Gearing up for a launch in the new year | 50
Are you planning on launching your course, membership or program in the new year?
My timeline
Many of the things listed below started long before my intentional launch runway did. I highly recommend you add one thing to your business at a time. This gives you the time to get it up and running smoothly without having 1000 things to focus on at once.
My intentional launch runway started mid-October for a January launch. This gave me about 8-10 weeks due to the holidays.
Here are the 5 things I’m doing to prep for my upcoming launch
Getting Visible - to increase my visibility and expand my reach, I’ve been focusing on collaborating with others who have sister niches to mine. I’ve gone live and presented in groups and would be open to guest blog or podcast too! I’ve also have lives scheduled for on IG and in my FB group. Last, I’ve been creating reels like it’s my only job right now because their reach is insane!
Growing my Email List — through collabs and on social media, I’ve been making a more intentional effort to grow my email list. I’ve also started using paid ads (of course!) to attract more people to my list.
Emailing my List — This started back in August for me, I made a commitment to regularly email my list. So each week, I’ve been emailing them. And I’ve actually recently upped it to twice a week for my most engaged readers (check out the podcast for details on how and why exactly I’m going about this). The other thing I’ve been doing regularly is scrubbing my list, so that inactive people are removed. This allows me to have an open rate of 35-40% each week.
Regular Long-Form Content — since April, I’ve been releasing weekly podcast episodes. This is the base for all my content (this blog, my weekly emails, IG, etc.). It has been fun to watch the listenership increase over the past 7 months. Thank you to everyone who has shared my podcast and listens regularly!
Community Building — The last thing I started to do was build an FB group. I’d like for this community to be a place for my audience to get extra free trainings, connect with fellow ambitious teachers and ask FB ad questions. It’s still a work in progress, but you can join by clicking HERE.
My program launch has actually been bumped up to mid-December (more details to come!!), which is extremely exciting but also terrifying. I’m really thankful I’ve been working on these various different pieces of my business for the last several months. It has really lain the foundation for this launch runway.
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Episode Transcript:
Hey there, I'm Jenzaia and this is Market, Scale, Grow. A podcast created for ambitious teacherpreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world, achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more money with weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers just like you, my goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams.
Okay, so before we jump into the episode, I am super excited to share a brand new freebie with you. It's my targeting idea for Facebook ads. If you've dabbled in Facebook ads or you've done them and you've tried them, and you're just looking for some fresh inspiration for your audiences, this freebie is for you. I share my top Facebook ad targeting groups for you so that you can have inspiration and find those people that are perfect for what you have to offer. From warm audiences to cool lookalike audiences, to cold interest-based audiences. I cover all three in this freebie. Head to marketscalegrow.com/audiences to grab your copy today.
Hello and welcome to this week's Saturday strategy session. My name is Jenzaia and this is Market, Scale, Grow. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm pretty excited about this topic. Back in October, when I was planning out Q4 episodes, I was also planning out the idea of possibly launching a course or a program or something in the new year.
And so that's where this episode came from. I knew I was going to be doing some things to get my own business ready for launching in the new year. It would be a really good idea to share what I'm doing in my business to prepare for this launch now in full, full, full transparency, when I made that decision to do this episode I was launching in the new year, I had no idea what I would be launching now in the back of my head.
I kind of had like little seedlings of ideas, but yeah, I had no idea. I really, really had no idea, but I knew I was getting ready to start prepping. Do all of the things.
I have five tips for you so I'd start doing some of these things myself. And as it got closer, I figured I'd get some sort of spark of inspiration, which has kind of happened.
Now I definitely have an idea. I definitely have a plan at this point. And as of recording this episode, I'm pretty excited because, in the last like 48 hours, I've had not one, not two but three different people who, as far as I can tell are not connected to one another, reach out and ask me if I have some sort of course or program that they can take to learn more about Facebook ads, which is super, super exciting.
And it inspired me actually to be a little bit crazy and move my launch up from the new year into December so that we get actually start the program in the new year. So it still has no name. I do have a notebook with scratchy ideas of the modules and the framework and all of that, I'm so not ready to share it with the world yet, but it's coming and you're hearing it first on the podcast.
This is the first time I'm admitting it out loud to the public. Like all the little seedlings. Now it's beyond just the spark of inspiration, but it's like a real seedling that's hopefully going to blossom into a beautiful flower. So I'm super, super pumped about it. And these are actually things that I've been doing in my business to get ready for.
Again, originally January launch, but now we're launching mid-December. So stay tuned! Maybe now that you're hearing about these things, you'll actually see it happening in my business.
So five tips for gearing up for a launch in the new year, I decided that I would start about mid-October for this, which gives me half of October, November, and December. So about 10 weeks taking into account that there are the holidays in there, and then I am taking some time off for the holidays. And so eight to 10 weeks is kind of my recommendation for your, like, for a course launch.
I'm currently in a coaching program that has an entire mini-course attached to it about launching. I follow some of the really big names who launch and who help people launch. I listened to a ton of podcasts. I've done Google, I've talked to peers and friends and colleagues about it. But I am not a launch specialist by any means.
So these are just the things that I took from all of the different places. And I put it together in a way that I thought would work for me and my business and the timeframe of eight to 10 weeks felt right to me.
Tip number one is to get visible. This means posting regularly on social media, which one platform you are choosing. If you have the ability to post more than one, then that's great, but really just having a regular posting schedule for your social media and doing things like collaborations lives, reels that are going to extend the reach of your content, because when you're collaborating with somebody else, so you could be going live with somebody or presenting in a group or at a conference or something like that, you expend, expanding your audience to somebody else's audience going live and reels are being favored by.
The algorithm right now. So those are really powerful ways to reach more of your current audience and with reals, new audience people who've never heard of you before. Tip number one is to get more visible!
Tip number 2 is to grow your email list with those collabs on your social media, through paid advertisements.
If you have a podcast, promote your freebie, your lead magnet to grow your email list because you want to bring fresh people onto your email as to are excited about you, about what you offer, and about your business. Now I am a firm, firm, firm believer that you should be always building your email list.
Seven days a week, 52 weeks, a year, 365 days a year. You should constantly be growing your email list, but it's even more important when you're gearing up for a launch.
Tip number three, which goes along with tip number two is to actually email your list on a regular basis. And on a regular basis, I really, really encourage you to be emailing them at least once a week.
And this content leading up to the launch should be focused on building relationships, making those connections, helping people to see you as a real person, and to be drawn into you and your story and your business, but it should also address. Their hesitations, that they may have their objections that they may have and to provide information that will lead them to the sale.
So without any actual sales content, just be giving them that information that is pre prepping them for your launch. Okay. So with this emailing your list, at least once a week, I've actually decided now to up my emails to twice a week, but I heard this interesting tidbit of information about emailing your list multiple times a week that I decided to try.
So on Thursdays, I email my entire list and it is usually about the podcast. It usually tells some sort of story that connects the information, provides the information in a different way. And is a, like a written format so that if people didn't hear the podcast, then they can consume it. Or for more visual learners, they have that like written content that they can read. But I've also started adding in a Tuesday email. Now my Thursday email that goes along with my podcast goes out to my entire list. Whereas my Tuesday, my new email, the tip that I heard is to only send it out to your most engaged audience.
So on Flodesk, you can actually select and create an audience or select filter people by when they were last active. And I think it is like today, last seven days, 30 days. And then I'm not sure what happens after that. So what I decided to do was create a segment that is like my uber active audience.
And they are people who have been active on my email list within the last 30 days. And I'm only sending my Tuesday email to those people. What this is hopefully going to do is have a higher open rate. Because these people are highly engaged. And so more of them will likely be opening that email and have the higher open rate, higher click rate.
And that sends messages to email service providers. People like Gmail, Hotmail, outlook, all of them and say, Hey, this person has really, really good open rates. So. It will, hopefully, fingers crossed, keep my emails out of the spam folders, promo folders, you know, all those places that we don't want to be. So that's a little tidbit of information that I received.
I can't remember where I heard it or where I read it, but I'm trying it out. I have no idea how successful it's going to be. If you are gearing up for a launch and you feel like you have the capacity to send out multiple emails a week, then that might be a strategy for you to implement as well.
Strategy number four is to create long-form content regularly. Again, similar to the emails. I highly recommend that you are creating high-value free content once a week, whether that's a blog, post, podcast, or some sort of video. YouTube live stream like a Facebook show, if you will, some sort of long-form content at least once a week.
And then you can use that content. For your social media, for your email, for your live topics, like all kinds of different things. It is the basis of a lot of my content that goes out so regularly creating that long-form content puts you in a position where you're serving people, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve first, and providing them with value so that they go, Hey, I've learned a lot from this person already. Now they have a course. So I feel like I'm going to learn even more from them. So that is the purpose of your long-form content, similar to your social media platforms. I don't recommend that you're trying to start a YouTube channel and a podcast and a blog all simultaneously, pick one, figure it out, build upon that.
And tip number five is to build your community and your relationships. So whether that means growing your Facebook group or connecting with more people within your Facebook group or sliding into DMS with people in authentic relationship, building ways, whichever one that you pick, the building, the community and nurturing relationships is super important because it just helps with all of them, everything, all of your, your Juju, if you will, goes up when you have those relationships and relationship marketing is so important today, we buy from people. We don't buy things. We don't buy ideas. We buy from people and those connections will serve you in the long run and they will make all of the difference.
So just as a quick recap, you are getting visible growing your email. Actually emailing your list, creating regular long-form content, and nurturing relationships.
Whether you are deciding to launch in the new year or maybe next summer, or maybe you're kind of crazy like me and you are going full throttle up in your plans and you're doing a mid-December. I hope that these tips will really, really help you stay tuned to the podcast.
As soon as I have more details, like maybe a name for this and an idea of the masterclass, like the topic you will be the first to know! I'm super, super excited about it. So stay tuned. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out on Instagram. I'm @heyitsjenzaia. Thank you so much for being here with me for being part of this journey.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. Today was brought to you by Dubsado, my absolute favourite customer management tool. If you're looking to streamline and systematize your service-based business, I highly recommend Dubsado. For 20% off of your first month. Head to marketscalegrow.com/dubsado that's D U B S A D O and use the code Jenzaia at checkout. And don't forget to head to our community at marketscalegrow.com/community where you'll find inspiring, ambitious teacherpreneurs who are looking to grow and scale their businesses just like you... See you soon.