We're back. If you haven't listened to part one of this series where I'm breaking down the market like a CEO launch debrief, definitely go back because in part one, we covered the wins, the data, and the mindset shifts that made the launch such a success. But today, okay, we gonna get into the of nitty gritty, what didn't work, what I would change, what I'm going to do differently, how I'm thinking about next steps. And without tell anyone gearing up for a launch like this.
So I'm not gonna do a ton of background because we covered that in the last episode, but there's a few things that I also tested out during this launch that was pretty interesting, and I'm like, it feels like a rookie mistake, but I'm like, okay, this happens and I'm taking note and this is what I'm gonna do differently next time. So during the launch, probably maybe a week before I opened cart, I decided that I was gonna also include a Zoom info session.
Most people typically offer these types of info sessions or webinars at the very beginning of a launch to kick off the launch momentum. For me, I was like, I really want to test and see how much. I can really just rely on my messaging, my emails, my Instagram content to move people to buy, and at the very tail end for my decision makers who are like, I'm really interested, but I don't know, they're on the fence.
So lukewarm folks, I wanted to do like a last minute push to get people over the edge, and that was really my mindset into this. I wanted to focus because this was a brand new offer. I, it was a brand new delivery format. I didn't want to rely on a webinar or like a large launch event to. Catapult sales In the beginning I wanted to just focus on my email and Instagram and really rely on that first and foremost.
But I still wanted to do some sort of live info session because I didn't do any live streams during this launch. Again, this is part of the testing parameters of launching something new. I'm also very seasoned. I've been doing this for a long time.
I have a very warm audience, so I wanted to test out like the lowest and minimum viable product given what my current circumstances were, the warmth of my audience, the interest I already knew that was there, that I had already validated, and I talked a lot about that during part one in the series, but I wanted to still do some sort of live interactive.
Something and I did just an info session, so it was not like this structured webinar where I taught a lot of stuff and then at the very end I pitched you or anything like that. It was a Zoom call. People could register. It was low barrier to entry and it was like, Hey, there's 48 hours left before cart closes if you wanna come. Come, I'll answer any last minute questions you have and just help you make a decision.
So 66 people signed up for the info session and this info session was not heavily promoted. It was like in the PS sub, like the PS section of a few, like maybe three or four emails, and I think I might've did one or two Instagram stories just telling my Instagram audience about it. So it wasn't like, again, it was not like a typical launch event where I was trying to rally up all this energy and excitement or whatever, but it was like a last minute.
If you're lukewarm and on the fence, come talk to me. Let's help you make a decision. And I still wanted, again, to do something, even though this was a low ticket offer, like we've been talking about a lot, people's discernment is ridiculously high right now. As it should be, like for good reason.
I'm glad we are more discerning in this digital marketing space right now, but from a seller's perspective, I'm like, okay, I still wanna create that human touchpoint to help establish that trust for anybody who's on the edge. So like I said, 66 people signed up, which I thought was great from just a few emails in the PS section and like two Instagram stories. Again, it was like 48 hours before cart closed. And I will say that people who let me pull the data really quickly.
Of the people who joined the info session, I would say maybe five of them actually purchased the course. So it wasn't like this huge conversion moment. This was also hard to track because I did notice that the people who joined the info session they, some of the people who purchased the course use different email addresses to purchase. So I'm not able to like.
It's hard to find out the exact data there, but I was still able to look at the people who clicked, how they were tagged in my email marketing system, like six people who opted in for the info session ended up buying like five or six people. But I do know that people who did purchase, they literally told me like they bought on the call and, and they were my very warm existing audience members. People who have been following me for years had purchased from me before.
Who were still discerning, like they didn't, it wasn't that they didn't trust me, it wasn't that they didn't think this was a good offer, it wasn't any of that. But like they still needed human contact to trust themselves that this was the right decision.
And I think that that is just, again, really telling I. If I was to do this differently next time, I probably would host my info session earlier in the launch window more, like probably at the very beginning or maybe midway through versus me waiting to just last 48 hours just to get more of that contact in. I, and I do think that's really important, but also to create a, a window runway to offer the replay because the info session happened so close to. Cart closed. I never sent out the replay.
There was no replay for people to watch. So I would've done that just so that there could have been more time for people to consume that 'cause. I do think that would've contributed to maybe more lukewarm buyers who did have a high level of trust with me, who were very warm in my audience, but still needed some sort of touchpoint to make the decision. I think that would've contributed to more sales, but I also feel like I could have repurposed that replay.
A little bit more strategically just even in my email content based off of like learnings and messaging that I was getting live on the call, being able to infuse it into the launch copy. I didn't have that, because we were so close to cart close. I didn't redo the last few emails, but that's something I would do differently. I'd still keep the info session.
I would just do it earlier, maybe again, like maybe midway through the launch and leverage the replay a little bit more and have a replay option for people to watch if they were on the fence. Now, I told you in the last episode I had 84% of people who viewed the sales page. Went to the checkout page, which is freaking bananas, like Sales Page was doing what it was meant to do, honey.
And I didn't mention in that episode, but like the messaging for the sales page was the same messaging that was performing well on Instagram on my content that I had validated first. And it was the exact same messaging that I was mirroring in my email. So again, there was just high level of congruency. For messaging on all channels that people were consuming during the entire launch, pre-launch and everything. And I think, again, that is something that I will do differently next time.
I haven't really had a launch or have sold an offer where I had that much congruency from messaging on all platforms. Usually I make a sales page and the messaging would be slightly different than the messaging that I was using on Instagram or my social, and that'd be different than the messaging I was using in email.
This time I really mirrored it across the board, and I think that that made a huge difference as to why we had such a high percentage of people who viewed the check the sales page, go to the checkout page. Now where we had maybe a bit of a drop off. I still think it's a great conversion rate, but my checkout page converted at about 10 to 11%, which I still think is great.
But with 84% of people going from the sales page to the checkout, I would've liked to see a higher sales page conversion rate. I, my sales page, my checkout page where people were actually buying was not optimized for much of anything. Okay. There was a big graphic image of like little bits of what was inside of the course. Basically the contact information, credit card information, and that was it. The next time I do this, I'm actually going to optimize the checkout page a bit more.
It was something I just didn't really think about. I just. Pulled up some really generic Thrive Cart checkout page. Thrive Cart is what I use for my checkout pages. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes in case you wanna check out that software. I really like it because it's a onetime purchase, not a monthly recurring purchase. But they, they're like, I wanna make sure on the checkout page I have stronger risk reversal.
Like meaning, showing more testimonials on the actual checkout page, showing more social proof that, we have, we have a five star client review that, you know. 30% of people who took the course, basically completed it within the first week. Like I wanna have stronger risk reversal on the checkout page. I wanna change and test out different checkout page design formats. 'cause again, I use a very basic. Generic template. And I also really wanna start doing some more abandoned cart follow up.
'cause there was such a high amount of people who went to the checkout page. I would like to do an abandoned cart email sequence that's specifically for people who did the checkout. And I probably would use messaging that I got from the info session to tailor that to somebody who has high interest, high level of warmth, but still is I don't know about making the decision.
I probably will also do a, before you buy video, I like, I did a Loom video in the email, like we talked about that email, the Loom video that really just gave a walkthrough of the actual course. That Loom video only existed in that email, so that might be something I test out either on the sales page or either on the checkout page so that people have more of a visual of what's going on.
So. Those are the things I would probably be going to tweak to the checkout page moving forward, because it's just the sales page converted so beautifully, and I would love to see a higher conversion rate on the actual checkout, checkout page. So the metrics I really cared about and what I don't for this launch, like the metrics that really mattered. I loved, again, the fact that I had such, a, a healthy amount of first time buyers. About 52% of people who purchased this.
Purchase for the very first time for me, it was the first time they were buying something from me. Again, this offer also really let me know, and something I will continue to do differently next time, is make sure that the offer that I'm selling, if I do a one-off offer, is still directly aligned with what is needed for the nucleus core offer of my business, which is private one-on-one.
So the fact that 52% of people were first time buyers, but the other 48% of buyers were repeat clients of mine. Who had either bought one-on-one for me before, had bought one of my historical programs like Leverage or Legacy in the past, had joined a mastermind, had bought another workshop of mine from years ago.
This let me know that this offer still solves a, a problem that my current audience has that's still directly correlated to priming somebody and qualifying somebody to want to work with me again. And I think that's really, really important. Like how are you still solving the problems of your existing audience and increasing that lifetime value? And again, if I were to create a new offer.
I wanna, I will make sure to, maintain that congruency in the solution as it relates to really what the core nucleus of my business model is. Other thing that worked really well again, is the email click through conversion rates. About 55% of people who purchased clicked the sales page from some email.
So leveraging email and mirroring the messaging across the board is again, is something I will do again in the next launch or just maintain and as a rule of thumb and anything that I'm selling in the future. And the wait list, like I really believe in having a runway. For an offer, especially if it is new. But in today's type of climate, when we are in a more discerning climate and more of a trust recession, people are taking longer to make a decision.
It's not that they're not going to make a decision, it's not that they don't want to work with you, but they are being much more methodical about when and how they do it. And just honoring that. So I probably will continue to have a wait list across the board. I have a wait list for my private one-on-one. It's a huge reason why when I open up one-on-one coaching spots they sell out so fast is because there is a wait list and I'm nurturing that wait list. I'm talking to that wait list.
I am, creating content to build that relationship and establish that trust and create that connection so that when it does, when a spot does open up, it sells out really fast. And I think that that really went to show here 'cause about 18% of the sales that I had for this launch happened by way of wait list purchasers. And that is something that I will do differently. Or maintain consistency on in in the future is maintaining wait list and doing a wait list for my offer.
Having some sort of incentive for people to join the actual wait list like I did during this launch. When people joined the wait list, they got early access to lesson one of the course, and then I had a wait list. Email sequence follow up on the end there where they could purchase the course before I even finished creating it. And I think that really helped, again, validate the offer, build momentum. It gave me conviction, to continuously move forward.
And then the people that purchased before the program was even done, who purchased during the wait list time period, I reached out to them. Okay. I talked to them, I asked them, what are you most looking forward to seeing inside of this course? And that gave me really good insight. And it gave me a lot of affirmation that what I had been planning to put in the course was congruent with why, like what they were hoping they would get.
But it also gave me some really good intel that I was able to add a few things into my course that otherwise I wouldn't have thought of if I wouldn't have asked them. So I think that that was really a big thing for me too.
The things that I cared very less, like I cared less about was vanity metrics, like Instagram likes, Instagram follow new followers and honestly, even Instagram views, I. And as I feel like I say this all the time, and even though I know this to the core, it's still hard not to pay attention to those vanity metrics on social because the other thing that I'm noticing, my audience has always type, typically been lurkers. They are silent decision makers. They will watch me, consume me, read me.
They do not publicly engage. Often until after they've actually bought from me. And that is very common buyer behavior pattern. When you're dealing with more affluent buyers, you're dealing with more sophisticated consumers, and especially when you typically sell more higher ticket, those people want privacy like they. I don't know what it is. It's like you, you don't you will privately share who your coach is and who you're learning from, but they very rarely will wanna do that publicly.
And I just know that about my buyer and I'm just like, even when I'm selling this type of offer, I went in with that mentality. And so that one, one thing I really paid attention to was just creating content. That yes, I, if it gets likes, great. If it gets new followers, great. But that wasn't the goal. The goal was just what is, what needs to be communicated and what needs to be said.
For my private and silent decision makers, how can I speak to them and what are other metrics I can pay attention to that lets me know that they are noticing that have nothing to do with likes, and I pay attention to the number of saves. It's quite, it's really interesting that during this launch, all of my launch content. I had equally amounts amount of saves, and sometimes my posts had more saves and I had likes, which lets me know folks were seeing it, honey.
Okay. They were like, they were saving it to their profile to come back and revisit. But they may not even double tap the dang on thing. And I know if you're listening, you probably did that too if you purchased the course. 'cause that's just, that's just who my audience is. And I think that that is just something we need to normalize is like pay attention to what your buyer behavior pattern is of your buyers.
Okay. Like my most active people on public engagement on social, they usually have already bought from me. Or they're like my evangelists. They are my rock hard. They've been, riding with me for a long time, but they're not like my biggest buyers. Now, I do think it's very interesting that people will comment and like my, see a post, wanna comment on it. They will send the post to my Instagram dms and then DM me what they could have just commented publicly. That happens also very often.
Open rates without clicks. I really paid attention to my actual emails. I logged everything inside of my content hub inside of Airtable. I use Airtable for all of my data management. And I would, every day I would track the email that was sent, the subject lines that we tested.
I ab tested pretty much all of my emails that were sent out to see which sub subject lines worked better and performed better for the and then we'd track the daily metrics of click-through rates, open rates number of unsubscribes all that type of data. And then I also track the number of sales that happen on that day. Now, I can't contribute all those sales directly to that email, but it's still good information for us to look at.
And I really just paid attention to, I did look at open rates, which was important. 'Cause it helped me know okay, the messaging for the subject line, are we doing what we need to do? Do we need to test or tweak this? But I really paid attention to the emails that had the highest click through rates, because once somebody got in, it's okay, which emails are really driving people?
And what messaging is within that email that's really driving people to want to click And actually look at my sales page, honey. And I thought that was very, very interesting what we noticed there. And I just highly recommend that you track that data and look at, the click through rates and, but look at it from a different lens and how you're looking at your open rates.
'Cause that really just was very telling on what messaging performed well, what messaging we should double down on if we ever were to sell this again or launch this again or what have you. And it was just also really interesting to see the. The daily sales. Historically when I would do launches, I would get a big amount of sales at the very beginning. I think maybe 30% of sales would happen within the first 48 hours.
And then like I would have a heavy amount of deadline dancers at the very, very end where 40 or 50% of our sales will happen in the last 48 hours. It was like most sales happen within the, at a 48 hour window at the very beginning and end of a launch. This launch, it was pretty steady throughout, which I thought was pretty interesting. We, we, it wa it wa it just wasn't as much of a gap as it used to be.
There were definitely days where there were like spikes and peaks and there was still like a good amount of people that bought at the very end, but it was much more steady throughout, which again, I think is like a shift in buyer behavior pattern that we're noticing that I'm noticing across the board even for my clients. And that changes again, how we emotionally relate to our launches. Because I think most of us are used to like dopamine hits at the beginning.
Then we freak out and we, maybe lose energy or get a little bit nervous and then we do this, like this last minute Hail Mary at the end. Versus I think me maintaining that neutral energy and that neutral emotional dynamic throughout this launch was really powerful because it did not have me aborting the mission. It did not have me, overthinking and like deleting things or stopping things that I had planned, or like feeling like I had to do this frantic things at the very end.
It was just like, maintain the course and the data really showed that it's okay for the, the launch was still great. Metrics were still good. It's just the sales, the pattern of how things happened looked a little bit differently. So advice that I would give for you for your next launch based off of what I've learned over this launch is, number one, while you're prepping for a launch, is give yourself a runway.
This is not a sprint, in order to give yourself a runway, that means your relationship to your business model has to change. Like giving yourself a 90 day runway for a new offer. Ask yourself right now, like what would have to change and how your offers are currently structured, how your business is currently operating, what systems would need to be set up for you to be able to be proactive long term in order for you to even give yourself a runway? I think that is something that I see.
Especially again for more seasoned business owners because I think very few of us have, have given ourselves that much of a runway historically. We used to be able to come up with an idea, launch it, sell it, it would sell out, it would perform well and in a very short timeframe. And it's not, I'm not saying that that can't still happen, but even when I think about my private one-on-one, I always have a wait list. I'm always nurturing those leads.
So when a spot does become open, it does typically sell out quickly. But you have to give context to that. I am still giving my private one-on-one prospects a longer wait list and nurturing them over a longer period of time so that when I do open up doors and if they are interested, they are able to move forward. But it's not like this random, I'm dropping this new thing out of nowhere and you have seven days to make this high pressure decision around, a three or four figure price tag offer.
So I think that that is going to require us to, to change how we are leading our business and how we are structuring our models. And like where, and when we are choosing to sell and launch different things, to create that runway, to create more success in our launch, because we do need that time to build that trust. We do that need that time to help our clients trust themselves in whatever decision that they're making.
We need to give our audience time to make a decision, not feel this high level of intensity and pressure and fomo and manipulation. And really, quite honestly, unethical tactics that might work and get the sale, but usually lead to higher refund rates, higher failed payment rates, a higher percentage of misaligned clients that you're having to deal with and work with over these long extended periods of contracts. Like I think that's the flip side. And I do think that even with this offer.
It's like people aren't asking for refunds after they bought because they trusted the decision that they made before they purchased. We're not dealing with like massive amounts of disputes or like refund requests or people like be feeling this buyer remorse because why We're not pressuring them into making a decision.
We are supporting them in making a decision and supporting them and trusting themselves in the decision that they're making through the messaging, through the launch strategy, through the runway we gave. But it's not this manipulative, coercive thing where it's get in or roast. Everything's gonna fall apart. It's sis chill out. And I think that buyers are becoming more discerning and that's why they are more discerning. 'cause many of us have purchased historically like that.
And we're not trying to repeat that pattern because we've, we've made those mistakes and you're dealing with a more, more evolved and more mature consumer. That's probably the biggest piece of advice I would give and where I would focus first if I'm preparing for a new launch is one is get clear on your messaging. I cannot emphasize that enough.
Because I think that if you're having a difficult time positioning the offer, coming up with a program promise for the offer, coming up with content to use to even pre-launch and warm up your list, you're coming, you're struggling with what to write on the sales page. It's not like you are doing the marketing activities, but you are missing, missing the messaging component, which makes those marketing activities effectively work.
Your messaging is what you say your marketing is where you say it, how you say it, the frequency at what you say it. But you have to nail what needs to be said. And I think that this launch really showed me that my messaging was doing its job, honey. Okay? I was marketing like a CEO, pun intended. Build your email list, and I don't mean build your email list in the sense of what I see a lot of digital marketers showing us to do.
Hey, if you just get a thousand people on your email list, you should be able to convert at least, 10% of them. I not like that. I mean, build, build your email list with a level of intentionality as it relates to the. Solution that you are selling, the vehicle that you are teaching, and what you can really do to create some level of to entice people to want to join your email list in correlation to the offer.
So similar here, I had a wait list with an incentive to listen to the first lesson of the first module. That gave me a high level of validation that that lead was, high, high level of warmth and had a high level of interest in what it was that I was selling. And that is what helped me grow the email list. But it wasn't like build the email list by all means. And the messaging I'm using to get them on the email list is totally misaligned from the offer that I'm selling.
That needs to be congruent. So that was really effective for me. And just mirror more of your content across multi-channels versus feeling like every channel that you are promoting needs to be totally different messaging. So that's what I mean by having a clear and a very simple content plan. I talk about this more in market like a CEO. Of how do you fill in those gaps to reduce perceived risk and align your messaging with how people are making buying decisions.
But like I mentioned before, I really mirrored my messaging. I started with Instagram as my primary platform where I tested a lot of different angles of messaging. Once the messaging was performing well, I mirrored that messaging in my emails. I mirrored that messaging in my podcast. I mirror that messaging on the sales page. So the messaging was core throughout, and then I just adapted, then adjusted the format to fit the platform. Where it was being re repeated and being mirrored.
So I think that was really effective. And what I will continue to do a few other things that I'm thinking about for next time or just for this, I'm still trying to make a decision on will I put this on Evergreen and if this is on Evergreen, will it primarily be organic evergreen, or if I'm gonna test out running paid ads to warm leads on Evergreen, that is something I have not made a decision on yet. This big, this whole launch was really a test to see how it would work, how it would perform.
I think based on my metrics, I feel like it will perform well in an evergreen format, but I'm still trying to decide what that will be, if I'll change the price, if it goes on Evergreen. So I'm still in the decision. I. Caliber around that. If you have any ideas, send me a DM and let me know. 'Cause I haven't ran paid ads in my business since 2017, which is bananas.
But I could see this performing very well as a way to just get new people into my world but also be able to offset the cost of ad spend with the purchase of this program. So that's still TBD. I do plan on possibly launching this at least annually, like doing a targeted launch similar to what I just did on an annual basis. That's something I, I can see happening down the line where it does have that live messaging mini mind upgrade.
So I might do this again next year as a live launch type of thing, like I just did here. And, but it really just depends on my capacity. So this year I'm really just testing a lot of things, seeing how it feels, seeing how it performs. Seeing what happens with it. I wanna finish the messaging mini mind out. 'cause I had three weeks of live coaching support, so we have one more live coaching call happening. I wanna finish that out and see what happens after that, before I make my decision.
But those are some things I am thinking about. Like I also gonna be do, doing differently. I will be introducing that abandoned cart email sequence after for it to increase and see what we can do to tweak the percentage of people who get to the checkout page and increase that conversion rate on that checkout page. And also just adjusting the design of that checkout page to see if we can increase that conversion. So those are all my biggest lessons learned from this launch.
What worked, what didn't, what I would do differently. Advice I have for you. I really hope this was insightful. I know I'm a little nosy Rosie. I love when people do launch debrief, so I wanted to share mine with you. If you have any other questions, pop them in the comments on this YouTube video. Or feel free to send me a DM over on Instagram. I'm at Isha Hawk. I would love to chat with you. And again, just thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you listening.
I appreciate you sharing this with a friend. If this ends up in your business, bestie group chat. Let me know. Okay? And I just hope you have a great rest of your day. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.