How To Run A Successful Product Launch

There are a million things that go into a successful launch.

Too much to cover in one deep dive.

But, piggybacking off of last week's deep dive on Paid Offer Rankings Based On Freedom and Price Scale; we're going to be analyzing successful launch sequences we've seen from some top creators.

I will also be comparing them to my own launch of The 6-Figure Creator Newsletter Blueprint last month that brought in over $5,000 sending to just 500 people on my list.

And that's not even counting the $5-10K that came in from bumps and backend offers of that launch.

The main purpose of this deep dive is going to be looking at:

1. The style top creators take during their launch.
2. How many emails creators send during their launch.

This will automatically lead to an overlap discussion on their products, marketing psychology and more - but I'll do my best to reel it in and stick to the point as much as possible.

Here are some of the creators we'll be discussing: 

• Dan Koe
• Jay Clouse
• Justin Welsh
• Nicolas Cole
• Matt McGarry
• Amy Porterfield

And the best place to start seems to be the man who just had a $1.6 million dollar launch!

Justin Welsh $1.6M Launch

Not only is Justin's launch the largest (most profitable) launch in our entire deep dive, but it's also a great place to start being that Justin believes so strongly in pre-launch research.

Which means, before we get into launch cycle, we can discuss the importance of actually launching products that you know your audience wants!

Here's what Justin Welsh shares about "The Big Problem With (Most) Course Launches":

Launching a course is so much more than sending out a few emails and hoping people will buy your thing. 

It's about understanding your audience and their problems, speaking directly to their needs, and keeping them engaged from the time they learn about your product, to the time they can buy (and beyond).

When I look at the typical launch for a digital product, many people create an interest list and then send out a few sales email around launch time saying, “It’s here! Buy now!” Candidly, I’ve made this exact same mistake.

That’s not a good strategy and, sadly, a poor launch can prevent an otherwise good product from reaching its potential.

In my opinion, the strongest part of this quote is right here:

"It's about understanding your audience and their problems, speaking directly to their needs"

I have seen countless creators launch products and have literally 0 sales come in.

Why did this happen? A handful of reasons:

1. They didn't talk to their audience.
2. They launched what THEY wanted.
3. They launched WAY before they were ready.
4. They listened to the wrong part of their audience.

And the list goes on.

Is Justin's Launch Strategy Realistic?

For most creators, the answer is going to be no.

Justin likes to do his launches "In Public", which is incredible (as you can tell from the results), but not that realistic for the majority of creators.

Justin sent out about a dozen behind the scenes emails throughout the course of his launch sequence, giving the inside scoop of what, and how he was building and launching.

This is great for creators who have the leverage to make this type of commitment worth it, but the chances are you can start with MUCH less, and focus on MORE launches instead.

I shared Justin's 2 courses in last week's deep dive, and they had been his core income (bringing in over a million dollars a year) for nearly 2 years - so it was time for Justin to launch the next thing.

But for most creators, you want to be launching every 3 months.

Which is MUCH different than the approach we see from Justin Welsh.

Dan Koe: Launching Every 3 Months

I'm going to lead this section with a quote directly from Dan Koe in his YouTube video The Productivity Tactic That Made Me $700K In 30 Days:

"Ever since I started my business I've launched a product every quarter."

Let me make that one bigger for the people who might just brush over it quickly:

"Ever since I started my business I've launched a product every quarter." - Dan Koe

There's no right or wrong way.

But there is a most optimal way specifically for YOU and YOUR business.

If you're at the point where you don't want to launch something as frequently and you want to go the Justin Welsh model - that's fine.

But the majority of successful creators are leveraging launch sequences every 3 months (sometimes shorter/longer) to continue building on things like:

1. Hype
2. FOMO
3. Scarcity

Among many other reasons.

But how is it possible to launch this often...? Good question.

How Dan Koe Launches Something Every Quarter

Here's another quote from Dan Koe that's relevant to this section (right from the same video):

"Product launches are the most profitable part of your products timeline." - Dan Koe

And Dan recommends replicating these profitable launches every quarter for a few reasons.

Here are some big reasons Dan shares:

1. You should always be innovating.
2. Quarterly launches keep you on top.
3. It gives you quarterly deadlines to hit and keeps you on track.
4. You don't have to worry about being extremely successful with ONE launch, because you know you'll be iterating on it in 3 months.

Note: The last one on this list is the big one that goes against the Justin Welsh methodology.

The one big question becomes how it's possible to continue launching something every single quarter.

Do you really need something new every single time? 

Not necessarily.

BUT, you SHOULD have something new to add every single quarter as you're consistently growing your own business.

The same way tech companies need to keep innovating, you need to continue giving your audience more and more value to help them grow. 

That said, there are other ways to do it...

Here are a few ways Dan shares: 

• Combine products into a bundle and launch that.
• Add a new module to a current product and increase your prices. 
  •  You launch the "price increase" by a certain date.
• Run the same cohort over and over again each quarter.

The last one is the most popular (and what Dan says is the simplest way) we see from the top creators with the most leverage and ability to fill a cohort.

So, next up, we'll take a look at someone who has been crushing just that...

Matt McGarry: $105K in 4 Days

We talked a lot about how cohorts are able to leverage some of the best parts of coaching, community and courses all into one package, while also giving you the most freedom and highest price point [related to the work/freedom scale].

BUT, they also take a fair amount of leverage to get started.

This leverage [needed] can be both authority AND a substantial following.

(If you missed this, jump back to last week's deep dive and read all about it).

That said, Matt McGarry had both when he launched his cohort: Growth System.

Matt McGarry's Cohort Launch Sequence

The above image shows Matt's launch sequence for his first ever cohort.

He initially sold about 30+ seats with a few webinars, and then his timeline looked like this:

• "Thursday morning - Tweet about the course launch.
• Thursday morning - Email to my 4,245 most engaged subscriber.
• Thursday afternoon - Quote Tweet of the announcement post.
• Friday morning - Quote Tweet of the announcement post.
• Saturday morning - CTA at the top of my newsletter sent to all subscribers.
• Saturday - Quote Tweet of the announcement post.
• Sunday morning - Quote Tweet of the announcement post
• Sunday midday - Sold out. Tweet announcing enrollment is closed."

4 days for $105K rather than a few months of launching in public.

Note: This is not a typical result of a 4 day launch. Matt had A LOT of success with his Tweet, with tons of support from his network.

And although this isn't typical, it does show the power of cohorts.

Matt was able to charge $997, bring in 100+ people, and leverage scarcity, urgency and FOMO, WHILE having the higher price point that comes with community and coaching aspects.

The best part?

Matt learned a TON from his first cohort (I know, because I was a part of it, and he told us).

And guess what...

He just launched the second iteration of it at the end of last month and made around 100K again.

Similar structure, following the same course material, but improving it and finding a way to tie it directly into his value ladder and give past members a way to get involved.

Jay Clouse: $60,000 Digital Product Launch

For the next section of this deep dive I want to discuss the actual email sequences that are involved when launching your products

A lot of people send out one email, or mention their product in their regularly scheduled newsletter, and assume their audience is going to be swarming their product.

They're not.

As you can see above, Jay Clouse sent:

• 7 emails launching his product
• 10 emails pertaining to his product launch.
• Another 8+ emails where he built hype for his product (short mention in another newsletter).

But this isn't the crazy part.

The crazy part is the fact that this actually isn't that many emails compared to other launches we see from top creators...

In the next two sections we'll be taking a quick look at Amy Porterfield and Nicolas Cole to see just how many emails go into some other successful product launches.

How Jay Clouse Had A Successful Launch

If we take a step back and look at Jay's launch, we can see a few things that stand out.

They're very surface level points, but important nonetheless.

Here's 9 Steps You Can Take To Replicate His Success:

1. Build Your Newsletter (Obviously)
2. Build Hype for your Product
3. Pre-Sell and Beta Test
4. Build a Waiting List
5. Send A Lot of Emails
6. Answer Questions
7. Share Testimonials
8. Offer Launch Bonuses
9. Create Urgency

And if you want some depth on each one of these points you can check out the full LinkedIn Carousel I put together for it.

Amy Porterfield: 14 Email Launch Sequence

You should definitely see some similarities between Amy Porterfield's launch and Jay Clouse's that we discussed above.

Jay had Amy on his podcast to discuss product launches ahead of his own launch, so it makes sense that he learned and borrowed a few things from her!

For this one I wanted to add another layer to what we're discussing and show that Amy sends even more emails than we saw from Jay, AND leverages webinars in her launch as well.

We talked about how Matt McGarry leverages webinars during his pre-launch sequence, but Amy actually has the webinars as a massive part of her overall launch strategy.

The Main Takeaways:

1. Webinars definitely aren't dead.
2. Your launch is YOURS.

These two things tie directly together.

Whether you want to do masterclasses, webinars, workshops or any other live video format inside your launch, or NONE of it...they work, but aren't absolutely necessary.

Make your launch YOURS, and remember: everything is a test.

Nicolas Cole: Nearly 20 Emails

Wrapping this one up I want to really hit on a few different specific things:

1. There is no ONE specific "right way" to launch your product.
2. You can, and should, send A LOT of emails.

In the image above you see nearly 20 emails for Nicolas Cole's (and Dickie Bush's) launch of The Full Stack Writer.

In a Tweet sharing this image, Cole writes:

"After 19 cohorts of Ship 30, over 10,000 students enrolled, and millions of dollars generated in revenue, we've learned something about email marketing—and I want to share it with you.Guess how many emails it takes for someone to buy?

It’s not 1.

It’s not 2...

On average, it’s nearly 20 emails!

Sometimes more.

This is something we REALLY didn’t understand when we first launched Ship 30 for 30, and we fell into the same trap a lot of creators do:

'If I send too many emails, people are going to see it as spammy. They’ll unsubscribe. They’ll never buy anything from me!'

And from all the data we’ve collected, we can objectively say now that is false.

If you are constantly giving away free education, more emails means more money. Period.

Let me pull a few specific things from that quote for you:

1. More emails means more money.
2. They used to think if they send too many emails people will see it as spammy and unsubscribe and then never buy anything. From all the data they collected, that is false.

And one of the reasons I really want to end on this section of the deep dive is because I want you to leave this feeling confident.

I want you to go out and feel ready to launch and see it as a test you're going to iterate on in 3 months.

Action Steps: How To Launch YOUR Product

I have launched over 50 different products the last 10 years with Superhero Jacked.

And one big thing I learned is that I want my personal brand (Creator Newsletters) to have very specific signature products.

One to two signature courses, and one to two backend offers (at different levels and price points).

I started building my value ladder last month with my first product, The 6-Figure Creator Newsletter Blueprint, launching to a small section of 500 people on my list.

The purpose of this was the show the power that you can have with small lists, and I was able to make $5000+ in JUST course sales, and more than doubled that with upsells and backend offers.

(The reason why I break these up into two different things is because you don't HAVE TO have upsells and backend offers to have a successful product launch.)

So if you're just starting to think about your first product launch, I would take a step back and make sure you have planned out your business model and goals.

What Are Your Next Steps?

We have discussed newsletter monetization in other deep dives, so a good starting point would be going through these [if you haven't already]:

• The Top 5 Spots To Sell In Your Newsletter
• The Top Three Ways To Monetize Your Newsletter
• The Ultimate Guide To Newsletter Business Models
• How To Add A Sponsorship Section In Your Newsletter
• Paid Offer Rankings On A Freedom And Price Scale

Once you have really started to feel confident about your newsletter business model, the offer you're launching, and your overall launch plan and goals.

There's only one thing left to do...

Launch!

And remember what Dan Koe said:

"You don't have to worry about being extremely successful with ONE launch, because you know you'll be iterating it in 3 months."