Here are some of the common triggers used in launches:
- Social proof – if something is popular, or if it worked for someone else, it must be good.
- Scarcity – if a product is positioned as being scarce, the value of it increases. It also triggers our fear of missing out.
- Reciprocity – if your launch includes giving away valuable free material, your audience may feel the need to return the favor.
- Authority – providing free valuable content helps establish your position as an expert and an authority on the topic of your launch.
A Simple Launch Method
A simple way to launch your product is to provide a free and valuable offer up front to generate interest and leads for your launch. Within your free content you foreshadow your paid offering so that your leads are aware that you have something more to offer.
Your free content might take the form of:
- A live webinar
- Pre-recorded video workshop
- A live challenge event within a Facebook Group or Slack Community.
You promote your offer using free traffic methods, advertising, and encouraging your participants to share socially.
Once you’ve delivered the free content, you’ll follow up with a six-email launch sequence designed to convert your audience into buyers.
Email 1 – Show the Offer
In the first email of your launch sequence, you’ll introduce your audience to the offer you’re making. At this point, they’ve consumed your free content and should have an idea that you’ve got more value to add on the subject.
This is the email where you’ll let them know the details on when, where, and how they can buy.
This email should include:
- The timeframe of the launch – is the cart open now? When does the cart close? Are there any time-limited bonuses for quick action takers?
- A big picture overview of your offer – what do your customers get?
Email 2 – The Offer Details
What comes next? The second email you send dives deeper into the details of your offer focusing on what your audience is going to get and the transformation and benefits your product provides.
This email should include:
- Who the offer is for – who will benefit the most from your offer?
- How your offer will change your customers lives for the better.
- Add a post script to this email to foreshadow the case study in the following email. For example, “I can’t wait to share a story with you tomorrow from Jenny, you won’t believe her transformation after she signed up for this course.”
Email 3 – Case Studies and Testimonials
People love stories and social proof.
One way to tell a compelling story of your product is through using case studies. For example, entrepreneur Melyssa Griffin uses video case studies on her sales page to showcase her student’s real-life results from taking her course.
If you have video case studies, you could link to the video in your email as well as providing a transcription of the highlights.
Or, if you simply have testimonials, you can add those to your email.
Both case studies and testimonials are forms of social proof – proof that other people have bought your product, achieved results, and recommend you to others.
Email 4 – Vulnerable Email (Share Your Story and Your Why)
You might think that your customers purchasing decisions are based on rationality and facts. But, you’d be surprised to learn that emotions play a huge role in buying behaviour.
In fact, according to Psychology Today, emotions are defining factor in why consumers choose one brand over another.
The purpose of this email is to share your vulnerable side and create empathy with your audience.
For example:
- You weren’t always a successful business owner – you struggled with the very problems that your product is designed to solve.
- You followed the wrong advice and made some mistakes along the way – your product will prevent your buyers from making the same mistakes.
Email 5 – Overcome Objections with the FAQ Email
No one likes to be sold to and your audience will have plenty of objections holding them back from purchasing your product.
The key to writing an effective email that overcomes objections is to have a deep knowledge of your target customer. The better you understand their motivations, desires, and underlying pain points the better you can identify and answer any objections they might have – before they even voice it!
Use your knowledge of your customer to make a list of objections that they might have to your product, for example:
- It can’t work for them because…
- It’s too expensive…
- I’ve already bought another product that’s similar…
Then go through and answer these questions. Once you’ve finished, write the biggest questions up into a question-answer email form.
Email 6 – Cart Closing
It’s the last day of your launch and time to send your cart closing email. Or emails. Many entrepreneurs choose to send three or more emails on the final day of a launch. For example, morning, afternoon, and one hour before the cart closes. It’s up to you how many you decide to send!
The cart closing email will often spur any of your readers who are on the fence about buying your product to make a decision and purchase it. Up to 60% of sales happen on the last day. Why is this? Are we just procrastinators?
The cart closing email communicates urgency. Creating urgency triggers powerful feelings in the human psyche. Urgency requires immediate action. You can see that urgency can be a highly effective tool to help you create demand for your product.
Another reason that the cart closing email is so effective is that your audience is programmed to avoid pain more than they pursue gain. Your audience has a difficult time picturing their future success and what they could get from buying your product.
But, in the cart closing email you frame your copy to show your audience what they are going to lose if they don’t buy now. The solution to their problem. When you frame your email in this way and relate your product back to their pain points and how your product will help them alleviate their problems, they are more likely to buy.
Your email should communicate:
- the finality of the cart closure
- social proof – for example “people always email me the day after the cart closes because they missed out”.
- The negative effect of not buying now – for example, “this is the last time you’ll see this course at this price and we don’t know when it’s going to return, if ever.”
But, What if My Course or Product is Evergreen?
The cart never closes for an evergreen course or product, however, you can still create urgency using limited time offers, or even create a launch event around it using strategic bonuses.
The simplest way to sell your evergreen course or product is through a sales funnel. You can create urgency by offering a discount on the course for a limited time.
Or, you could run a launch event with special bonuses around the course like a Facebook group where participants will travel through the course together with live Q&A sessions each week.
Wrapping It Up
Launching your first product can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. If you follow this launch email sequence you can be confident that you’ve given your launch the best chance of success.
Over to you – have you launched a product before? Did you use an email sequence like this?
Winsantdotcom
September 7, 2017 at 10:51 pmAmazing tips…
really helpful
Sarah Bishop
September 13, 2017 at 8:36 pmGlad we could help!