Lessons Learned From a Flopped Launch - Episode 118

Spoiler alert-back in May I had a launch that did not go as planned and I am here to share all the failures and challenges I had, because it's not just about sharing the "highlight" reel... it's about sharing the real true life behind the scenes! I will tell you all about it here!

Click here to listen:

When I do my content planning for the year, I pretty much have at least the first six months of the year planned and sometimes even the entire year for my solo episodes. So I knew sometime during the summer I wanted to have a conversation on the podcast about incorporating launches into your marketing strategy and what that can look like. And I thought, oh wow, wouldn't it be fun to do that, like after one of my launches? And so we can talk about some of the lessons learned. Well, spoiler alert, um, back in May I had a launch that did not go as planned.

I've been putting this off because I didn't wanna talk about it, because it's not fun to talk about things that didn't go as planned. It's not fun to talk about the "failures" or struggles that we face in our business because we see so much of the highlight reel in social media. We see so much of the "I had a $10,000 launch" or "I had a six figure month", or "I filled all my spots in record time". So then when we launch something and it doesn't go the way we wanted it to, we're like, Ugh, what's wrong with me? Or at least that's how I felt...

And as I have talked to several other business owners in my community, this happens to everybody. We just don't talk about it enough.

So let's get into exactly what happened, what I learned from it, and why I still believe that launches are an important part of your overall business strategy and marketing plan. Earlier in the spring I launched the consistent client accelerator and I spent a lot of time, a lot of effort and money launching this program. I invested in support for my website in getting sales pages designed. I invested in educational programs that help support launching with Launch strategy. I invested in one-on-one coaching specifically for this launch. And I followed all the steps that many coaches said, this is how you do it. So I had a webinar-- I had 65 people sign up for my marketing tech masterclass.

I felt like, yes, this is great, this is what people need. And then I launched and there were crickets. I wanted to put 12 people in the consistent client accelerator and I had zero sign up and it was a big blow to my ego.

But here's what I've been told and what I'm seeing for myself, the things that worked two years ago, even one year ago, they don't work anymore. The host a webinar, 10% of the people that come to your webinar will sign up for your program. Like that's not the thing that's not happening right now.

And it's not just to me, but it's happening to a lot of other service providers or coaches or educators. And spoiler alert, I have cried several tears over this failed launch. I let myself be down in the dumps for a week or so because it is crushing when you sink time and energy into something and it doesn't work.

And the thing about launches is everybody thinks it's like "oh, that launch week or two and you're like really pushing and selling and sending the emails and showing up on social media that that's when all of your energy is being spent." And yes it is, but I spent energy months and months before that creating the offer, planning the program, writing the copy for the sales page, working with the web designer, creating social media strategies and graphics and copy. Like that was a ton of work. And to do all of that and then get literally zero results, it was really disappointing. But here's what I realized- It could be that it's not a good offer, that it's not something that people want. Now, I designed this offer after talking to several potential clients and knowing that this is what they needed- so I don't believe that it's not a good offer. I do believe it's a GOOD offer, but maybe I was talking to the wrong audience. Meaning, I haven't filled my funnel with people who actually need this offer.

I've got different people in my funnel that this offer doesn't fill a need for them. Or it could be that it wasn't priced right because sometimes we can overprice or even underprice an offer. And so the perceived value isn't in alignment with what it is we're putting out into the world. Now, how do you know? Is it the wrong offer? Is it the wrong audience? Is it the wrong price? Well, you don't, and unfortunately we don't have a crystal ball to tell us.

So the next best thing to do is to pivot and try something else. And what I heard from launching with crickets in the silence, was that right now, what people want is done for you.

That led me to two new ideas for new offers and the first one being the Done For You 9-Grid, which if you've been here and hung out a little while, you've heard me maybe talk about. But this Simplified Content Plan is a new done for you service that I'm offering where I will create an Instagram grid for you so that you have a mini website for your Instagram where people can land and learn exactly who you are, what you do, who you serve, how you help, and what makes you special without you having to pump out content. And I put it all together for you in a strategic way so you don't have to think about it and it's taken off your plate. Then you've got an Instagram profile that you're excited about. New leads can take a look at, learn about you and you can nurture them by setting it and forgetting it on your Instagram profile.

I launched that literally a month after the accelerator launch didn't go so well and I was super excited about it, right? I had people telling me, yes, this is perfect, this is totally what people want. I decided to do a limited time offer for the summer. I'm gonna launch the done for you nine grid. I'm gonna have an introductory price. It takes me 10 to 15 hours to do each one depending upon the customer, so I decided to price it at a thousand dollars. That's a price that feels fair based on the amount of work and effort and energy that I would put into this done for you service, right? I sold two, one to an existing client who was already paying for something else and so we pivoted her package to the done for you nine grid, and one to a new client.

Again, there was disappointment because I really wanted to sell like six or even three. So to only sell two, I was like, wah wah. Like, what's wrong with me? My messaging is wrong, my messaging is bad. Well, here's what I learned. My messaging was off when I was talking about this offer and as I was launching it and sending the emails and writing the social media copy and even writing the copy for the sales page, I was saying that this done for you nine grid is for the entrepreneur who is tired of pumping out content. And what I learned is that it's not the woman who wants to get off the content hamster wheel who needs this offer...It's the woman who's not creating content at all because she's too busy and she keeps writing down "create Instagram posts" on her to-do list and not getting to it.

This done for you nine grid is appealing to her because she's probably not getting clients from Instagram anyway. She's finding them through word of mouth, referrals, Google, different things like that. But her Instagram profile is a place that she could nurture those potential clients. And so having a set it and forget it, strategic grid and puzzle helps her convert clients. But because she doesn't have time to do it, her herself, this done for you offer is appealing. So I didn't get the results I wanted, but I learned that I need to tweak my messaging.

And I only learned that by doing the thing, trying, talking to people, having conversations. 

The other thing that came out of it is I had ANOTHER idea for an offer that is done with you or DIY for those looking for support and accountability. Because the other thing that I've learned from talking with business owners and clients is that often marketing gets put on the back burner.

And it's not that we need more education, it's not that we need more tips and tricks and hacks, it's that we need somebody to hold us accountable to actually do the thing

That's why I created and am now launching the Consistent Content Club, a low ticket monthly membership to hold you accountable to actually creating your content where I'm giving you content prompts that you can create content on your own with these ideas. And I'm giving you time and space to create and work on your content through two monthly co-working sessions. I learned from having conversations with people that were not quite ready to outsource to a done for you service, that this is what they need. They can do it themselves, but they aren't and need an accountability buddy, a space, a meeting on your calendar where you sit down and create content.

And that's exactly what we're doing inside the consistent content club for $27 a month-- it's $7 for your first month. So for $7, which is basically what you could go spend at Starbucks, you get two group coaching sessions with me where you can ask questions and get feedback plus a little mini lesson on content trends or content creation and time and space to work on your content. And then you also get content prompts for the entire month for reels, for posts, for stories, for emails and threads because it's here, it just launched last week and it's another platform that we might need some content ideas for. 

It's not another course, it's not education, it's not even group coaching that you were asking for. And that's why my launch flopped. 

So here are some final words of wisdom after this flop--trust builds relationships, relationships will bring you sales and consistency is the thing that is gonna set you apart from the person who had the flopped launch and then just quit. Because that happens a lot too. We hear the people that have the amazing launches that go exactly the way they wanted it to, and we celebrate them and we're inspired by them. But what we don't hear about is the people that had the flop launches and pivoted and kept going. And that's what I wanted to share today. I wanted to encourage you, if you have a launch that didn't work, learn from it. If you have a launch that you truly believed in but it just didn't stick, tweak the process and come back to it. Maybe it's the market, maybe it's the messaging, maybe it's the pricing, maybe it's your audience. It could be so many things, but it doesn't mean that it's a bad offer. And it doesn't mean that you are not a great service provider or coach or whatever it is that you do.

And I wanna encourage you as I encourage myself to not let the results that you didn't get mean things that aren't true. I wanna encourage you to continue to put launches on your calendar because they do help create momentum in your business.

They help create kind of frameworks or guideposts along the day-to-day in your business where even if you are a service provider who offers the same thing all the time and you're like, I don't actually have launches, creating launches and creating specific dates and campaigns in your marketing helps you build momentum. It helps give you some guidance and some frameworks for how to talk about your offers in a way that you can strategically cycle through the attract, the nurture and the convert cycles of the marketing funnel without feeling like you're overwhelming your audience or you're boring your audience with the same content over and over again.

And the thing about marketing is all of this stuff, it's not a straight line, it's not linear, it's more like a symphony or a puzzle with lots of pieces being put together at different times. And what launches do is they give us a new framework or a new map to follow, which can help momentum help give you information and data about what's working.

So hopefully that was encouraging for you. If you have been through a launch that didn't go the quite the way you wanted, I I wanna encourage you to keep trying, keep going. If you have questions about creating consistent content, I'd love to see you inside of the consistent content club where I'm sure we will have sessions and talk about in our coworking sessions, content for launches as well as evergreen content and so many other types of things.