You can also listen to the podcast episode “Things To Have In Place Before You Launch A Course or Coaching Offer” by clicking below!
Today, I am excited to share with you some key elements that you need to have in place before launching your course or coaching offer. These insights come from my own personal opinions and experiences, having launched numerous offers successfully and learning from the ones that did not go as planned. Remember, it’s all part of the journey, and it’s normal to make some mistakes along the way, especially when you’re just starting out.
Without further ado, let me provide you with eleven valuable tips for the successful launch of your new course or coaching program.
Let’s dive right in…
1.Consistent Free Content Prior to Launch
Now, this can be either organic or paid content, but the purpose is to raise awareness about your brand, establish yourself as an authority, and increase visibility. Remember, people tend to buy from those they know, like, and trust. So, if you haven’t demonstrated authority in your niche, potential customers may not be inclined to make a purchase. Therefore, you want to warm up your audience by consistently providing free content that addresses their pain points and offers solutions. This content can include tips, encouragement, and demonstrating that you have answers to their problems.
Guide them on this journey and, most importantly, connect your brand, service, or offers to the problem you addressed. If you can consistently do this throughout the year and make it your main content focus, it’s ideal. I recommend having evergreen long-form content with SEO optimization that is searchable. Then, you can repurpose snippets of this content across social media, emails, and marketing to your email list. These anchor pieces of content will provide more value in the long run compared to the ever-changing algorithms of social media. So, the first step is to provide consistent free content.
You can achieve this through paid advertising or by creating a variety of engaging content, such as reels. The goal is to have this consistent free content in place before launching your offer. Otherwise, a completely cold audience is unlikely to make a purchase unless you’re an exceptional marketer.
2. Mindset from the Outset of Your Launch
I know, I know. This is not just about tactics. It’s about everything. You need to adopt a mindset from the very beginning that, no matter what happens, even if your launch doesn’t go as planned, you are still building significant momentum for your business and creating massive brand awareness.
Yes, it’s obvious, but that’s the mindset you must have. Regardless of whether people buy from you right now or not, you will have their attention in the future. So, show up powerfully with engaging, helpful, and thought-provoking content. I know you can do it. Trust me, I speak from experience. I’ve had launches that went well, but not exactly as I wanted, and I felt like a failure. However, with the right mindset, even a failed launch – with just one person purchasing – can still generate excitement and momentum. And guess what? Within one week, I had my one-on-one coaching calendar booked out for the rest of the year, including Q4. It was unbelievable, but it all started with the right mindset.
3. Validate Your Launch Offer
Before launching an offer, ensure that you have validated its idea with your ideal client avatar. Remember, your ideal client avatar can evolve from one offer to another. The avatar represents a journey continuum within your product suite. It ranges from beginners seeking personal branding basics to one-on-one clients aiming to scale and automate their course offers using platforms like Kajabi. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the specific target audience for your offer and tailor your communication accordingly.
Before proceeding, validate your idea with an ideal client avatar, someone who embodies your target audience. Ask them pertinent questions to determine if your idea would be helpful and if they are facing similar struggles. You can ask your Facebook group or pull your audience to gather feedback. However, keep in mind that if you haven’t built up a target audience yet, asking random individuals might not yield effective results. Focus on finding someone or a group of people who can provide validation for your idea. Creating something, even a full outline or engaging in pre-sales, without validating the idea first, would be a significant waste of time. You want to ensure that what you offer is desired by the audience you aim to serve.
4. Energy and Expectation Management for Your Launch
These are two different things, but how you show up is key to the success you create. At this point, I honestly don’t understand exactly how it works.
However, I did ask life coach Krista Cannon, whom you heard in a couple of episodes back in a two-part series that was wildly popular. I asked her for some examples of books to read on energetics because all I know is that it works. I have literally had the same run, the same launch, the same everything. In one instance, I managed my energy and regulated my nervous system, and in another, I did not. One flopped, and one was a stellar launch. So I know that it works, but how you show up is key.
Therefore, it’s important to have an energy protocol in advance. This also ties into expectations because I want to let you know that most people buy at the beginning or end of a launch. In the beginning, they want the fast-action bonuses – whatever is going away after a certain amount of hours or days. They’re excited because you’ve been doing good marketing on the front end, getting people excited, creating maybe a waitlist, teasing them, and getting them pumped up about what’s to come. And then people buy at the end because they want to see everything you have to offer, or they simply forgot. That last final reminder and your marketing on that last end is what puts them over the hump.
I want you to have that expectation because you cannot give up when people are not buying during the middle week or week and a half. You have to continue being just as excited and energetic about what you have to offer as you were at the beginning. It’s so important. So I want you to manage your expectations of how things typically go.
Even though it might be completely different, that is the typical way things go. So in that middle, show up powerfully and manage your expectations. Because we’re human, we feel nervous and wonder if people don’t like our offer, especially when we first get started. This takes practice and is not easy to just jump in and be like, “Oh yeah, I’m totally cool if this flops.” It took me about two years to get there after experiencing the other side of it and seeing how things can go. But until then, having an energy protocol is something I would definitely recommend.
And it’s something that we work on in social seller to CEO academy, things that you know of that can regulate your nervous system. So taking extra good care of yourself, because if you wanna show up powerfully for your audience and also show up powerfully for the people in your life and all the things you have to do, you have got to take care of yourself.
You’ve got to eat well, sleep well. You need to watch what content that you’re consuming, because all that stuff is affecting your conscious and your subconscious managing your energy.
5. Your Unique Value Proposition and Position for Your Launch
Think this through because there are likely others selling something similar to what you’re selling, creating a similar offer. There’s almost nothing new under the sun, but based on your experience, your message, and your personality, what unique piece can you offer? It could be the way you package your offer, the messaging, or precisely who it’s for. What is the unique value proposition? Why can they only get this from you? Take the time to think this through before you launch, so you can truly highlight what sets you apart. Of course, highlight the things your ideal client avatar shared with you during validation, use those in your marketing and sales pages, but also utilize them to develop your unique value proposition for this offer.
6. Belief In What You’re Launching
The offer itself, what you’re selling, how it’s packaged, the price point — you must truly believe in your product. I absolutely love what coach Sara Dann says. She unapologetically states, “You are freaking welcome,” and uses the real deal word for her selling attitude. It’s as if she’s telling you that you’ll benefit tremendously if you embrace this and make a purchase. So, consider yourself welcomed, because I’ve poured my heart and soul into creating this, and I’m giving my all to make sure it reaches you. Enjoy the process, let your creativity flow, and set goals that go beyond just monetary gains. I often advise my clients to set goals that are not solely focused on acquiring a certain number of students or a specific amount of money from a launch. It could be about unleashing your most creative self in your content. Have fun while setting a goal that is not measured in dollars. Your energy and belief in your product will foster belief in others. It will ignite excitement that is contagious. And when you truly believe in what you’re selling, you won’t feel like you’re bothering people during your launch. Instead, you’ll feel a deep sense of excitement, constantly thinking of new angles to share or bonuses to include, knowing full well that your customers will profoundly benefit once they cross over to the other side of their reservations and invest in themselves.
7. Have a Way to Take Payment Before Launching
Making it easy for people to pay you is crucial. Are you interested in setting up a business PayPal account? It’s essential to have your payment plan links set up ahead of time. What else would you like to have prepared in advance? I strongly recommend considering a well-thought-out payment method to ensure a smooth purchasing process, especially if someone wants to buy from you on the first day. Being well-prepared is important, especially if you have pre-sold items.
8. Have an Outline of Your Framework
I highly recommend creating a comprehensive course that aligns with your vision and launching it with a clear framework. By having a well-defined outline, you will be able to guide your ideal clients through a transformative journey from their current state to the desired outcome promised by your program, course, or coaching offer. Consider the logical order of the curriculum and make it intentional, ensuring that each step builds upon the previous one. My expertise in education and program design can assist you in mapping out the necessary components for success. Accountability measures should also be established to support your clients in implementing your teachings effectively. Outlining your framework requires careful consideration of the steps you will take your clients through, whether it be via one-on-one sessions, modules, or course materials. Together, we can create a powerful framework that leads to transformative results.
9. Have Tactics in Your Back Pocket During Launch Time
Are you comfortable just going with the flow? Have you prepared many of your posts or repurposed your emails? You should have them ready to go, so you know what type of posts and emails you’ll be sending. What strategy are you using? You may not have them fully developed, but at least you have your launch calendar planned out with the types of posts and emails you’ll be sending. This way, you can effectively do your work for the day, whether you choose to batch it or schedule everything out. Personally, I have already scheduled my waitlist emails for the Social Seller to CEO Academy, and I haven’t had to touch them. I have a clear idea of what I want to convey to my ideal client avatar in those emails. If anything comes up, I may make some tweaks, but my main focus is on being present, answering questions, and creating content, such as this episode, while I’m in a launch. I like having some tactics ready in my back pocket, so I can confidently go with the flow, regardless of how things are going.
For example, surprise bonuses and additional bonuses along the way or going live on Instagram when it’s not my usual approach. There are countless tactics to consider, but it’s important to have an arsenal of them at your disposal, so you can execute your strategy. And if things are not going as planned, especially towards the end, you’ll know what to do and feel confident about it. So make sure you have your tactics ready to go, as it is different from other aspects of your plan.
10. Create a Launch Calendar
I understand that not everyone operates off of calendars, but it is rare to find someone without some form of calendar, be it a document with dates or days. In this case, I will be referring to the types of posts or emails, as well as the exact posts and emails, in order to automate and streamline your next launch.
What I guide my students to do is to create a launch calendar that includes not only the types of posts to be shared during the launch, but also the tasks to be completed week by week leading up to it, arranged in a logical order. This calendar will help you determine when to create a sales page, when to start developing the Facebook group for your course support, and even when to create the PayPal link. By mapping out these tasks sequentially, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed and stressed out, especially if you’re starting from scratch. As you repeat the process for future launches, you will have already created much of what you need, giving you more bandwidth to focus on other aspects. Having a well-structured launch calendar is essential to maintaining a positive and focused mindset throughout the process, rather than being stressed and frazzled, which would not be conducive to your success.
11. A Conversion Event Before You Launch
How are you planning to launch this? What is the announcement and where will it take place? I highly recommend organizing a conversion event like a free challenge closely tied to your larger framework, course, or coaching package. This will directly lead potential customers into making a purchase, whether it’s for a course or becoming your next one-on-one client. By demonstrating your value, you’ll have your ideal clients eager to whip out their credit cards and join your program.
Make sure you have your conversion event thoroughly planned and scheduled in your launch calendar. Do you have a script and proven formula for your webinar? Are your slides ready? This is your chance to package and share your expertise to positively impact others. It’s incredible to witness the transformation and success of fellow women entrepreneurs, like you!
I hope you find these helpful tips for when you launch a course or coaching offer!
If you are looking for any additional support, you can always reach me via email at hello@elevatedwithashley.com.
You can DM me on Instagram @ashleyrlatimer or join us in my free Facebook Group, Elevate Academy For Personal Brand-Building Female Entrepreneurs.
I have a self-paced course called Low Tech Launch available to guide you through the exact process I used, and work with my clients on, to launch a course or coaching offer as an additional stream of impact & income for their brand – without the need for any fancy schmancy tech!!
Resources and Programs Mentioned In The Episode:
1:1 Coaching Waitlist
https://www.elevatedwithashley.com/waitlist
Social Seller To CEO Academy™️
https://www.socialsellertoceoacademy.com
MAVERICK SOCIETY The Membership:
https://www.elevatedwithashley.com/maverick
Self-paced Courses To Help You Develop Your Multiple Stream Of Revenue Personal Brand:
https://www.elevatedwithashley.com/courses
FREE Personal Brand Toolkit:
www.elevatedwithashley.com/toolkit
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- Zero to six-figure personal brand case study
- Personal Branding 101 workbook
- Ideal client avatar worksheet and video training
- Brand content brain dump strategy and worksheet
- Editable Canva templates
- Weekly To Do Planner
- Worksheets that go along with many of my podcast episodes (Find Your Why, etc.)
- and more!
