So final launch for the year for the membership is now done! This one wasn’t as stressful as previous ones. I did a lot of letting go with this one.
Changes I made to this launch
I took the video off, I watched it again and decided it wasn’t good enough. I looked extremely nervous, I am not even sure I made sense. I didn’t have enough time to redo another one so I just took it off.
This time I went for a weekend challenge as my funnel to get new leads. It went well, I had loads of engagement and 50 new subscribers with only a $40 ad spend. I converted 3 of these people. I know I could have done better to attract the right people here, so I really need to figure out a better plan. I also found it extremely difficult to manage with kids and family around on the weekend as it was a full weekend of my attention which I didn’t feel like I could give 100%.
Whilst it may be the right thing for my audience, it’s not really a great option for me with two small kids. I need to be extremely real about this and work out a way that is going to to work around my family as that’s the whole point right, I am thinking pre recorded webinars may be the option for me next time around.
I didn’t do any other advertising other than for the challenge, even though I had planned to do some re-targeting I didn’t get around to doing it. In retrospect I think this was a mistake and I dropped the ball there.
I dropped early bird pricing this time around and only had the one price, I offered a bonus to my new course and added a money back guarantee.
I also launched on a Sunday to Sunday. Normally I do Wednesday to Wednesday.
Acquisition costs and viability
I’ve worked out if I want to get new members via advertising then I need to up my pricing considerably which I am not sure is feasible just yet.
At the moment it’s costing on average around $30 per customer (leads are around $1-2). The price for the product is $15 recurring, with an average retention of 4 months. So after costs it’s barely worth it.
Having said that I am not sure my targeting is right. I am not sure if my messaging is right. I feel like I do need a bit of an outside perspective on this. Or just some further nutting and niching down.
This was the big deciding factor of moving more to a one off product at the $150 price point with it acting as a funnel into my membership. It will allow me to target a more specific demographic.
How the launch went down
Cart open Sunday and nothing. Usually on the first day I get half my signups, and then the other half on the last day. Not normally many in between. Usually the first day numbers matches the final Day numbers.
This time I got a big fat 0 on my first launch day.
I sold my first one on the Wednesday. As you can imagine those 3 days were torture to the mindset.
Then the rest trickled in over the weekend. With a total of 6. Same results as launch number 2. Then I had another person wanting in after cart closed, gladly accepted her. A couple of days after that I had someone emailing me about why she wasn’t in. Her credit card failed but for some reason she wasn’t notified from the system, she signed up making my grand total 8 more people.
If I am honest, I wasn’t ‘on’ for this launch. I had been so behind with my membership content that it was more of a priority. We’re also in the middle of major bathroom renovations so I am living in a broken house which is awesome fun with a toddler and a 3 year old.
I also had massive doubts the whole way through and something felt a little off. Maybe it’s due to the seed that has been planted for the course or the need to do more study (more on that further down). Maybe it was the moon, who knows.
I totally didn’t have time to schedule all my emails appropriately so my list was bombarded in the last 2 days. I lost loads of subscribers but hey, they weren’t going to buy so what’s it matter.
I am thinking I need to really jump into a launch with a bit more pre planning.
Focus on list building
I started this year thinking that I’d be getting more leads via launching. But I really feel like those new leads, as opposed to people who have been on my list for a while don’t buy right away.
I dropped $20 on ads for general list building and got a lot more signups then I do for my launch. Moving forward I’ll be making this a priority and putting a portion of my advertising investment here.
Time time time
At the moment this is what I need more than anything.
I am tempted to get up super early to get things done, but it’s hard with two kids who won’t sleep. I literally fall in a heap when the kids go to bed so working after they go to bed isn’t viable and they tag team with the wake ups all night. I’ve thought about this a lot but it hasn’t happened. Sleep is precious.
So daycare is definitely on the cards and has been given the green light, just 1 day a week to start with. Now to find the time to go find one. Pray for me that I am not hit with gastro in the first month.
The quiet move to evergreen
I made a call on setting up a secret entrance into my membership via the back of my nurture sequence.
This is an offer of a $1 trial for 30 days. No one has received the offer as of yet so we will see how it rolls out over the coming months. I am hoping this puts the pressure off launching over the summer months and also just allows me to steadily grow my membership without a lot of big investment.
The new offer
I now have a clear idea of my new offer that will lend itself into the membership. I’ve mapped out a plan for it and will be hoping to do a soft launch towards the end of next month to my existing audience. It’s actually super exciting and I can’t wait to get stuck in.
Feeling a big shift to study
Now this whole idea has been based on a hobby that I am showing other people how I do it.
I’ve now decided I need to get real and start getting qualified in this department. I now have a big vision now and I am excited about how it’s going to look. It’s just getting the funds to make that investment. The goal is to do a soft launch of the new offer to my existing list in the hope that will give me the funds to make this huge investment. Cross your fingers for me!
Technology switch
As much as I love WordPress and it’s what I’ve used forever as my business, I am seriously considering moving to a different hosted platform for my membership.
I am finding the upkeep is quite labour intensive when time is short, any update you do you have to be super careful that it’s not breaking something especially when you’re collecting payments. I cannot justify the costs right now as it would take my entire monthly revenue and my priority is to do some study first but I am hoping by my first 2020 launch I’ll be there.
CREATE A NEW LEAD MAGNET
I didn’t get a chance to get this done, so adding it to next months huge list of tasks AGAIN.
August STATS
Members – 21 (+8, -2)
MARKETING
Email subscribers – 611 (+91)
Instagram followers – 8605 (+418)
Facebook followers – 797 (+68)
Average Monthly website hits – 5337 (+36%)
DOLLARS
Money earned – $258
Money spent: $156.51
Hosting $22.50
Payment Fees $14
Vimeo (video storage) $12.00
Jetpack (spam/backup/security) $13.30
Podcast Hosting $17.90
Advertising $70.00
Total profit this month: $101.49
Total carried forward: profit of $185.35
TIME
Hours spent on the project : Approx 10
MY COMMITMENT FOR September
Soft launch a new offer
October SNAPSHOT
Planning for 2020.
Until next month, if you’re not on the list to get my regular updates on this project and are wanting to follow along you can sign up here.