I want to share what’s been going on behind the scenes with my last launch, and how it was NOT successful.
Everybody is always talking about their successes and how amazing they are doing, and I love hearing those kinds of stories too because they are inspiring me to do better and get there too, but sometimes that’s not how it works out for us, right? I’ve noticed that nobody talks about their mistakes, or how a launch went bad, and I want to change that. I’m going to share it all with you – my results, what I did wrong, and what I’ve learned from it.
I just had the worst launch since I’ve started selling online courses. I extended enrollment for a day and added a payment plan at the time of this post, and hopefully, a few more people will sign up, but I’m still going to be far from reaching my goals. So far, I sold 2 spots, which is a really terrible result, and while I’m still processing it, I kind of know why that is and what mistakes I made.
I launched my newest program, Blissful Brand Blueprint. I sold it once before in a pre-launch in February, I actually did a podcast episode about this a few weeks ago where I share how I pre-sold a course and sold 30 spots.
Since then, I’ve created all the lessons inside the course and, if I say so myself, it’s an amazing course. I teach all about how to build your brand, how to get started on social media, how to register your domain and email, get started on your website, and how to create great content so you can start growing your audience. It really helps you to build a strong foundation as a yoga teacher, which will then help you to start growing your online business.
The price was $297 with a $100 discount, the normal price $397. It includes video trainings, workbooks, copy swipe files, and templates, and it’s a ton of value for what you pay. I’m actually really proud of it and I 100% stand behind it. I pre-sold Blissful Brand Blueprint in February, created it, and my original plan was not to do a launch in June but to set up an evergreen funnel this month, but then I thought that I’ve never really launched it publicly and I should do that.
I set up a live webinar and invited people from my email list to it and I sent out 3 emails after the webinar – this is how I launched it. I re-used everything from my first launch, the webinar slidedeck, the sales page, and the emails.
The product is great, so why didn’t it sell? Especially after I sold 30 spots in the first launch?
Mistake #1: Mindset
It’s one word: mindset – that was the main issue. The truth is, it wasn’t the right time to do a launch. I just launched Blissful Biz Academy 5 weeks or so ago and my audience was tired of launch emails and I was tired of launch emails. My mind was also completely occupied with other things, I was planning my campervan trip and busy with Luna and other things, and I didn’t give this launch my all.
I also didn’t really want to launch again, I was feeling like it was too much, too many launch emails that I sent to my subscribers in too short a time. There was an inner voice that said it’s not the right time. It didn’t feel good to switch my yearly calendar up again and add another launch in. That was my first mistake, I simply shouldn’t have done this launch, it wasn’t the right time.
As you could’ve guessed, I didn’t listen to that inner voice. I set everything up, the webinar, the registration page, the sales page, the emails, the timer, and everything else you need. I’ve done a few launches by now so that was pretty smooth sailing, no big issues here – but now the mindset blocks came into play.
Mistake #2: Not Improving Things
The second mistake I made is that I didn’t really look at or improve things like my sales page or emails, which is what I normally do before each launch. I just reused everything, copy-paste. I even made mistakes like not correcting the month in one email that I sent out. Ouch, right? I knew at the same time that there were things I could improve, for example on the sales page, or I could have tried to get more testimonials, but I didn’t do it. I can’t explain why – there was a subconscious block.
Mistake #3: Playing Small
The third mistake I made is that I played small. Because it was so soon after my last launch I didn’t want to annoy my subscribers, so I only sent out 3 sales emails, plus a last one with the payment plan. Three! To give you some comparison, in my last launch of Blissful Biz Academy I sent out 9 sales emails.
I also did one live webinar and one Instagram TV video where I talked about why a logo is not your brand. I wanted to do more but didn’t have the time, or, to tell the truth, didn’t make the time. I just wasn’t excited about it, and people could feel that! It definitely affected my results, so, so much. If you’re not excited about what you sell, why should anyone else be?
Mistake #4: Not Growing my Email List
My final mistake was that I didn’t really grow my email list a lot since my last launch in February and I didn’t do Facebook ads – so I was basically selling to the same people again. This never works, your results are always going to be worse than the first time you made a specific offer to your audience. I actually wanted to run Facebook ads for the webinar, but because Facebook changed their event setting I wasn’t able to set them up in time.
To run Facebook ads for an event, you want to set up a custom conversion, this means that Facebook knows when someone actually signed up and thus knows that the ad is working and can improve targeting the right people. But they changed how to set up custom conversion events and it takes now 72 hours after you’ve set up the event before you can use it in your ads, and this was too late for me. So I didn’t run ads, and I didn’t have enough new people on my email list, which was a very bad combination.
What I’ve Learned From All of This:
When you do a launch – when you want to sell something or you want to invite people to join your program, you need to go all-in – you can’t do it half-heartedly, or you shouldn’t if you don’t want to set yourself up for disappointment.
I know that selling is so uncomfortable to so many of you. I have students asking me all the time, “do I really have to do all this to sell my course?” and the answer is, yes, you do. You can’t just send out a few emails and call it a day. You owe it to the product that you’ve created, that you’ve made to help your customers, to promote it as well as you can.
I also tried putting my courses on my websites once so you could buy them anytime, and guess what, hardly anyone bought them – your potential customers want to be convinced. There is a mindset shift that needs to happen before they are ready to invest, and this takes time, and this means multiple messages, social media posts, lives, and emails.
That’s why I tell my students in Blissful Biz Academy that for their first launch, they should follow my plan to launch with a free challenge and a strategically set up email sequence. After that, they can experiment if they want – as I did with this launch! But when you’re just starting, you want to follow a proven plan, which is what I will do.
So what will I change for my next launch?
Right now I’m working on an update for my website course, I’m designing a new website template and refilming all the lessons. I’m not sure yet when I’ll be finished, but my goal is to get it done this month. Then I want to do a free website challenge again. I’m going to do tons of social media stuff, beautifully written emails, and a ton of Facebook ads. I’m going to be excited about it, and I’ll go all in!
I hope that this has helped you to understand the mistakes I made with my launch, and why I feel I got such disappointing results – just be aware of your mindset and make sure you’re selling because you WANT to and know that you’ve put the time and effort into it!
If you want to elevate your brand and offers and build a six-figure business, you’re invited in The Mentorship.
The Mentorship is a 12-month mentorship program with unparalleled support for coaches and other service providers who are ready to elevate their brand, sell out their offers and scale their business to six figures.
What really sets it apart is that you get a ton of video trainings to help you implement things and take action, but you also get 1:1 coaching, group coaching, and personal feedback and critique for work you submit.
Go to www.susannerieker.com/mentorship and get all the details.
