How much content should you create for a launch?
Episode 95 • 11th February 2022 • The Courageous CEO • Janet Murray
00:00:00 00:22:54

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IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

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If you've ever done major home renovations, like adding an extension or enough conversion, you've probably got quotes from various trades people. And you use that to set yourself a budget and also a plan for how long your project was going to take. And I bet when you told your family and friends about it, they all shook their heads and said double it,

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not only will it cost you twice the amount, it will also take twice the time. Well, that's exactly what it's like when it comes to launching an online course or membership, whatever you think you need in terms of content and time, you can absolutely double it or maybe even triple it because while people are generally pretty good at planning out the actual course content,

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they're also brilliant at ignoring advice from experienced course creators like myself who tell them not to create their online course until they've actually sold it. They're often not so good about creating what I often refer to as the more functional content, the boring stuff, the delivery emails that you send to people when they actually buy your course, the onboarding sequence that helps people to get the most out of your calls.

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The frequently asked questions, the testimonials you need to sell it. The marketing emails, the thank you pages, the upsells, the cross sells, all of those things that actually can make a massive difference, not only to the success of your launch, but also future launches, because you've got happy customers who feel well communicated with, they really understands where all the resources are,

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what they need to do when they need to do it, but making sure you've got all of this in place. And particularly if you haven't launched an online course before, well, it's a lot. Fortunately I do have a free resource, the ultimate course launch checklist, and I will link to that in the show notes for this podcast episode, I've listed out for you pretty much everything I think you would need for a course launch or digital product or membership.

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Anything you want to launch online. Really. I think you will find that really helpful. It comes with a follow-up email sequence with more tips and tactics for your launch content, but in order to have a really successful launch, I think you also need to understand that why, why do we need all of this content? Why will you probably need far longer than you need to prepare for your launch?

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Why will it probably take you a lot longer than you think to start making decent sales from your courses? Well, that's exactly what I'm going to cover in this episode. So I'm going to start by repeating a bit of advice that I gave in another podcast episode on how to plan and create content for an online challenge. I'll link to that one in the show notes team.

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And that advice was starts at the end when you're all excited about a course and launching a course and all that lovely passive income, you're going to make it so easy to start creating that course and forget about all of the other really important things that you need to do. And crucially the content you are going to need to create to actually sell that course.

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And I don't just mean the content you create during the launch. Most people start their launch content at the cart open week, and don't even consider all of the other content that needs to be created in the weeks and actually in the months, maybe even hears before you launch that course. So start at the end. So when I'm planning a launch, I always think about my absolute end goals.

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So I think about the cart close day, where do I want to be? And believe me, I learned this one the hard way, but the first thing I think about is the sales page. What do I want to happen with the sales page? Because as you may already be aware, people do generally need deadlines, particularly if you're doing some kind of launch offer.

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So if you're saying that your discount or your bonuses, and on a particular day, or let's say for example, you have an open and closed membership where people can only join for a certain number of days or during a certain week or month of the year. There's going to be that time where people are going to come to your sales page and they're going to want that discount,

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or they're going to want to buy, or they're going to want to join. And if you don't want people to buy at the end of that time, period, for example, if it's a live launch, maybe it's a group program you're going to need to replace that sales page with a wait list page, for example, and that's going to need copy.

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It's going to need images. You're also going to need an email that you send to people to tell them that they're on the wait list. So that's where I start. I start with, what do I want to happen? In my case often it might be about swapping over discount codes. It might be about swapping over the sales page with a weightless page.

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It might be about taking the sales page down completely. So the next stage for me is upsells. Whenever I sell a product or service like an online course, I'm always thinking about the upsells. So if somebody buys one of my Courators Kits, my content kits, or if somebody joins my Courators Club or someone buys a planner, what else do I have for them?

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Because that moment, when somebody has got your product or service in their basket, that's often the moment when they're onboard that interested in your product or service, they may also be interested in adding something else to their basket, a complimentary product or service. If you have an online course, maybe you've got a download that you can upsell. Maybe they're buying a masterclass and you want to offer them the full online course or the option to join your membership.

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Now, this is all quite complex sales staff, and I'm not saying for a mini that you need to do any of this stuff, but if you do want to do that, then this is going to need content. You're going to need a pop-up or some kind of extra page. How we typically do it is we have a thank you page with a video from me.

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So that's another piece of content has got to be created. It's got to be some copies that go below the video. And if somebody says no to the upsell on the sales page, we want to be able to offer again. So we would generally have a followup or upsell sequence. I will often create a five day email sequence when I deliver a product.

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If you've bought my Courators Kit, you'll see there's a really helpful five day sequence that goes with it. It's got a little video that goes with it every day that shows you how to get the most out of the resources. But it does also invite you to come and join my Courators Club. There's an upsell in that sequence. So again, this is quite complex marketing stuff,

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but if you don't think about all of this stuff, right at the beginning, you can end up in the situation, which has happened to me before with events where you've literally forgotten that the best time to upsell people to your next event is at the event or you haven't forgotten, but you've just been so busy running your event that you're sitting up at 1:00 AM creating a sales page or writing sales emails for your next event.

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So if you can start with this list of content, some of this process might be about you eliminating things, as they know, I don't think I'm ready to do upsells and cross-sells and thank you pages and follow-up sequences. That's fine. But creating this list of content that you do need is crucial to make sure you have the best launch ever. Now,

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remember if you are doing upsells or cross-sells, you're probably going to need, or you could need another sales page and that's going to be another delivery email, possibly another onboarding email for a different product. When we bundle up other products with my planner, for example, we have to write a different delivery email that tells them about their digital product and says,

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you'll get a separate email about your planet. All of this stuff has to be thought about, and if you're a visual person, it can help to really map it out. So all of that potential content that you may have to think about and create, and remember, we've talked words here, but there may be visuals and videos that also need to be created for all of us.

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Now we're at your launch week. The bit that people think about when they think about a course launch that five days or seven days, when you're emailing you're on social media, you're doing everything you can to sell that online course or membership. So what content do you need to ensure that this phase of your launch goes off? Well, what of course,

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you're going to need a sales page. That sales page is probably going to need testimonials. It's going to need some objection handling content. And if you need some help on sales pages, there's another podcast episode that you can listen to called steal. My sales page strategy can definitely recommend that one. I'll link to that one in the show notes, you're going to need terms and conditions for your course.

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A refund policy frequently asked questions. So you're going to need to anticipate all of the questions that people might have. Like how long do I get access to the course materials? What happens if I don't like them? Can I get a refund? Can I buy it and share it with my social media manager? You're also going to need, typically at least seven to 10 emails,

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we also have a separate sequence called looked not booked. Say that's a series of emails that we send to people who we know have clicked on the link for a particular product or service. You're going to need social media posts, delivery emails with instructions on how to access the course materials, likely a followup sequence that shows people how to get the most out of those materials.

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We're already in thousands of thousands of words, even just for this cart open phase, you will also likely need visual content. So you'll need images for all your sales page, promotional images for social media video. If you have a product-based business, this is super important because people like to see the product they to love. Seeing your unboxing videos, you showing inside the product,

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showing how it all works. All of which takes time and planning say, now we get to the stage before the cart open week. And I can say people when they think about launches and launch content, they often really just focus on that week and the course content itself. The two phases I'm going to talk about now are crucial for sales. The first two phases,

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I talked about the cart, close the upsells, and cross-sells, if you're new to course creation, then you might not be ready for this. That's absolutely fine, but you absolutely are ready for what I'm going to share now. And if you miss these two steps out, you will struggle to sell your course. So the phase before your cart open is what I generally refer to as your wait list phase.

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So this is when your getting people excited about the product or service that you're going to launch. And this is why this planning and listing out what you're going to need is so important. You need to give people some kind of incentive to be on a wait list. Say, if you're going to launch your calls in a certain day, there needs to be a reason why people would want to get on that way.

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They say, where's my planner, for example, which is another course, but same principle. We offer a generous discount to people who are on the wait list. And also they get first dibs on the cover choices. And in the past we've found that the most popular color choices tend to go quite quickly. So that gives that kind of FOMO and really drives people to take action.

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And if you're going to go down the wait list route, of course, you're going to need a wait. This you're going to need a page to send people to. And typically this would be quite simple and he needs to say something like join the wait list to be the first, to hear when whatever happens and, and an image, but that needs to be created.

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And you're going to need some kind of email to tell people that they're on the wait list. Just want to mention here that if you have not launched a cause before, something that might feel scary now is automation. You can automate all of this. It makes life a lot easier. And particularly when, like I am, you're selling in the hundreds of thousands.

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If you're selling your first online course, and you are expecting to sell 10 or seven or whatever, you don't need to have all this stuff automated, but you do need to send that content. So if someone is added to your wait list, it's good to email them and tell them that you're on their wait list. If a lead magnet is part of your launch,

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we'll come to that in a second. You need to deliver that lead magnet. And it does not need to be automated, but you do need to email people with it and you do need to follow up with people and nurture them. So never think that you can't do any of this stuff because you don't know how to do the fancy email automation. The bit you can't skip is the content.

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Even if you are launching a high-touch one-to-one service, VIP days, one-to-one coaching, you're still going to go through this process cart, close upsell cart. Open the time when you're going to be opening up enrollments, you're still going to need to think about what communications you send people when they become a one-to-one client. You're still going to need to think about things like terms and conditions.

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Frequently asked questions, onboarding emails, telling people what to expect from their one-to-one emails to give them a questionnaire or some homework to do before your first session automation, you do not need content you day and sitting down and planning it all out. Like this will save you tons of time in the long run, and also help you to provide better customer service and have people come back to you again and again.

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So after the waitlist phase, then we've got your audience building phase, and this is the bet. And it does break my heart that people often just miss out completely. They rock up online and say, I want to sell an online course. Why can't I make millions selling online courses? Because unfortunately, that's what all the gurus are out there saying it's perfectly possible with,

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without an audience. And they don't do their due diligence. They don't create the content that they need to grow. Not only the audience size that you need to sell an online course, but also the note I can trust. Just think about it for a sec. If your ideal customer or client is presented with the choice of buying your course or someone else in your space who has a massive online following,

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maybe they've had a podcast for years, blog, big Facebook group. That doesn't mean that they're better than you. It doesn't mean that their course is better than yours, but because they've taken the time to build their audience and to build a relationship with that audience where they feel comfortable to buy people will buy their course over yours. And they'll probably pay more people often think when they're new in the online course space,

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oh, well, if I just make my course cheaper than people will buy mine, it doesn't work like that. People will pay more for a trusted expert in the space. And none of this is intended to put you off. It's intended to make sure that you take the time and create the content you need to build that know like, and trust so that when you do launch your online course,

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you're going to smash it. You're going to make the kinds of sales that you need. So during your audience building phase, you're going to need to create blog posts. If you have a blog podcast, social media posts, content that really leads to the product that you want to sell at the end, whatever the topic of your online courses that you want to tell at the end,

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the content you create and any lead magnets that you create to build your audience. We'll get onto that in a sec. They need to be so closely aligned so that buying your product or service feels like the natural next step. So let's talk about lead magnets. It is a good

idea. If you are looking to sell an online course, and if you want to sell one to many.

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So if you're wanting to sell in the tens, the hundreds or thousands, giving away some kind of free resource that is linked to the course that you want to sell at the end of it is going to not only help you to get the right people in your audience who are likely to be interested in that course, but also give you a chance to build that know like,

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and trust with those people before your course goes on sale. So just to give you an example, I have a couple of lead magnets, which link into my courageous content planner and my courageous content kits. One is a 30-day content plan. And one that I've recently launched is 22 grab and go social media pace. And that content is very closely aligned to the grab-and-go social media posts.

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In fact, it's 28 of them. That's members of my Courators Club, people who invest in my Courators Kit, they get an email from me every Monday with these grab-and-go posts out here. And there's 28 of them basically in that free resource. So for those people who do feel that they need that extra support, if they like those 28 grab and go post ideas,

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they can have a thousand of them if they invest in the kit. So it's about really making sure that your free resource that you offer is really closely aligned to what you want to sell at the end. If it isn't, it feels like a handbrake turn is the way that I often describe it to my clients. And that's the reason actually, while my only magnets,

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I very rarely now creates platforms specific, laid back nets about Instagram or Tik TOK. I could totally do that, but if people are signing up to my list to learn about Instagram or get ideas for Instagram or LinkedIn or Twitter, Tik TOK, and then I present them with my courageous kit, which is cross platform. My Courators Club is cross-platform for some people,

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not for everyone that will feel like a handbrake turn. It will feel like, Ugh, I don't really see how these two fit, because I just want to learn about Instagram or I just want to learn about Twitter. So if you do create a dedicated lead magnet for your launch, you're going to need not just the lead magnet, you're going to need promotional emails,

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social media posts. You're going to need some kind of follow-up nurture sequence. You're going to need some kind of landing page or sales page. Believe it or not. You do have to sell a lead magnet. I can put testimonials on my lead magnet landing pages. Even in that audience, building phase, we're talking podcasts, blogs, social media posts,

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possibly a lead magnet. This may not be relevant to you if you're just getting started as an online course creator. But for me as someone who's been doing it for a while, Facebook ads are always part of the mix, a lead magnet and Facebook ads. So that's another type of content I have to think about. And if you're smart about it,

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if you're giving away a free lead magnet, ideally, you're going to have an upsell on that. Thank you page, which is going to need possibly a videos and words, some visual content. So how much content do you need to create for a course launch? I think you've probably got it. It's a lot, but you will make your life a heck of a lot easier.

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If you follow my advice, you start at the end, you go through these five phases, cart, close upsell cart, open wait, list, audience building, and you give yourself the time that you really need. If you're a new course creator, I would say you need at least 90 days, possibly much longer. If you want to make decent sales from your course launch,

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the average conversion rate for online sales is just one to 2%. We haven't even talked about email list building, but that's a crucial part of it. And if launching an online course or membership is on your horizon, a smart thing to do would be to actually take the time out in that audience building phase to take six months to take a year, even so really focused on building your list.

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Because if you do that, you will have a much better Lord. It's not advice people want to take. Everybody wants to just get out there and launch their cause, which I totally get. My advice is always to launch something smaller. I encourage my clients to launch one of masterclass. Masterclass is a course, by the way, it gives you a dry run at doing a launch.

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You need to think about all of those phases, even to launch a one-off masterclass or even a PDF download, or even a lead back that, to be honest and some final tips to finish list out everything you need for you create a thing because depending on how your launch goes, you may not need to create some of this content. Sometimes when you first start trying to launch online courses or memberships,

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it doesn't land the first time and that's perfectly normal. If you've created a simple sales page, you can either tweak it and go back to people with a slightly different offer based on their feedback. Or you can scrap it and try something new, not so easy. When you spent months creating modules of an online course that you don't know if anyone is going to buy another tip or a reminder of a tip I gave right at the top of this episode,

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give yourself two, three times longer than you think you need. And finally assume people do not read things. I spend hours writing, delivery emails, onboarding offboarding emails, which explain things in great detail, but people are busy and they don't necessarily read things. Quite frankly, people will drive you mad asking you the same questions over and over again. So when you're making this list,

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it's worth anticipating what content could you create for your launch? That's going to help you deal with that. It might be frequently asked questions in the form of a blog post or a post in a Facebook group. If you have one instruction videos you can send to people. If they get stuck, say if you've delivered their calls and they're struggling to work out how to access it,

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because if you're a solopreneur, you're going to have to deal with all the customer service stuff as well. And that's more content. Anyway. I hope this has been helpful, and it really isn't intended to put you off in any way. The aim as always is to save you time, to save you, making some of the mistakes that I did when I first started out as an online course creator.

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If you want to save yourself a ton of time, I do have a launch content kit, which contains templates for pretty much everything I've mentioned in this episode. So sales pages, thank you. Pages, cross-sell pages, upsell pages down, sell pages. That's the more complex stuff, but email marketing, sequences, delivery emails, onboarding sequences, social media,

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promo posts, terms and conditions. FAQ is I've got it all. If you're listening to this episode around the time it goes live, you may will be sent to the waitlist page for my courageous launch content kit. Add your name there. And you will be the first to hear when it goes on sale. And we will send you a lovely discount and no doubt,

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some bonus content. If you're listening after that, hopefully, you'll go straight to the sales page. And if you use the code launch 67, you will get yourself a sweet 25% off my launch content.

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