Launch Read online

  And then there’s the key phrase “We’re really close to wrapping up our long-awaited training manual,” which is repeated in both the email and the survey. Just by telling people that the manual was “long-awaited” sets the expectation that people are already curious about and eagerly anticipating this product. And this is important, because “buzz,” curiosity, and anticipation feed on each other. So by starting to build in that perception early on, I’m already setting the stage for the build toward a highly anticipated launch.

  Was this product really long-awaited? I don’t know. But I do know that I had been dropping hints about it for a long time, and I had built up a list of people who had asked me to create this product. And I know that I had been working on the project for a long time, and I was ready to get it launched. That’s enough for me to call it long-awaited.

  3. “How can I get their help in creating this product? How can I make this collaborative?”

  Well, this one is obvious. When my readers clicked through to the survey, I asked them what their top two questions were about the topic. I’m including my prospects in the creation of my product by soliciting their feedback. This is the key sentence:

  “HOWEVER, we need your help. Before we finalize everything and send it off to the printer, we need to make sure we’ve covered everything.”

  Remember, people will support that which they help create. I’m giving my readers a chance to help create the product.

  There’s another subtle bit of human psychology going on here. Remember in the last chapter when we covered the reciprocity mental trigger? Well, this might seem counterintuitive, but we’re actually engaging the reciprocity trigger here. Now, you might think, “How can there be reciprocity at play here, since you’re asking them for a favor?”

  Well, stick with me on this one. First of all, remember that the people reading this were on my email list of subscribers—many of them for a very long time. And, just by virtue of my publishing to them every day, they viewed me as an expert or even a “guru.”

  And now, by asking for their opinion, I am giving them my attention. And the key word there is “giving.” By giving my attention, I am building up a little reciprocity in the minds of many of my readers.

  Do you see how, with just a short email and a short survey, we’re starting to build up a confluence of triggers that will come into play down the road?

  4. “How can I figure out what their objections are to this product?”

  This one is easy. I’m just outright asking them to tell me their objections in the survey. No, I don’t use the word “objections,” because people don’t think in those terms. But by asking for their “top two questions,” they will tell me what their objections are.

  When you do this, you’ll always find two or three or maybe even four common themes that keep showing up in the responses. Those themes will contain your prospects’ primary objections.

  5. “How can I start to engage my prospects in a conversation about my offer? How can I be engaging and avoid the “corporate speak” that will kill my launch before it starts?”

  First of all, look at the email and the survey. No corporate speak there. Right from the start, the subject line is “Quick announcement and a favor . . . ” When was the last time a big corporation asked for a favor in their email?

  And as far as starting the conversation—that’s what this entire mini-sequence is about. Asking for their feedback starts the conversation.

  6. “How can I make this fun and humorous and even exciting?”

  Okay, I’m not sure that I hit this one in this pre-prelaunch other than the fact that I’m letting my readers in on something before it happens. I’m letting them into my creative world. It’s almost like whispering something to someone in a crowded room—everyone wants to know what you whispered. In this case, I’m whispering to my readers before I announce it to the general public.

  7. “How can I stand out in a crowded market? How can I be different?”

  The key here is by asking my readers for their feedback before the product was released, I let them become part of the process. And that’s absolutely important, because people support that which they help create.

  I gave them a small part to play in the creation of the product, and that’s a step toward building an army of people who will support your launch and possibly even buy your product.

  8. “How can I figure out how my market wants to be sold?”

  This is what the survey is all about. In addition to gathering the top objections, the survey will give you all kinds of additional data and information.

  If you use a survey like this, it’s often good to mix up multiple choice questions with essay questions. You will get a higher response with multiple choice questions, because it’s easier to check a box than to type in an answer. However, essay questions will give you quite a bit more insight. And that insight will often tell you how to construct your Prelaunch Sequence and your Launch Sequence. Often I will literally cut-and-paste words and phrases directly from this type of survey and use them in my Prelaunch Content.

  There is an old saying in the direct marketing world: “You want to enter the conversation that’s already taking place in your prospect’s mind.” The responses you get to a survey give you the shortcut to entering that conversation. It’s hard to overstate just how powerful this is.

  9. “How can I figure out my exact offer?”

  Again, the answer to this question is in the survey responses. Actually, this survey is just the beginning of the answer to this question. If I’m launching an information or knowledge product, it’s often possible to continue to tweak the answer all the way up into my launch, so I’ll gather data throughout the pre-prelaunch and the prelaunch to help me fine-tune the offer.

  Even if you’re selling widgets, it’s possible to add information-based components to the offer. For example, in this launch we ended up adding some live question-and-answer teleseminars to the offer. Since the calls are delivered after the launch, it took zero effort to add them to the offer. And that same type of bonus could be added to all kinds of different launch offers.

  10. “How can this naturally lead into my Prelaunch Sequence?”

  A few days after I sent that first email I wrote to my list again. I thanked them for the overwhelming response and told them how excited I was to have the project almost complete. That continued the conversation about this upcoming product and did so in a way that was not “salesy.” I wasn’t screaming “Buy my stuff, buy my stuff!” at the top of my lungs. Instead, I was asking my list to join me as co-creators.

  That pre-pre also showed them that I was concerned with making this the best possible product, and I was very interested in what they wanted. And I put them in the state of imagining the product as the best possible product for their needs.

  $110,000 in My Bathrobe

  The great thing about the pre-prelaunch is that it’s a beautiful combination of being simple and powerful. It takes some thought and a bit of advanced planning, but the actual execution of your pre-prelaunch can be incredibly simple. Take a look at the example I gave—it took one super-short email and a survey. Writing the email and putting together that survey took about an hour. (See my Resource Page for services you can use to create your surveys at http://thelaunchbook.com/resources.)

  There are lots of different ways to skin a cat, and I’ve used lots of different techniques for my various pre-prelaunches, but this “Top Two Questions Survey” technique is a winner, and I suggest you use it for your first pre-prelaunch. It’s a great way to let your market know something is coming and gather some great intelligence about your market at the same time.

  This survey gave me some fantastic feedback on what the market was looking for, what my prospects’ biggest objections were, and even some of the exact language I would end up using throughout the launch as I built the momentum toward launch day.

  That launch was my first time selling a physical product—a series t
hat included two books and a package of CDs—and I didn’t have a big fancy publisher behind me. It was just me and my list of email subscribers and a simple little web site.

  Opening the launch in my bathrobe at the kitchen table.

  In fact, I did this launch from my kitchen table while I was in my bathrobe. Here’s a photo my wife took just a few moments after we opened the shopping cart.

  I was smiling in that photo, because it was AFTER we opened the cart. But I certainly had a tense few moments waiting for the clock to tick down to the open. And I’ll admit that my finger lingered over that mouse button again—just like it does for every one of my launches. I wondered whether I had everything in place, and I wondered what that next click would bring.

  It didn’t take long to find out . . .

  After I hit the send button, it took fewer than four minutes for the first order to come in. The second order came in five seconds later and we were off to the races. In the first hour we had over $27,000 in orders and when we closed down the launch a week later, we had over $110,000 in sales.

  And we did it all without any affiliates, any distributors, any outside sales. Just a simple web site and an email list. Of course, there was a lot more involved in getting those sales than the pre-prelaunch. There was more going on than a simple 80-word email and a simple survey. And that’s where we’re going next—into the heart and soul of the Product Launch Formula. It’s time to put together your Prelaunch Sequence . . .

  Sell Them What They Want: The Magic of Prelaunch

  Chapter 7

  Is it possible to improve your tennis game by watching training videos online? Can you replace (or supplement) tennis lessons with an online membership? And more to the point for Will Hamilton, would people pay for online tennis instruction?

  That was Will Hamilton’s premise when he started FuzzyYellowBalls.com with a friend. Will was just out of college, and he wasn’t excited about the long-term prospects of being a tennis coach. So he set up shop in his parents’ basement and started a web-based business. The initial plan was to publish videos on YouTube and make money through advertising. But it quickly became apparent that there was no future in that. In a niche market like tennis, there was never going to be enough video views to drive a serious advertising-based business.

  So the next strategy Will tried was creating a membership site with instructional videos. He and his buddy priced the membership to the site at $25 per month. But the site languished and sales were slow. After ten months, they were getting close to writing off the whole idea as a failed experiment, closing up shop, and moving on. It seemed like the answer to the question of whether people would pay for online tennis instruction was “No”—at least not at the volume to support Will and his business partner.

  That was when Will discovered the Product Launch Formula. And since it was desperate times, Will leapt into action. He put his first launch together in just a few weeks. As he describes it now, that first launch had some rough edges. Will threw his prelaunch together quickly and used only the very basics of the formula.

  But as you’ll see in this chapter, even if you get only the core principles right, the results can be dramatic. That first launch did $35,000 in sales in a week’s time, which was as much as the business had made since they opened the doors ten months earlier. And since the product was delivered digitally, those sales were almost all profit.

  All of a sudden, FuzzyYellowBalls.com was in business. The future was clear—and it definitely involved more product launches. For their second launch, Will buckled down and got serious about following the formula, and results nearly doubled to $65,000 in sales. And the next launch did even better—it was their first one to break the six-figure mark. It closed out at $105,000 in sales. Again, these were digital products, so the profit margin was very high.

  With each launch, Will and his partner built their list and their positioning in the market. And their launch skills got better. The next launch was for their new Tennis Ninja product, and that one brought in $170,000 in sales. But it also did something else remarkable: It attracted the attention of the agent for tennis pros Bob and Mike Bryan. Twin brothers, collectively called the “Bryan Brothers” in tennis circles, Bob and Mike are arguably the most successful pro men’s doubles team in tennis history. And they were interested in working with Will on a product.

  The result was The Bryan Bros Doubles Playbook, which Will produced and sold as a full-blown course with Bob and Mike. The launch blew away all Will’s previous launches, doing a whopping $450,000 in sales. And a few months later, after the Bryan Brothers won Wimbledon and then the Olympic gold medal, Will got a chance to have his photo taken with the brothers while posing with their medals. Here’s the photo—Will is the guy in the middle wearing the two Olympic gold medals:

  Will Hamilton posing with the Bryan Brothers and their Olympic Gold Medals

  Of course, getting a photo with a couple of Olympic gold medals is one result I definitely can’t guarantee you’ll get with Product Launch Formula.

  But Will’s results show you just how powerful a well-executed launch can be. And one of the greatest strengths in his launches are his Prelaunch Sequences. That’s what this chapter is all about. Because if you get your prelaunch right, it makes everything else come together.

  (NOTE: You can see my Case Study with Will, along with an example of his prelaunch video content, at http://thelaunchbook.com/will.)

  Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight

  Okay, now we’re really starting to cook. By now you know about the incredible power of Story, Conversation, and Sequences. And you’ve gotten a solid introduction to the crazy influence of mental triggers. You also learned about the Sideways Sales Letter. And along the way, I’ve introduced you to some regular people who have enjoyed tremendous success using these tools in all kinds of different markets and with all kinds of different products.

  Now it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty . . . the Prelaunch Sequence. This is where it all starts to come together. This is where you banish “Hope Marketing” from your life and finally start to actually engineer your results with a truly powerful product launch. The thing to remember about your prelaunch (and the entire Product Launch Formula) is that it’s not a one-trick pony. It’s the confluence of all these tools that create an incredible conversion machine for your business. There’s an old saying that goes something like “You want to bring a gun to a knife fight.” I’m not a big fan of using violent metaphors, but I like this one. It reminds me of that scene from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the hero Indiana Jones is suddenly confronted with a dangerous villain threatening him with a scary-looking sword. Indiana Jones watches the impressive display of swordsmanship, and then pulls out a pistol and shoots the villain. Danger averted. Game over. It’s a memorable scene.

  Well, that’s what the Product Launch Formula brings to your business. It changes the game and tilts the odds dramatically in your favor. And I’m not satisfied to just bring a pistol to that knife fight. I mean, if I’m going to have to fight then I’d rather just go ahead and bring along a machine gun and rocket launcher as well!

  Of course, this isn’t about fighting and your marketing isn’t a war. It’s about designing a great offer for a great product that’s going to create great value for your clients. But you can’t possibly deliver that value unless you can actually make the sale in the first place.

  The bottom line is that this launch process is a coordinated, engineered formula that will transform your sales process. There isn’t one specific thing that produces the outsized results we’re getting. It’s the overall confluence of the tools, tactics, and triggers. It started with your pre-prelaunch, and now we’re going to really turn up the heat with your Prelaunch Sequence.

  Buy My Stuff, Buy My Stuff, Buy My Stuff!

  So one of the key cornerstone pieces of the Product Launch Formula is delivering value and building a relationship with your prospect before you ever ask for the sale. I
t sounds so simple, but it’s crazy how few people actually do this in their business. Instead, what happens is people do the equivalent of standing on a street corner, shouting, “Buy my stuff, buy my stuff, BUY MY STUFF!”

  The problem is that no matter what business or market you’re in, there are tens, or hundreds, or thousands of other people out there shouting just as loudly as you are. They are all screaming at your very same prospect. It’s hard to stand out with that strategy, and it continues to get more and more difficult. The deluge of media keeps getting bigger and louder every day. And there will always be people who can shout louder, or shout longer, or sell at a lower price. You don’t want to be fighting that battle. That will wear you down, and in the end it’s a losing battle for nearly everyone. Even worse, when you’re launching a new product or a new business, then you’re automatically going up against established businesses with lots of resources. You need to fight a different battle, a battle where you can create a set of rules that are in your favor.

  So how do you do that? It’s simple. Instead of screaming for attention, you attract attention by giving value before there is any hint of asking for the sale. My friend Joe Polish has a saying: “Life gives to the givers and takes from the takers.” I think that’s always been true, but it’s never been more true in business than it is today. And the great news is that the Internet turns the economics of giving on its head. Giving is a lot easier and a whole lot cheaper than ever before, because you’re going to be giving away “content,” and you’re going to be doing it online. That content could be written material or video or audio or any of a number of other media, but the bottom line is that it will cost you almost nothing to distribute that content.

  Of course, randomly giving people stuff is not going to do you any good. If you’re trying to sell coaching services to high-end corporate executives, then sending them a cookbook of vegan recipes is not going to generate much business for you. You need to structure your content into a sequence that naturally builds up to your sale. And that’s the very essence of the Product Launch Formula.