Of all the marketing tools out there (and make no mistake about it, product launches are a TOOL — nothing more, nothing less) product launches have got to be the most frustrating, misused and misunderstood tool.
There is nothing that will bring an entrepreneur to their knees faster than a busted launch. Worse, even if the launch ISN’T a failure, it’s still the cause of more worry, anxiety and sleepless nights than any other marketing tactic I’ve ever seen (and trust me, I’ve seen a lot).
However, since launch failure certainly is one of the top concerns (not to mention a bad launch makes everything else look worse) I thought I’d take some time today to discuss the top 3 mistakes entrepreneurs make when launching a product or program.
Mistake 1: They rush into the launch.
Let me explain what I mean by this because it’s not as clear cut as you might think. While I do think giving yourself some time and space to launch something properly (especially when you’re doing it from scratch) is a good thing, if you have a big enough list to meet your sales goals, you can rush your launch as much as you want.
Where I see the biggest problem with rushing your launch (other than just keeping yourself up nights working on all the promotional pieces) is when your list is small and you are dependent on affiliates or joint venture partners to meet your sales goals. If this is the case, you are pretty much guaranteeing your launch will fail.
You see, affiliates and joint venture partners are busy people. They have their own products and services to promote plus they too have agreed to help other people. The less lead time you give them the more likely they will tell you they can’t help you promote.
However, there is another way to look at this, which actually leads into mistake number 2.
Mistake 2: They don’t know the numbers.
Here’s how this mistake plays out. You’ve been hearing about these 6 figure launches, but you’re just starting out — you don’t expect to have a 6 figure launch. You would be happy with 50 people in your program. And with 200 people on your list that should be doable, right?
Well…
You do the launch and end up with 8 people in your program. You’re crushed.
Now the reality is with your list of 200, that’s a 4 percent conversion of your entire list. You should be THRILLED with that conversion.
But, because you don’t know the numbers (specifically the CONVERSION numbers) you’re just looking at the end result — how many people actually bought. And if it’s lower than what you wanted (or expected) you’re going to be disappointed.
But if you know the numbers, then you’ll know going in how many people you can expect to buy. And you’ll ALSO know what to expect regardless if affiliates help you promote or don’t. And that’s a really powerful way to keep yourself from getting too disappointed or frustrated.
Mistake 3: They either give up or decide not to send “one more email.”
This happens if they either get too discouraged from lack of sales or they just start feeling “icky” about the whole launch. At that point, they just stop.
And when you stop, you’ve also just stopped getting any more sales. And even if you’re stopping because you’re feeling sort of icky, you’re probably going to feel even more icky when people stop signing up for your program. (You CAN cut down the number of emails, just as long as you know which emails to cut.)
So you need to know going in you’re probably going to feel like giving up somewhere in the middle. If you know this, you can stand firm when it happens and make sure you still send that “one last email.” (Who knows, that could be the email that turns everything around for you and to think you almost didn’t send it!)
