Navigating Failed Launches | 168
Embark on a journey through the rollercoaster of a failed launch as we unravel the emotional gamut of email registrations and the art of lead acquisition. We'll share personal stories and insights on the highs and lows of launching, emphasizing the necessity of A/B testing ad copies and images, understanding conversion rates, and setting the proper budget for lead costs. Faced with the aftermath of a launch that didn't soar as expected, we grapple with the decision to either fold or fight on, and I'll let you in on my take on this conundrum. It's a candid look at the trials faced when things don't go as planned and the resilience needed to push through.
When ads aren't in the cards, how do you engage and convert? That's the riddle we tackle in a dynamic discussion on bolstering sign-ups and maintaining the buzz for live events. Discover the transformative power of email campaigns and live social media interactions that don't just sell but provide real value. I'll walk you through my strategy for leveraging these tools to create an event experience that's not just successful but truly memorable. From the tactical use of data to the magic of interactive content, we'll explore how to ensure attendees leave feeling personally enriched, turning a one-time event into a lasting impression.
In our final heart-to-heart, we dissect the crucial role of messaging in sealing the deal post-launch. I'll divulge how consistent communication and high-quality content can make or break customer relationships, and how a clear articulation of your service's benefits can resonate with clients' deepest needs and aspirations. Sharing a page from my own playbook, I reflect on my transition from educational product sales to specialized Facebook ad services, proving the power of a strategic pivot. Join us for this episode, rich with strategies and stories that will arm educators and entrepreneurs with the tools to triumph in the face of adversity.
In this episode, we chat about…
Understanding Launch Breakdown Points [00:06 ]
Maximizing Engagement and Registrations [08:17]
Crafting Compelling Messaging [16:10]
Persistence, Pivot, and Planning [21:50]
Episode Transcript:
Hello. Welcome. I am so excited that you were here with me. And today we're going to be talking about failed launch. So actually recorded this podcast a couple of days ago and then basically as soon as I hit stop recording. To start editing I was like, Oh, that was not good. This is what I should've said like immediately it came to me and so you're getting failed launch 2.0 and 1.0, will never exist because I erased it to record over top of it. So here we go.
We're going to talk about three different metrics or three different places in the launch that you could feel like quote, unquote failed. And we'll talk about them sequentially likely if the first one fails. Then the second and the third will also fail. So kind of like where the breakdown could happen. And then we'll also talk about my thoughts about whether or not you should give up after a failed launch or push forward.
Then, if you are going to push forward, we'll also talk about what the main issue that I see is and how you can fix it. Yeah. So let's dive.
In the three places that a breakdown might happen are with email registrations. Engagement in the launch mechanism and then sales. So when I say launch mechanism, I mean, whatever the thing is that you're doing to grow hype and excitement. For the launch, typically it's going to be a webinar or a challenge.
You could also be doing a summit, video series, it could just be like an email promotion. But whatever that is the mechanism that you will be creating hype with getting people excited. Nurturing people before actually announcing the offer and opening the doors. Or sharing what the bonus is. That's the launch mechanism.
So again, the three places that it could break down would be email registrations. People who are signing up for your webinar, just for simplicity sake, I'm going to probably refer to it as a webinar, but you could exchange that for challenge or summit or video series, whatever it might be that you're hosting. So email registrations for that event is the first place I could break down.
The second one is engagement in the event, the webinar or other mechanism. And then sales following. So let's break down what each one of those would look like and how you could possibly know that it's failing or maybe it just feels like it's a failure.
So the first one is email registrations. This one often is a bit of a roller coaster because you're going to likely be collecting registrations for about two to three weeks before the event. And there maybe. A big surge at the beginning and then a bit of a dip. And then another surge right at the end. And especially in that dip, it can feel very frustrating. It can feel like it's not working and it can feel very. Like you're failing in the moment. And this is whether or not you're running ads. Actually, especially if you're not running ads, then you're going to do like a promotion, your email list, sending it out, really hyping them up, getting them excited about whatever that life event is. And your most loyal followers are going to sign up immediately. And then there will be like that dip. Because there's always people who are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's coming. That's coming. I'll sign up later. And they don't. Until the urgency happens and that's why at the end, you'll get a bit of a push as well.
Typically you're gonna see about. I want to say 2%-5% of your email list convert on the offer. So that's on the sales end. You're going to want to see a higher rate, like 10 to 20% signing up for your launch mechanism. Now, if you're running ads, there probably won't be the same dip. There will be a bit more consistency. And so in those first couple of days, if the ads are not going, how you want that can cause a lot of overwhelm and panic. It's important that you have many different versions of ad copy and images to test so that in those first couple of days you can test all of them find the best performers and move forward with that.
It's also important that you test a variety of different audiences. I highly recommend look like audiences and trying out advantage plus audiences, which I talked about in the previous episode or maybe two episodes ago. I can't remember. So definitely testing out more audiences than you think you could need. And. Same with versions of ad copy.
I also want to just remind you if you're running ads, even in a launch, you still need to give the ads time to do their thing and the, let the algorithm work its magic. I don't want you to be sitting on ads that aren't working for an extended period of time, but it can take 24 48 hours. For ads to start to stabilize. So. If things aren't working. I want you to do your best to step away for 10, 12 hours. Like give it a day and go back and look because you can be surprised at what. The algorithm is able to do in that time and turn things around.
Now, if it still isn't working. And you've given it 24 to 48 hours, then definitely start turning things off, trying new things, figuring out where the breakdown is happening.
It's really, really important that before you start running an email, Registration campaign that you have an idea of how much you're willing to pay for these, these registrations. Depending on your audience, you could be paying anywhere from a dollar to $15 and sometimes even more. So it's important that you go into it with a bit of an idea of how much these leads are going to cost so that you have a better idea of like what you're willing to pay and what you're able to pay.
I'm currently running two separate campaigns. One of them, we were expecting leads for about $2, $3, and they're up near $7. So that is very, very expensive. And we will be definitely working on pulling those costs down. The other one, we were expecting Lee costs of between 10 and $15 and they're about $12.
So they're right on target. Again, it just has to do with who your audience is and what the event is. A webinar is likely going to be cheaper than a five day challenge because there's less time that's required of the participants. Summit co will also likely blue, more expensive. I've seen summit registrations as high as 20 to $30 per lead.
So just thinking about the type of event. How much. Time and energy, the participant is going to need to put in. And what your audience is. Are you targeting? Business owners that's going to be more expensive or are you targeting teachers that are still in the classroom or moms or fitness enthusiasts? Those ones are going to be cheaper because they're the consumer. So that's the first place that it could break down.
Now, if. Your email registrations. You're not getting as many as you'd like. Or they are more expensive. There's a couple of things that I recommend that you do. The first one is switch out those ad campaigns. Try different images, try different hooks of the ad copy to get the leads coming in. You can also change the type of campaign.
That's what we're probably going to be doing tomorrow for that, the campaign that we were expecting. The leads to be about two or $3 and they're currently six to $7. We're probably going to switch it from a lead campaign to a traffic campaign to see if we can just get more eyes on the landing page, because right now that's a main part of the problem.
The CTR link click through rate is. Is low it's really, really low. And so we're not getting the clicks on it, but the CTR all is pretty decent, which tells us that there's potentially an issue with the ad copy and potentially it just emits mixed match. It's also. A little bit of a complicated story, but we had to change out the pixel at the last minute.
And so the pixel is not seasoned, which could also be causing these problems. It's a bit overwhelming, but that's okay. We're moving forward. So if you're not running ads and registrations are low, my recommendations are try a couple more emails. And I'm going live. If you are not going live on whichever platform, pick one, it could be Instagram. It could be TicTok it could be youTube. I think you can go live on YouTube. I'm going live on whatever that platform of choice is getting some excitement, drummed up, getting some people really, really excited, giving out that free value. Make sure that it's really, really valuable and it's not just a sales pitch.
People need to know what's in it for them. They want something out of it. And so they want to benefit. Give them a little bit of a teaser, give them a little bit of a bite and then encourage them to sign up for your live event. So that they can get the full scoop.
You may get. That 10 to 20% of your email list registered your ads might actually be doing really well, but because it's a high pressure time period. You may still feel like you're failing. And that's okay.
That's why it's really important to collect the numbers, collect the data and look at it after the fact. When your head has cooled down when stakes aren't so high and you can really analyze the numbers and data because retrospectively you might notice. Okay. Well, my email list was 500 people. We got 50 to a hundred people signed up, which is that 10 to 20%. We did really well. We were only paying $3 per lead for Facebook ads. And we got, like, we added a new like hundred people to our email list from the Facebook ads alone kind of thing. And so you may go back and say, okay, well felt like I wasn't getting the number of people that I wanted, but in the end we had a hundred people sign up from our email, we had a hundred people sign up from Facebook ads. Like that's really, really great. So. Make sure that you collect those numbers, collect the data and look at it after the fact.
Okay, so the second place, Where failure can either happen or just feel like it's happening is engagement in the event. Not everyone who signs up is going to show up. That's the first piece. People are busy. They forget, they might not see the value afterwards. They might not even like want to, they might realize like, oh, I think this is a sales pitch.
I'm just, I don't want to go sit through an hour of them selling to me. If there's not going to be any value. So, engagement can be in your emails leading up to the event, or it could be the actual event in itself. And similarly, like I just said about the registrations, one of the biggest things that you can do is collect numbers and data.
What percentage of people who had signed up? So those 200 people were talking about before. What percentage of them actually showed up? What were your open rates for your emails and the click rates on the emails leading up to the live event. That's going to be really, really important, that engagement piece.
I always recommend in the email sequence that people add in a yes or no question, or a really simple one word answer type question to encourage responses from the people who are reading the email. So that can be a really great way to increase the engagement you're getting with your emails and get more people replying, which I think we all know is very, very powerful when the email servers see that people are replying to your emails. That is the creme of the creme engagement. It's better than clicks is better than opens. Responses, replies are fantastic. So. Adding in ways that people can very easily, quickly and low pressure respond to you is fantastic. Highly encouraged. There's I also recommend that you incentivize people showing up live to the event.
So whether it's some sort of giveaway that they could win. Through a draw. One of the people that I follow does a live every single week and she's not pitching, it's just like a live value add thing. But she gives away a hundred dollar gift card to something every single week. Sometimes it's Amazon.
Sometimes it's her shop sometime like there's always a different, like a hundred dollars as being given away. And I know that there are people who show up. And engage with the live every week, just so that they have a chance of winning. So. You don't have to give away a hundred dollar gift card. You could give away something else, but incentivizing people to show up is a really, really great way to do it.
You can also give something away free to everyone who shows up. So this is a bonus related to whatever topic that you're teaching on for the webinar or throughout the challenge. For just for showing up, there's a secret link. Only those people get it. And again, that's another great way to incentivize people to actually show up. And interact or engage with the content. Asking questions throughout the webinar. Another great way to have people engage, but if people don't show up. Or they're not engaging with the emails. Then it can feel like it's a failure, right? You need people as part of like to engage in the launch mechanism and the biggest place that, that breaks down, why people aren't engaging is that they don't know what they're going to get from it. What they're going to walk away from.
They need to feel connected. They need to feel like it's going to benefit them. So that they will actually show up because we do things for ourselves. They're not, if the only reason that you're saying come to my webinar so that I can sell to you, people don't want that. They want to walk away from that webinar, whether or not they bought from you with something, something tangible. Feeling like they are going to save some time or save money or save energy, like whatever it is, they are going to be better off for spending that hour with you or for going through the challenge with you. That is a very, very key thing.
So if engagement is low, Looking at that piece. How can you. Update your messaging. How can you tweak your messaging so that people really feel like they are walking away with something so powerful and so amazing. Place number three, where failure can happen is in the sales. So after the webinar, cart opens or bonus begins. I know a lot of people have evergreen programs that the door is never really closed for, but after a launch, mechanism or a launch period, you're going to want to create some sort of urgency. So a bonus is a really great way or opening and closing the carts.
This is probably going to be similar to the email registrations, where immediately there is a bit of an influx of sales, then there's a dead period. And then at the very end, there is another influx of sales. You see that kind of rollercoaster effect frequently, and it is because you have the fast action people and then you have the urgency push.
Okay. Doors are closing. I need to get in now before the doors closed. So that's totally normal, but that's also why there's sometimes like a mid cart bonus of get in before the halfway point. And you get some sort of extra bonus. Or people will introduce a new payment plan or some sort of surprise thing halfway through to help kind of encourage that, that lull moment so that there are some sales all the way through.
It's also some of the, one of the reasons why some people have very short OpenCart periods, like only three days. So there really isn't time for that, that lull in the middle. One thing that I've noticed, some of my clients will offer something really, really amazing. On the actual webinar itself. So there's the show up bonus, but then there's also the sign up bonus. So if you sign up while we are still alive on this call or within 24 hours of the call, something like that, you'll get a free call with me, like a one-on-one call, that kind of thing. Or we will map out your entire strategy for the next six months on us, like this is normally a thousand dollar charge, but the first time people who sign up. Within. That like 24 hour period, 12 hour period, whatever you decide is the right option. We'll get that strategy. Like strategy mapped out. It has to be super, super valuable.
And again, it has to be something that the person who's going to get it. Understands and is like, yes, I need this. This is going to be so helpful. So beneficial for me. Just a strategy session might not even actually be enough, a strategy session where you walk away with X, Y, Z is what they really want. They want to know what they're going to get on that strategy call.
If you didn't make the sales that you wanted, cart closes bonus ends, whatever it might be. And the sales goal that you had was not met it's really important to think about who's on your email list. How long have they been on your email list? What kind of nurturing and lead up did you do how. When did they join? If most of the people on your email list joined because of this launch and they've only been on your list for like three weeks now. They just, haven't been on your list for long enough, right? People need a long, long, long time to buy right now, buying cycles are anywhere from six to 12 months in a lot of cases. So they'll join your list for this launch.
They'll sit through your next launch in three months and then two launches after they joined your list. That's when they're going to be ready to buy. And that's one of the reasons why consistently building your list is really, really, really important. People need that time. They need to get consistent emails from you every single week.
They need to get consistent content from you every single week. They need quality expertise that you're showing them that. Yes. You know what you're talking about? You're the right one. That should be. Doing, whatever it is, leading them through this challenge that they're having. You're the one who should be providing this service for you for them. They're not just going to say yes, because you stumbled along their newsfeed and they signed up for this random webinar. Right. Buying habits, buying cycles are really, really long right now. So make sure that you're continuing to provide nurture, continuing to send out those emails and you're staying contact, building those relationships with people and trusting that the snowball is building.
If people have been on your list for three to six to 12 months and sales, it's just crickets. Then that's a messaging issue. People did not understand why it would benefit them or how it would benefit them again. Are they saving time? Are they saving money? Are they getting energy like energy back or time? Yeah, I guess time and energy is kind of a little bit the same thing, but are you going to save them energy so that they have to output less and they can spend more time doing things that they love?
It's really, really important that your messaging speaks to their really, really deep feelings, their hopes, their dreams their obstacles, their fears. It cannot absolutely cannot be. Surface level, it can't be, oh, we're going to have a call every week and there's there's workbooks for you and prerecorded videos. People don't care about those things.
What is going to change in their life?
How are you going to make their life better? That is what they care about. So those are the three places where failure can either feel like it's happening or actually happen again. At each point of this, the launch, you should be collecting numbers and data so that you can look back and see how successful they actually were based on the numbers.
And that can be really, really, really hard to see the black and white of numbers. Through the launch because launches are highly emotional typically, and there's a lot of moving parts. It can be really hard to step back from those feelings that you're having step back from all of the things that you need to do going live. Prepping the slide sending out the emails. Even if you had all of it done before. Even if you are confident and ready to go weeks before, even if this isn't your first rodeo. This isn't your first time running this launch.
It can still be hard because emotions can be very high through a launch. And that's why I say like, after the launch is done. Calming down, taking some time and then going through the numbers and just seeing, like, was it actually a fail? Did they actually break down or was that your emotions running so high through the launch?
I talked about it at each step of the way, but the number one place that I see launches and offers and programs breaking down is the messaging. If you're not getting email registrations, if people aren't engaging, if people aren't buying it's because, many times, I would say like eight or nine times out of 10 it's because they don't understand the value it's going to bring to their lives.
They don't see how you're going to be able to help them. Or they, they just don't trust you yet. And so your messaging needs to get deeper. You need to really dig in to how you will change their lives.
And sometimes it can be a very easy, like flip. I was working with a client and we were talking about Elkonin boxes. And how she helps kids do better with phonics and their phonemes and understanding how to read using Elkonin boxes, which are just like little like squares literally. And you use like tokens or gems or whatever for each sound, you move one into the box kind of thing. Parents don't care. Well, not even don't care. Parents have no idea what an Al cone inboxes. No idea. Right. If you're not a primary teacher like teaching kindergarten to grade three, you probably have no idea what an Elkonin box. I had no idea until I had this conversation with her and I do teach young kids. Right. So I was like, well, as a parent, I don't, I would happily use an Elkonin box with my kids, but I don't know what they are, so I don't really care. Right.
And I didn't mean to be rude, but I was like, I do. I want my kids to read though. Like I really really know that my kids being able to read is so, so, so important. And so we flipped her messaging from like help your kids learn how to use an Elkonin box to learn, to read, to help your kids learn how to read.
Right? Like, what is that main piece of the puzzle. What is that? Really? Like, people can relate to it. What do they really need? Right.
I would say. Most of the time I recommend people push forward. Not that pivoting or give me, like, I don't want to say, give up. I know I said that at the beginning of the episode, but give us the wrong word, like pivoting your business. There are definitely 100% times that that needs to happen. In November of 2020, I found Facebook ads.
Actually. I found them before that, but the first person was like, Hey, can you help me with this I'll pay. It was November, 2020 if I had been like, no, my business is, is math products for French immersion, primary students. I'm a TPT seller. I don't, I don't help people with Facebook ads then my life would be so different, like so, so, so different.
I would've had to go back to work. I'm sure. And so that was a huge pivot and it was one of those trust, your gut moments. I was in the middle of a launch that was failing. I actually.
It felt like it was failing, but going over the numbers afterwards, it did exactly how one would expect it to do based on the size of my email list and the content I was putting out at the time and all of those different pieces. So it was not a failed launch, but it felt like a failed launch. I was going through it. And something just told me, like, you need to pivot to Facebook ads like you need to, and it was probably the best business decision I've ever made. So there's definitely times that a pivot is necessary and it could be a failed launch.
It's telling you it could be something else, but nine times out of 10. I think it makes sense to push forward. And that doesn't mean do the same thing because it used to work and now it's not working, but it used to work. So let's make it work again. Like that's not a good idea. But you already have this offer, this program built. You already have everything created. The sales page, the, the registration page is the potentially the offer itself has already been recorded, right?
Like. You need to figure out those tweaks and changes to the messaging so that people understand it. And sometimes that involves selling yourself first, really making sure that you believe in your offer, you believe in your pricing, that you feel 120% confident. In what you're selling and it can take a little while for you to figure that out. Sometimes we need to give ourselves lots of white space to think, to really be able to dig deep in. But if you don't think that your offer is the greatest thing and that you can help people and that there's like zero chance that they're going to fail, you're willing to help them until they succeed. And you sell yourself on how can you give them that. Then others won't believe in your offer either, right?
Like you really, really, really need to believe in your offer and love your offer. So much so that other people will also feel that way.
And I also don't want you to make the decision to give up in those moments of feeling defeat. You want to sit with it? Go over the numbers once like cooler heads can prevail. And then come up with a plan to. Figure out where the breakdowns were to patch up those leaky holes and to do better the next time.
Also remember to continue to build your email list between launches, not just in that registration phase, but like leading up to it as well. So that people have time to warm up to you. Get to know you trust you. Consistently nurturing them, building those relationships so then the next time you launch they're ready to buy. And. Yeah. Again, maybe there are times that pivots are necessary, but you've worked so hard. Do not give up on yourself too soon.
I really hope that this episode was helpful to help you see the three places, email registrations engagement in the launch mechanism and sales, where launches can feel like a failure or actually be a failure and how you can determine is it just a feeling or do things need to change for next time? And then some of. Or I guess that one main place you're messaging. That. You can really make the biggest impact on making changes for the next time. As always thank you so much for being here. I'll be back in your ear and next Saturday with another Saturday strategy session.
We're going to talk about three different metrics or three different places in the launch that you could feel like quote, unquote failed. And we'll talk about them sequentially likely if the first one fails. Then the second and the third will also fail. So kind of like where the breakdown could happen. And then we'll also talk about my thoughts about whether or not you should give up after a failed launch or push forward.
Then, if you are going to push forward, we'll also talk about what the main issue that I see is and how you can fix it. Yeah. So let's dive.
In the three places that a breakdown might happen are with email registrations. Engagement in the launch mechanism and then sales. So when I say launch mechanism, I mean, whatever the thing is that you're doing to grow hype and excitement. For the launch, typically it's going to be a webinar or a challenge.
You could also be doing a summit, video series, it could just be like an email promotion. But whatever that is the mechanism that you will be creating hype with getting people excited. Nurturing people before actually announcing the offer and opening the doors. Or sharing what the bonus is. That's the launch mechanism.
So again, the three places that it could break down would be email registrations. People who are signing up for your webinar, just for simplicity sake, I'm going to probably refer to it as a webinar, but you could exchange that for challenge or summit or video series, whatever it might be that you're hosting. So email registrations for that event is the first place I could break down.
The second one is engagement in the event, the webinar or other mechanism. And then sales following. So let's break down what each one of those would look like and how you could possibly know that it's failing or maybe it just feels like it's a failure.
So the first one is email registrations. This one often is a bit of a roller coaster because you're going to likely be collecting registrations for about two to three weeks before the event. And there maybe. A big surge at the beginning and then a bit of a dip. And then another surge right at the end. And especially in that dip, it can feel very frustrating. It can feel like it's not working and it can feel very. Like you're failing in the moment. And this is whether or not you're running ads. Actually, especially if you're not running ads, then you're going to do like a promotion, your email list, sending it out, really hyping them up, getting them excited about whatever that life event is. And your most loyal followers are going to sign up immediately. And then there will be like that dip. Because there's always people who are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's coming. That's coming. I'll sign up later. And they don't. Until the urgency happens and that's why at the end, you'll get a bit of a push as well.
Typically you're gonna see about. I want to say 2%-5% of your email list convert on the offer. So that's on the sales end. You're going to want to see a higher rate, like 10 to 20% signing up for your launch mechanism. Now, if you're running ads, there probably won't be the same dip. There will be a bit more consistency. And so in those first couple of days, if the ads are not going, how you want that can cause a lot of overwhelm and panic. It's important that you have many different versions of ad copy and images to test so that in those first couple of days you can test all of them find the best performers and move forward with that.
It's also important that you test a variety of different audiences. I highly recommend look like audiences and trying out advantage plus audiences, which I talked about in the previous episode or maybe two episodes ago. I can't remember. So definitely testing out more audiences than you think you could need. And. Same with versions of ad copy.
I also want to just remind you if you're running ads, even in a launch, you still need to give the ads time to do their thing and the, let the algorithm work its magic. I don't want you to be sitting on ads that aren't working for an extended period of time, but it can take 24 48 hours. For ads to start to stabilize. So. If things aren't working. I want you to do your best to step away for 10, 12 hours. Like give it a day and go back and look because you can be surprised at what. The algorithm is able to do in that time and turn things around.
Now, if it still isn't working. And you've given it 24 to 48 hours, then definitely start turning things off, trying new things, figuring out where the breakdown is happening.
It's really, really important that before you start running an email, Registration campaign that you have an idea of how much you're willing to pay for these, these registrations. Depending on your audience, you could be paying anywhere from a dollar to $15 and sometimes even more. So it's important that you go into it with a bit of an idea of how much these leads are going to cost so that you have a better idea of like what you're willing to pay and what you're able to pay.
I'm currently running two separate campaigns. One of them, we were expecting leads for about $2, $3, and they're up near $7. So that is very, very expensive. And we will be definitely working on pulling those costs down. The other one, we were expecting Lee costs of between 10 and $15 and they're about $12.
So they're right on target. Again, it just has to do with who your audience is and what the event is. A webinar is likely going to be cheaper than a five day challenge because there's less time that's required of the participants. Summit co will also likely blue, more expensive. I've seen summit registrations as high as 20 to $30 per lead.
So just thinking about the type of event. How much. Time and energy, the participant is going to need to put in. And what your audience is. Are you targeting? Business owners that's going to be more expensive or are you targeting teachers that are still in the classroom or moms or fitness enthusiasts? Those ones are going to be cheaper because they're the consumer. So that's the first place that it could break down.
Now, if. Your email registrations. You're not getting as many as you'd like. Or they are more expensive. There's a couple of things that I recommend that you do. The first one is switch out those ad campaigns. Try different images, try different hooks of the ad copy to get the leads coming in. You can also change the type of campaign.
That's what we're probably going to be doing tomorrow for that, the campaign that we were expecting. The leads to be about two or $3 and they're currently six to $7. We're probably going to switch it from a lead campaign to a traffic campaign to see if we can just get more eyes on the landing page, because right now that's a main part of the problem.
The CTR link click through rate is. Is low it's really, really low. And so we're not getting the clicks on it, but the CTR all is pretty decent, which tells us that there's potentially an issue with the ad copy and potentially it just emits mixed match. It's also. A little bit of a complicated story, but we had to change out the pixel at the last minute.
And so the pixel is not seasoned, which could also be causing these problems. It's a bit overwhelming, but that's okay. We're moving forward. So if you're not running ads and registrations are low, my recommendations are try a couple more emails. And I'm going live. If you are not going live on whichever platform, pick one, it could be Instagram. It could be TicTok it could be youTube. I think you can go live on YouTube. I'm going live on whatever that platform of choice is getting some excitement, drummed up, getting some people really, really excited, giving out that free value. Make sure that it's really, really valuable and it's not just a sales pitch.
People need to know what's in it for them. They want something out of it. And so they want to benefit. Give them a little bit of a teaser, give them a little bit of a bite and then encourage them to sign up for your live event. So that they can get the full scoop.
You may get. That 10 to 20% of your email list registered your ads might actually be doing really well, but because it's a high pressure time period. You may still feel like you're failing. And that's okay.
That's why it's really important to collect the numbers, collect the data and look at it after the fact. When your head has cooled down when stakes aren't so high and you can really analyze the numbers and data because retrospectively you might notice. Okay. Well, my email list was 500 people. We got 50 to a hundred people signed up, which is that 10 to 20%. We did really well. We were only paying $3 per lead for Facebook ads. And we got, like, we added a new like hundred people to our email list from the Facebook ads alone kind of thing. And so you may go back and say, okay, well felt like I wasn't getting the number of people that I wanted, but in the end we had a hundred people sign up from our email, we had a hundred people sign up from Facebook ads. Like that's really, really great. So. Make sure that you collect those numbers, collect the data and look at it after the fact.
Okay, so the second place, Where failure can either happen or just feel like it's happening is engagement in the event. Not everyone who signs up is going to show up. That's the first piece. People are busy. They forget, they might not see the value afterwards. They might not even like want to, they might realize like, oh, I think this is a sales pitch.
I'm just, I don't want to go sit through an hour of them selling to me. If there's not going to be any value. So, engagement can be in your emails leading up to the event, or it could be the actual event in itself. And similarly, like I just said about the registrations, one of the biggest things that you can do is collect numbers and data.
What percentage of people who had signed up? So those 200 people were talking about before. What percentage of them actually showed up? What were your open rates for your emails and the click rates on the emails leading up to the live event. That's going to be really, really important, that engagement piece.
I always recommend in the email sequence that people add in a yes or no question, or a really simple one word answer type question to encourage responses from the people who are reading the email. So that can be a really great way to increase the engagement you're getting with your emails and get more people replying, which I think we all know is very, very powerful when the email servers see that people are replying to your emails. That is the creme of the creme engagement. It's better than clicks is better than opens. Responses, replies are fantastic. So. Adding in ways that people can very easily, quickly and low pressure respond to you is fantastic. Highly encouraged. There's I also recommend that you incentivize people showing up live to the event.
So whether it's some sort of giveaway that they could win. Through a draw. One of the people that I follow does a live every single week and she's not pitching, it's just like a live value add thing. But she gives away a hundred dollar gift card to something every single week. Sometimes it's Amazon.
Sometimes it's her shop sometime like there's always a different, like a hundred dollars as being given away. And I know that there are people who show up. And engage with the live every week, just so that they have a chance of winning. So. You don't have to give away a hundred dollar gift card. You could give away something else, but incentivizing people to show up is a really, really great way to do it.
You can also give something away free to everyone who shows up. So this is a bonus related to whatever topic that you're teaching on for the webinar or throughout the challenge. For just for showing up, there's a secret link. Only those people get it. And again, that's another great way to incentivize people to actually show up. And interact or engage with the content. Asking questions throughout the webinar. Another great way to have people engage, but if people don't show up. Or they're not engaging with the emails. Then it can feel like it's a failure, right? You need people as part of like to engage in the launch mechanism and the biggest place that, that breaks down, why people aren't engaging is that they don't know what they're going to get from it. What they're going to walk away from.
They need to feel connected. They need to feel like it's going to benefit them. So that they will actually show up because we do things for ourselves. They're not, if the only reason that you're saying come to my webinar so that I can sell to you, people don't want that. They want to walk away from that webinar, whether or not they bought from you with something, something tangible. Feeling like they are going to save some time or save money or save energy, like whatever it is, they are going to be better off for spending that hour with you or for going through the challenge with you. That is a very, very key thing.
So if engagement is low, Looking at that piece. How can you. Update your messaging. How can you tweak your messaging so that people really feel like they are walking away with something so powerful and so amazing. Place number three, where failure can happen is in the sales. So after the webinar, cart opens or bonus begins. I know a lot of people have evergreen programs that the door is never really closed for, but after a launch, mechanism or a launch period, you're going to want to create some sort of urgency. So a bonus is a really great way or opening and closing the carts.
This is probably going to be similar to the email registrations, where immediately there is a bit of an influx of sales, then there's a dead period. And then at the very end, there is another influx of sales. You see that kind of rollercoaster effect frequently, and it is because you have the fast action people and then you have the urgency push.
Okay. Doors are closing. I need to get in now before the doors closed. So that's totally normal, but that's also why there's sometimes like a mid cart bonus of get in before the halfway point. And you get some sort of extra bonus. Or people will introduce a new payment plan or some sort of surprise thing halfway through to help kind of encourage that, that lull moment so that there are some sales all the way through.
It's also some of the, one of the reasons why some people have very short OpenCart periods, like only three days. So there really isn't time for that, that lull in the middle. One thing that I've noticed, some of my clients will offer something really, really amazing. On the actual webinar itself. So there's the show up bonus, but then there's also the sign up bonus. So if you sign up while we are still alive on this call or within 24 hours of the call, something like that, you'll get a free call with me, like a one-on-one call, that kind of thing. Or we will map out your entire strategy for the next six months on us, like this is normally a thousand dollar charge, but the first time people who sign up. Within. That like 24 hour period, 12 hour period, whatever you decide is the right option. We'll get that strategy. Like strategy mapped out. It has to be super, super valuable.
And again, it has to be something that the person who's going to get it. Understands and is like, yes, I need this. This is going to be so helpful. So beneficial for me. Just a strategy session might not even actually be enough, a strategy session where you walk away with X, Y, Z is what they really want. They want to know what they're going to get on that strategy call.
If you didn't make the sales that you wanted, cart closes bonus ends, whatever it might be. And the sales goal that you had was not met it's really important to think about who's on your email list. How long have they been on your email list? What kind of nurturing and lead up did you do how. When did they join? If most of the people on your email list joined because of this launch and they've only been on your list for like three weeks now. They just, haven't been on your list for long enough, right? People need a long, long, long time to buy right now, buying cycles are anywhere from six to 12 months in a lot of cases. So they'll join your list for this launch.
They'll sit through your next launch in three months and then two launches after they joined your list. That's when they're going to be ready to buy. And that's one of the reasons why consistently building your list is really, really, really important. People need that time. They need to get consistent emails from you every single week.
They need to get consistent content from you every single week. They need quality expertise that you're showing them that. Yes. You know what you're talking about? You're the right one. That should be. Doing, whatever it is, leading them through this challenge that they're having. You're the one who should be providing this service for you for them. They're not just going to say yes, because you stumbled along their newsfeed and they signed up for this random webinar. Right. Buying habits, buying cycles are really, really long right now. So make sure that you're continuing to provide nurture, continuing to send out those emails and you're staying contact, building those relationships with people and trusting that the snowball is building.
If people have been on your list for three to six to 12 months and sales, it's just crickets. Then that's a messaging issue. People did not understand why it would benefit them or how it would benefit them again. Are they saving time? Are they saving money? Are they getting energy like energy back or time? Yeah, I guess time and energy is kind of a little bit the same thing, but are you going to save them energy so that they have to output less and they can spend more time doing things that they love?
It's really, really important that your messaging speaks to their really, really deep feelings, their hopes, their dreams their obstacles, their fears. It cannot absolutely cannot be. Surface level, it can't be, oh, we're going to have a call every week and there's there's workbooks for you and prerecorded videos. People don't care about those things.
What is going to change in their life?
How are you going to make their life better? That is what they care about. So those are the three places where failure can either feel like it's happening or actually happen again. At each point of this, the launch, you should be collecting numbers and data so that you can look back and see how successful they actually were based on the numbers.
And that can be really, really, really hard to see the black and white of numbers. Through the launch because launches are highly emotional typically, and there's a lot of moving parts. It can be really hard to step back from those feelings that you're having step back from all of the things that you need to do going live. Prepping the slide sending out the emails. Even if you had all of it done before. Even if you are confident and ready to go weeks before, even if this isn't your first rodeo. This isn't your first time running this launch.
It can still be hard because emotions can be very high through a launch. And that's why I say like, after the launch is done. Calming down, taking some time and then going through the numbers and just seeing, like, was it actually a fail? Did they actually break down or was that your emotions running so high through the launch?
I talked about it at each step of the way, but the number one place that I see launches and offers and programs breaking down is the messaging. If you're not getting email registrations, if people aren't engaging, if people aren't buying it's because, many times, I would say like eight or nine times out of 10 it's because they don't understand the value it's going to bring to their lives.
They don't see how you're going to be able to help them. Or they, they just don't trust you yet. And so your messaging needs to get deeper. You need to really dig in to how you will change their lives.
And sometimes it can be a very easy, like flip. I was working with a client and we were talking about Elkonin boxes. And how she helps kids do better with phonics and their phonemes and understanding how to read using Elkonin boxes, which are just like little like squares literally. And you use like tokens or gems or whatever for each sound, you move one into the box kind of thing. Parents don't care. Well, not even don't care. Parents have no idea what an Al cone inboxes. No idea. Right. If you're not a primary teacher like teaching kindergarten to grade three, you probably have no idea what an Elkonin box. I had no idea until I had this conversation with her and I do teach young kids. Right. So I was like, well, as a parent, I don't, I would happily use an Elkonin box with my kids, but I don't know what they are, so I don't really care. Right.
And I didn't mean to be rude, but I was like, I do. I want my kids to read though. Like I really really know that my kids being able to read is so, so, so important. And so we flipped her messaging from like help your kids learn how to use an Elkonin box to learn, to read, to help your kids learn how to read.
Right? Like, what is that main piece of the puzzle. What is that? Really? Like, people can relate to it. What do they really need? Right.
I would say. Most of the time I recommend people push forward. Not that pivoting or give me, like, I don't want to say, give up. I know I said that at the beginning of the episode, but give us the wrong word, like pivoting your business. There are definitely 100% times that that needs to happen. In November of 2020, I found Facebook ads.
Actually. I found them before that, but the first person was like, Hey, can you help me with this I'll pay. It was November, 2020 if I had been like, no, my business is, is math products for French immersion, primary students. I'm a TPT seller. I don't, I don't help people with Facebook ads then my life would be so different, like so, so, so different.
I would've had to go back to work. I'm sure. And so that was a huge pivot and it was one of those trust, your gut moments. I was in the middle of a launch that was failing. I actually.
It felt like it was failing, but going over the numbers afterwards, it did exactly how one would expect it to do based on the size of my email list and the content I was putting out at the time and all of those different pieces. So it was not a failed launch, but it felt like a failed launch. I was going through it. And something just told me, like, you need to pivot to Facebook ads like you need to, and it was probably the best business decision I've ever made. So there's definitely times that a pivot is necessary and it could be a failed launch.
It's telling you it could be something else, but nine times out of 10. I think it makes sense to push forward. And that doesn't mean do the same thing because it used to work and now it's not working, but it used to work. So let's make it work again. Like that's not a good idea. But you already have this offer, this program built. You already have everything created. The sales page, the, the registration page is the potentially the offer itself has already been recorded, right?
Like. You need to figure out those tweaks and changes to the messaging so that people understand it. And sometimes that involves selling yourself first, really making sure that you believe in your offer, you believe in your pricing, that you feel 120% confident. In what you're selling and it can take a little while for you to figure that out. Sometimes we need to give ourselves lots of white space to think, to really be able to dig deep in. But if you don't think that your offer is the greatest thing and that you can help people and that there's like zero chance that they're going to fail, you're willing to help them until they succeed. And you sell yourself on how can you give them that. Then others won't believe in your offer either, right?
Like you really, really, really need to believe in your offer and love your offer. So much so that other people will also feel that way.
And I also don't want you to make the decision to give up in those moments of feeling defeat. You want to sit with it? Go over the numbers once like cooler heads can prevail. And then come up with a plan to. Figure out where the breakdowns were to patch up those leaky holes and to do better the next time.
Also remember to continue to build your email list between launches, not just in that registration phase, but like leading up to it as well. So that people have time to warm up to you. Get to know you trust you. Consistently nurturing them, building those relationships so then the next time you launch they're ready to buy. And. Yeah. Again, maybe there are times that pivots are necessary, but you've worked so hard. Do not give up on yourself too soon.
I really hope that this episode was helpful to help you see the three places, email registrations engagement in the launch mechanism and sales, where launches can feel like a failure or actually be a failure and how you can determine is it just a feeling or do things need to change for next time? And then some of. Or I guess that one main place you're messaging. That. You can really make the biggest impact on making changes for the next time. As always thank you so much for being here. I'll be back in your ear and next Saturday with another Saturday strategy session.
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