Authors: Chris Guillebeau
The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future (20 page)
These are essentially the same statements, flipped around to
place the emphasis on what each side wants voters to believe. Each message contains both an admission of uncertainty
and
an argument, thus making both pitches a good fit for independent voters who haven’t made up their minds yet.
†
In all the messages you send (whether delivered via email or in another way), you’ll want to be mindful of several qualities. The first and most important is what we’ve mentioned already: the need to tell a good story. On its own, however, a good story isn’t always enough. You also need to think about “relatability” and timeliness. Relatability, which may or may not be a real word, refers to the need to ensure that the people who hear about the launch can relate to it. Do they see themselves in the characters in your story, and can they clearly understand how it will help them? Do they get it?
The final factor is timeliness, and it can be the critical difference between good results (“We did OK”) and great results (“We killed it!”). Without timeliness, customers may evaluate the offer and agree that it’s interesting, but fail to take action because there is no need for them to do so right away. You don’t want to pressure people into buying if they’re not ready, but you do want to instill a sense of urgency. That’s why a good launch always factors in a concern for timeliness.
The goal of a good launch is not just to convert as many prospects as possible; it’s also to preserve your relationship with other prospects
and increase your influence. The reason this is important is because you don’t want to hammer people too hard; it’s better to build relationships over time.
Some people will always complain whenever you sell anything at any price. There’s nothing you can do about that attitude, so just accept it and don’t cater to those people. But you
do
want to pay attention to your broader base. What are they saying about you? How do they perceive the value of your offer and the style of your messaging? A good launch should increase sales and influence at the same time. If you’re getting positive feedback from people who don’t buy your product but want to support you in other ways, you’re on the right track.
Storytelling and the Empire Building Kit Launch
It was my most important launch to date: an online business course called the Empire Building Kit that eventually formed the basis for this book. For months I conducted interviews and research, capturing lessons from unconventional entrepreneurs and extracting the secrets of their success. As I prepared to make it available, though, I felt stuck—something wasn’t coming together, and I kept procrastinating on the launch date.
While planning a trip to Europe and West Africa, I had a flight booked that eventually would take me to Chicago but no onward ticket to my home in Portland. On a whim I checked the Amtrak schedule, thinking there was no way I’d want to take a train halfway across the country but I might as well take a look. To my surprise, the name of the Amtrak train from Chicago to Portland was the
Empire Builder
. Hmmm. I began to get an idea, but initially thought it was too crazy to implement. That same evening, the doorbell rang and the UPS guy dropped off a package. When I opened the box, I discovered a free messenger bag sent by some new friends at Tom Bihn’s company (profiled in
Chapter 13
). The name of the bag was …
Empire Builder
.
I’m not sure if God, the universe, or Tom Bihn’s company was sending me the message, but I decided to follow the idea where it led. I made plans to go to West Africa then fly home via Chicago and launch the Empire Building Kit on a single day, live from the
Empire Builder
train. Oh, and it also happened to be my birthday—so I made that part of the story as well.
I asked my friend J. D. Roth to come along with me, so he and I met up in Chicago and prepared for the journey. Upon embarking on the train, we set up a “blogger’s lounge” in the Amtrak viewing car complete with various Apple products—amusing the other passengers, many of whom were elderly sightseers. In the weeks before the big day, I had been telling my community about the plan with a mixture of excitement and dread; I was excited to launch the new course but scared that I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time. With so much riding on the story, there was no flexibility on the date and no backup plan if things didn’t work out.
Thankfully, everything worked as it should. I finished the final copyedits on my Lufthansa flight to Chicago. Two days later, we launched the Empire Building Kit to hundreds of eager buyers, many of whom had been waiting for it since the pre-launch campaign. The launch cleared over $100,000 in sales before I turned it off exactly twenty-four hours later as our train rolled through Washington State and down into Oregon. The message had a good story and built-in timeliness: Once we hit Portland, the deal was over.
My favorite part was receiving emails from people who said they weren’t interested in the course but had been enjoying the story of the train ride. I don’t always get it right, but this time everything fell into place.
After finishing a university course, Andreas Kambanis struggled for six months, not wanting to get a real job and trying to build something for himself. The goal was to develop an iPhone app and
online guide to London cycling routes, but the initial setbacks were significant. Among other things, Andreas used the name
London Cyclist
before realizing that there already was a publication with that name, triggering an angry letter and the threat of a lawsuit. Meanwhile, all of his friends had gone on to work for companies, so they had money to go out at night while Andreas stayed home.
Andreas stuck it out, planning for his first launch with a partner right before leaving on a personal trip to Brazil. A few weeks before departure, the partner dropped out. Andreas cut back on the expected deliverables but decided to keep going with both the launch and the trip.
The big day came, and he launched the app from the Heathrow airport departure lounge literally thirty minutes before boarding the flight. Settling into economy class for the eleven-hour flight, he had plenty of time to think about his new business, but in the days before in-flight Internet was common, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. As he explained later, going offline right after releasing the app probably wasn’t the best decision, but without much of an audience, he didn’t expect any real results to appear right away. After finally touching down in São Paulo, Andreas couldn’t resist activating the roaming feature of his iPhone for a quick check.
Bleary-eyed and sitting in a cramped window seat, he pulled up the numbers and couldn’t believe what he saw—a pile of orders was flooding in, just as Karol and Adam had experienced earlier. It wasn’t a fortune, but in the time he had been flying across the Atlantic, the launch had paid for his plane ticket and the first week of lodging. Andreas continued on to a connecting flight to Rio, abandoning all hope of not using the roaming option on his phone, and kept watching the sales come through.
I prefer to spend my launches at home with sixteen ounces of coffee in hand, dealing with the inevitable technical glitch while
communicating with partners and buyers. But in this case, having the forced deadline of the upcoming flight—and then getting on the plane in Heathrow, ready or not—served as a powerful motivation for Andreas. “It’s hard to put into words why the physical deadline was such an important part of getting the project done,” he told me. “I think it was so motivational because it seemed impossible to achieve, and it made me kill everything that didn’t add to the project being finished.”
‡
A good launch strategy can help almost any business, online or offline. Let’s take a look at how an independent publishing company used the same tactics that worked for Karol and Adam, but for a launch that was completely offline and local. Anastasia Valentine publishes children’s books and used to work with “big companies who had gigantic marketing budgets.” Naturally, she didn’t have access to the same kind of resources for her own launch, but she knew enough to create anticipation over time for a specific event.
The first part was to start with the ask—to ask everyone she knew for help. “We weren’t sure how to filter our requests,” Anastasia said, “so instead of filtering, we just asked everyone for everything. We asked for newspaper coverage, TV appearances, endorsements, donations for a big party, and anything else we could think of.”
The requests paid off when she got a positive response to almost everything. When the big day arrived, the line went out the door, and Anastasia had made sure to create a good experience for the attendees. Since adults who buy children’s books usually arrive with kids in tow, she added coloring spaces and a homemade pin-the-tooth-on-the-crocodile contest. Even though the launch was for an
offline event, Web traffic increased by 267 percent and the mailing list doubled. Learning to ask was also instructive. “People we didn’t think would have the slightest interest showed up … with friends!” she said. “Meanwhile, people who we thought were totally interested never even responded. The lesson was that you shouldn’t assume someone isn’t interested or won’t attend or won’t buy.”
If you’re just getting started with your own launch planning, check out the Thirty-Nine-Step Product Launch Checklist below. This checklist has two uses: as a template for a new business planning its first launch and as an idea generator for an existing business.
Thirty-Nine-Step Product Launch Checklist
Note: Every product launch is different. Use these steps as a guideline to your own. Often by adding one or two steps you would otherwise leave out, you’ll get a significant increase in sales.
THE BIG PICTURE
1. Ensure that your product or service has a clear value proposition.
*
What do customers receive when exchanging money for your offer?2. Decide on bonuses, incentives, or rewards for early buyers. How will they be rewarded for taking action?
3. Have you made the launch fun somehow? (Remember to think about non-buyers as well as buyers. If people don’t want to buy, will they still enjoy hearing or reading about the launch?)
4. If your launch is online, have you recorded a video or audio message to complement the written copy?
5. Have you built anticipation into the launch? Are prospects excited?
6. Have you built
urgency
—not the false kind but a real reason for timeliness—into the launch?7. Publish the time and date of the launch in advance (if it’s online, some people will be camped out on the site an hour before, hitting the refresh button every few minutes).
8. Proofread all sales materials multiple times … and get someone else to review them as well.
9. Check all Web links in your shopping cart or payment processor, and then double-check them from a different computer with a different browser.
*
This is superimportant! USP means “unique selling proposition” and refers to the one thing that distinguishes your offering from all others. Why should people pay attention to what you are selling? You must answer this question well.
NEXT STEPS
10. If this is an online product, is it properly set up in your shopping cart or with PayPal?
11. Test every step of the order process repeatedly. Whenever you change any variable (price, order components, text, etc.), test it again.
12. Have you registered all the domains associated with your product? (Domains are cheap; you might as well get the .com, .net, .org, and any very similar name if available.)
13. Are all files uploaded and in the right place?
14. Review the order page carefully for errors or easy-to-make improvements. Print it out and share it with several friends for review, including a couple of people who don’t know anything about your business.
15. Read important communications (launch message, order page, sales page) out loud. You’ll probably notice a mistake or a poorly phrased sentence you missed while reading it in your head.
16. Have you or your designer created any custom graphics for the offer, including any needed ads for affiliates or partners?
MONEY MATTERS
17. Set a clear monetary goal for the launch. How many sales do you want to see, and how much net income? (In other words, what will success look like?)
18. Advise the merchant account or bank of incoming funds.
*19. Create a backup plan for incoming funds if necessary (get an additional merchant account, plan to switch all payments to PayPal, etc.).
20. Can you add another payment option for anyone who has trouble placing an order?
21. For a high-priced product, can you offer a payment plan? (Note: It’s common to offer a slight discount for customers paying in full. This serves as an incentive for customers who prefer to pay all at once while providing an alternative for those who need to pay over time.)
*
Merchant accounts are paranoid about large sums of money arriving in a short period of time. If you don’t give them a heads-up, you might run into problems.
THE NIGHT BEFORE
22. Clear as much email as possible in addition to any other online tasks so you can focus on the big day tomorrow.
23. Write a strong launch message to your lists of readers, customers, and/or affiliates.
24. Prepare a blog post and any needed social media posts (if applicable).
25. Set two alarm clocks to ensure that you’re wide awake and available at least one hour before the scheduled launch.
THE BIG MORNING
26. Schedule your launch time to suit your audience, not you. All things being equal, it’s usually best to launch early in the morning, East Coast time.
27. Soft launch at least ten minutes early to make sure everything is working. It’s better for you to find the problems than to have your customers find them!
28. Write the first three to five buyers to say thanks and ask, “Did everything go OK in the order process?” (Side benefit: These buyers are probably your biggest fans anyway, so they’ll appreciate the personal check-in.)
29. As long as it’s possible, send a quick personal note to every buyer in addition to the automated thank-you that goes out. (If it’s not possible every time, do it as often as you can.)
PROMOTION (CAN BE DONE ON THE DAY OF LAUNCH OR BEFORE)
30.
Most important:
Ask for help spreading the word. Many readers, prospects, and acquaintances will help by telling their friends and followers, but you have to ask them.31. Write to affiliates with a reminder about the new offering.
32. Write to journalists or media contacts, if appropriate.
33. Post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social networks you already participate in. (It’s not usually a good idea to join a new network just to promote something.)
FOLLOW-UP (DO THIS IN ADVANCE)
34. Write the general thank-you message that all buyers will receive when purchasing.
35. If applicable, write the first message for your email follow-up series that buyers will receive.
36. Outline additional content for future communication and plan to schedule it after you recover from the launch.
GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND
37. How can you overdeliver and surprise your customers with this
product? Can you include additional deliverables or some kind of unadvertised benefit?38. Is there anything special you can do to thank your customers? (For a high-price launch, send postcards to each buyer; for something extra, call a few of your customers on the phone.)
THE SECOND TO LAST STEP
39. Don’t forget to celebrate. It’s a big day that you’ve worked up to for a long time. Go out to your favorite restaurant, have a glass of wine, buy something you’ve had your eye on for a while, or otherwise do something as a personal reward. You’ve earned it.
THE VERY LAST STEP
40. Start thinking about the next launch. What can you build on from this one? What did you learn that can help you create something even better next time?
Remember, many customers will support you for life as long as you keep providing them with great value. It’s much easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one, so work hard to overdeliver and plan ahead for the next project. (For example, when promising a thirty-nine-step checklist, throw in an extra step.)