This post is part of my year of alchemy, you can find the whole series here or subscribe for future updates here.
Another launch under my belt, and more lessons learnt!
This launch I wanted to try a 3 part video series based loosely on the Jeff walker formula. One strategy that I’ve helped countless clients do. It’s a bit old school now but I wanted to give it a whirl. This was my initial plan before my phone died last time.
Basically the idea was to do a short training series, release them a day a part then in the final video invite them to join the membership.
I kicked hubby and the kids out multiple times and recorded a 3 part video series, a trailer for the training signup page and a video for the sales page itself.
It was down to the wire with a few all nighters editing video (so time consuming!)
I learnt a lot about video production doing this series, all my uni memories came flooding back. I definitely now have some strategies for speeding up the process, and also so I can get filming done quicker without too many takes. which will hopefully help me with future member content creation to. It’s made me realise I do need a bit more equipment to make my life easier (so I don’t have to gaffa tape my phone to bits of wood).
Overall I was happy with the end result and managed to repurpose a lot of content in the community itself.
Facebook ads
I did what all the experts said on this one. Use video on the signup page. For the ad itself I used most of the same wording from the previous campaign which I had good results from, I added a couple of videos and also changed a few images but kept the ones that did well last time.
The first issue I had was my video being marked as copyright issue. Apparently the royalty free audio I selected had been copyrited. So the lovely Tahlee from Sonesence hooked me up with some sound track music which I love so much more. Still it was a road block that I couldn’t have planned for!
Halfway through the first day I had blown half the daily budget with only 6 new leads. Which worked out to be around $2.50 per lead. This isn’t sales this is leads, so I still needed to convert from there.. I was getting them for 70c last time. I switched up the landing page to make the video less in your face but not much changed with all the tweaks I was doing.
I spent over half my budget trying to get leads in the first 3 days, it fell flat. I just wasn’t getting anywhere as good take up as my first launch. I got loads of new Facebook likes but I wasn’t converting into leads into my email marketing list.
By day 4 I switched on the old ad again (a PDF guide not the video series), spent 40% of the remaining budget trying to get the leads running two adsets (half with the guide, half with the videos), both with very similar results.
The final day I set the final 10% on retargeting. For half of that day it went into review so I didn’t get to spend anywhere near the amount of money I had allocated.
I spent almost twice as much on this launch as I did in my first launch, I got the same amount of page views but my lead conversions were down from 50% to 16%. Which I am trying to understand as even the original ad with the guide was having this 16% not just the video series.
From this ad spend I converted 2 into paying customers. 1 from the guide and 1 from the series.
I am starting to feel like I need a little help in this department so it’s something I will definitely look into when the budget is there.
Emails
This time instead of spamming my regular lists I segmented. Whilst my entire list got some of the emails they only got half of them if they showed no interest in the membership.
The new leads went into a nurture sequence with 4 emails. The first email they got the thing they signed up for, the second email I sent an hour later with an intro, the third email was full of all my freebies and the final email was an invite to join.
After all the new leads had finished the sequence I scheduled 4 additional emails. One looking at objections, one looking at features, one pulling their heart strings, and one with the final chance to join.
Last minute changes
Of course I rewrote my sales page. Well tweaked it. I was constantly adjusting and tweaking to see what worked. Ad copy, images, layouts. Nothing major but it goes to show you can’t just set and forget.
The launch result
All up I got 6 new members. 3 on the last day of early bird and 3 on the last day. I also lost an existing member during the launch.
Way off my goal (which was 30 btw), which was based off metrics from the previous launch – not a random number pulled out of my hat.
My list conversion dropped from 4.6% to .8%.
But the ad conversion was higher (even though the CPL was higher) previously 1.2% up to 3.39%. All those experts that say video converts, it’s true, but you’ve got to get people to show up first and I think that’s the hardest part.
So why did things go awry?
Was the timing wrong? Maybe.
Did I increase the price too much? Maybe.
We’re my videos not engaging (aka crap) and was I putting people off? Probably.
Was the launch duration too short? Potentially.
Is what I am selling not what people want? Who really knows, but I guess some sales are better than none!
So many questions and I am not really sure how to answer them other than to try again. A different technique. A different time. A different style.
Fears, mindset blah blah blah
Did I tell you about how much I hate putting myself out there in video? The potential for Trolls, the feeling of inadequacy, is the quality too poor and it just puts people off. So much to unpack. My headspace was slightly better this launch. I wasn’t having anxiety. I was still on edge and not pleasant to be around but at least I wasn’t passing out on the floor.
I am extremely glad I went with a membership model so it wasn’t all boom or bust. At least I know I have enough coming in to cover expenses for the next 3 months until the next launch.
Launch learnings
Well the 3 part video series was definitely a fizzer. It definitely could have been my content but I am not sure I’ll ever know. It’s there if I ever want to try it again and AB test it against some other strategies.
I am starting to intuitively feel that I am doing way too many launches so I am going to drop my launch cycles to two. As my topic is seasonal it makes sense and it really could be a big reason why this launch fell flat as some people see it as mid season.
I was always not going to do summer but I think I will drop the winter launch as well, maybe instead setup a back door entry to subscribers only. OR potentially convert it completely to evergreen off the back of a funnel from my lead magnet.
If I stick with closed off launches I will extend my launch out to 2 weeks as opposed to 1 week. I am not sure how that will look just yet or what I will be doing but it’s something I need to try. I am veering more towards a live challenge/workshop type thing. More thinking on this is required but it will definitely be a different approach to what I’ve already tried.
People love my new lead magnet so I think this is something I need to push more of with a bit of ad spend directed there instead of the launch cycle.
Get ahead with the content
After having my brothers wedding and sadly my grandmother passing away shortly after not having my content sorted ahead of time really hit me hard.
I was stuck waiting for a funeral date in an area that had no reception. Time I had allocated to get stuff done. Not ideal, but we survived and I learnt to just go with the flow.
I was very transparent with my members to let them know what was happening but I hope it didn’t put a damper on things for the new members.
I really do want to make June the month where I kick this over and get ahead by at least 2 months and always stay 2 months ahead (if not more).
Launch my podcast
Being out of action for almost two weeks has put this on hold. I’ve got a few episodes recorded just need to edit and sort out the ‘how’ of launching a podcast.
I am hoping I can knock this over next month.
Increase member engagement
I’ve been working hard trying to get people to chat but geez it’s a hard slog.
My strategy so far is just to keep chatting in more of a casual manner, often it’s ignored but I’ll keep talking as if someone is listening in the hope that people will start engaging.
New members joining have definitely started the conversation up again but it’s still slow going.
I really need to get the live video going it’s just navigating this with two toddlers who often need me immediately.
MAY STATS
Members – 17 (+6, -1)
MARKETING
Email subscribers – 454 (+59)
Instagram followers – 5973 ( +572)
Facebook followers – 646 (+159)
Average Monthly website hits – 2100 (+15.9%)
DOLLARS
Money earned – $189
Money spent $55.25
Hosting $22.50
Payment Fees $8.73
Vimeo (video storage) $13.20
Jetpack (spam/backup/security) $12.72
Facebook Advertising $135.56
Total profit this month: -$3.71
Total carried forward: loss of $111.23
TIME
Hours spent on the project : Approx 40 (lots of late night video editing)
MY COMMITMENT FOR JUNE
I really want to get out of the red next month so I’ll be laying low and focusing on some content creation and hopefully not spending anything extra.
- Get ahead with the content as a priority.
- Launch my podcast.
JULY SNAPSHOT
Final launch for 2019 preparation.
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.