Busting Mid-Launch Lulls (+ Other Strategies To Maximize Open Cart)

We are going to discuss busting the mid-launch lulls , as in that dip that happens after you finish your webinar , cart opens and some people buy , but then all of a sudden it's crickets for a moment and you've been told sales can come back up .

Well , I'm inviting back the two specialists that you've heard in the previous two episodes and we're going to share with you things like how to overcome the lull , of course , how to turn around a lackluster launch , how to build momentum , how to allow space in your launch to have genuine conversations with your launch registrants so you can answer their questions , how

to speak in different ways to motivate different kinds of people to buy your program , how to overcome objections and limiting beliefs . And , of course , because I'm the host , you're going to get some Facebook ad strategy that will help you convert more of your launch registrants into clients or customers .

If you have not heard the first two episodes in this series , they are in the show notes below , and the two guests on this episode are the launch strategist , brynna McGowan . She was a previous guest on the Art of Online Business podcast .

She's a copywriter , she's the creator of Anticipation Marketing and she knows all things that have to do with a successful online course launch . And also joining us will be Allison Hardy she's an email marketing strategist who helps coaches and experts enroll more people into their online programs or memberships , and , of course myself , quayjo hi .

I'm a Facebook ad strategist . I've been doing this for online course creators for the better part of the past four years at the time of the recording of this episode , and let's get into the episode .

Hello , hello hello , and in this episode we are talking about maximizing the cart open process , and so I want to kick it off with the thing that I think a lot of people really , really struggle with , and that is the mid cart lull . So , brenna , do you have any help or any tips to help our audience overcome this thing that all of us experience ?

It was super quiet and I remember waking up and just being like I'm going to detach myself from the results and it's so easy to say and hard to do so I don't know how else to express that I just was like whoever is supposed to be in is in . If I don't make my goal , it's not the end of the world .

And I had a bit of a mantra that I would say , which I'm not super mantra-ish , but where I was just like the right people are going to be in , I'm going to have this income . And once I was able to and I think too , if we're being quite honest I was like this is what I do .

And so I think I was putting extra pressure on myself like , oh , I can't launch , then how are people going to buy from me ? Right , like I started , as my husband calls it , my spiral and I was spiraling down and I was able to detach myself and really focus on helping the right people get into the program that needed to be into the program and I it was .

It was like night and day .

It was like something switched and once I was able to let it go , I think that and coincidentally , masha Goins , who's on the season of Behind the Launch that will have aired by this time , talked about this a little bit as well in this which is like there's something that happens when you detach yourself in that way that people can feel it right , no one you

think of someone like . I think back to like when I was like a teenager . I have teenagers right now , so it's probably what's on my mind but when there's someone who's like really needy , you kind of like repulse , right , that's your natural instinct .

And so I think there's when you , when you come off like I got this , I'm confident , I don't care what happens People can sense that . They can sense that confidence and it shows through and I also think it changes and I'm not super woo , but I do think it changes the energy around you and people can feel that energy .

So I think that is the really important part is , yeah , we can go in thinking like this , but when you're in that moment of crap , no one's buying I stink . Is anyone going to buy ? Is this going to be a quote , unquote , failed launch ?

Like saying no , like this , I was supposed to do this for one , for whatever reason that people are going to be in here and need to be in here . I'm going to learn something from this .

And then people come up to wherever you were , or if you're going and knocking on doors , and it's just your demeanor changes from uh , like I have this great thing . This is just a numbers game . The people who were meant to you know who need the help , will get the help from me , and the people who won't , won't . I'm just going to keep on going .

Like people who I talk to are intelligent enough to make a decision to oh my gosh , I need to , I need them to buy . Like will you buy from me ? Like what's wrong ? What did I do wrong ? Like it's a whole different energy . It's not even a woo thing , it's just a thing . Let's call it a scientific thing .

Two , if you were doing like talking to camera type stuff for your registration , then make sure that you have a different outfit on for your car open ads that way visually , even in your graphic design , that people can tell this is different from the ads that I was seeing across my feed before , because that does matter .

I've seen things in a headline like I'll just give you one , like I'll just give you one Doors closing Three . Dot dot dot two , dot dot dot one . That's one of my favorite go-tos for my clients because it gets people to pay attention towards the end of your cart open period .

Also , I get this question from people that I coach and Facebook ads one-on-one and clients that I manage . They're like ah , but should we really spend money to show ads , cart open ads to my email list ? Because , like it's my organic email list , they're going to see my emails anyway .

Or another version of this is because I already paid money for lead magnet ads to get people on the list . So , like , isn't it kind of a waste to show money to the list or show ads to the list ? And I want to say absolutely not .

Statistically , what I'm seeing is anywhere from like three to 5% of an entire email list ever registers for the launch anyway . So that means if you put your hard work into building an email list of like 10,000 people , then you got max 500 people registering organically and the other people didn't even look or open those emails or register . What have you ?

So , yes , target your email list to with your ads in addition to your other very warm audiences , and that should be Help bring awareness or spread awareness about your cart open period to the people who may not have seen your webinar or didn't attend your launch , like didn't actually register for it .

I can tell you my favorite strategy is to use that vertical video with good ad copy to let people know that cart is open , but then also to have graphics designed in Canva as Brenna was saying in the past episode the four by five ratio and retarget your website visitors , because Facebook ads usually won't actually turn on or start firing , so to speak , if the

audience isn't big enough .

And so a mistake I've seen people make is they just put the URL of their sales page as the audience and say , okay , facebook show ads to people who visited the sales page , but then , because not enough people went there , the ads never actually start spending , and so the trick you can do to get around that is just target everyone who's visited your website or

wherever your pixel's installed . This is usually an audience that's called website visitors and then within that will also be your sales page , and so the people that actually visit your sales page will see a different kind of ad than the one that may have gotten them there in the first place .

If that makes sense , they get there on the video ad and then , after they visited it , they might see another graphic . It's just about making sure a variety of ads are being shown to your audience , and that goes really well with complementing emails that are sent out to your list , which I'm sure either of you could talk about .

You know the program and different types of results . So like I usually have like a pretty common result , open up that portion of the pitch sequence . So it's like a regular run of the mill testimonial . You know results that people get and then they progressively get bigger .

Because what I find is that when you lead with like that really big testimony like all of us have , like the one that's like lights changing and like so great and wonderful , but also like not common , if we lead with that it actually intimidates people and they're like well , like wow , that sounds great .

I'm not capable of doing that and so doubt starts to creep in about like if the program is good for them .

So if we reverse it , if we put like the run of the mill testimonials first and then gradually lead up to those bigger ones , it still scoops those really ambitious people up Right , the one at the end but also it scoops the people up who are more like objection or have more objections than like most people .

So that's how I really combat , like like middle of the cart lull . But also I think the emails at the end are really important . I think that we all have , you know , the people who buy right off . They're probably like already sold before , like the open cart sequence even starts .

But those people at the end , they're the ones that need just a little bit more from us . So if we can have emails at the end that are more .

I usually do a couple of pain point emails , not like the type of pain point emails where you like stab them with a knife and then turn it and like we just live in the pain , like we don't do that , but like if you can call out , you know what they're experiencing , what they're saying , what they want to get rid of , and just be like hey , I get it , I

hear you , I see you , I can help you with that . I think those sorts of emails really help to reassure people and help them to feel like I am going to get you know what I need out of this program or I am going to move farther away from my pain point , or that transformation is actually possible for me because she actually understands me .

And I think that's a really important part of those open cart emails , especially the ones towards the end , is that you calling out like I get it , I understand where you are . Because , also , you have to remember like people think , while we are just regular people , people don't view us as like regular people .

They think we have everything figured out , they think everything is perfect , that we like do all these things all the time and it's completely like we're all normal . Right , those emails help to kind of like they view you like kind of on a pedestal .

So if you can , you know , bring it to be more , even if they view you as like , yeah , you're really good at this thing and yeah , you understand them , but like , let's level the playing field a bit . I think , again , that helps them to feel seen and heard , and when people feel seen and heard , they buy , yeah , I love that .

I'm showing my cell phone , if you're watching this on like a YouTube channel , for example , because this one I got from I believe it was Pat Flynn back when I had a previous business teaching Chinese and I did launch then and the subject line was I recorded this video for you and then all you do is you take out your phone vertical and just like hold it up

and level with somebody . This would you're picturing the person who's just on the fence and and really not sure , maybe it is like closer to that . Your offer is kind of closer to like their max as far as what they can afford , but they're just not sure . And so , just like if you were talking to somebody in real life , you know who's like .

You know Brenna , I just don't know . Or like I'll say not I want to , but you know who's like . You know brenna , I just don't know . Or like allison , I want to , but whatever , and you just level with them .

You know completely unscripted kind of and but definitely very natural , outside of your normal podcasting background , if you will , maybe you're just on the street walking and then you upload that to youtube uh , don't make it public though , it's unlisted video and then you just link that video directly inside the email and so there's nothing fancy in that email .

It's just I recorded this for you and inside the email is just the link , and I used it in my previous business and got plenty because I could see plenty of views on that video .

Another thing that I know worked really well for me my last couple well especially , I think I'm thinking of two launches ago was announcing you know , most of us were most of our objections are always going to be around time and money .

Most of us were most of our objections are always going to be around time and money , and so announcing an extended payment plan . I know once I did that . It was like I had like three people buy right away . Like that was the thing that was holding them back , and having that lower amount that they could pay every month made a big difference as well .

they crave that authenticity and like that like very off the cuff kind of casualness and , like what you were saying , brenna , like a lot of sales emails . You know they're kind of formulaic , but when you have that pattern interrupter , it can be a great way to just get like . It's like oh , what's this ? This is new .

And anytime you have that new thing , people are more likely to be like what is this ? Let's check it out ?

There's different ways to use that , where you're just kind of leveling and talking to someone , can just feel , and I think it goes once again , we've talked so much about like talking to different people that some someone might need that like face-to-face contact to really help make the difference .

Let's keep it short , you know , because it makes it easier for you as the person having the launch to keep that momentum going and also you don't have to write tons of emails if you have like a 14 day open cart period .

But then also , if we give people in general , the more time we give people to decide , the fewer people are going to decide Because again life comes in and they might be well intentioned . Ah , you know , I see that this is available . I can make the decision two weeks from now , but then everything will happen in between that and they'll forget about it .

So shorter the better for a car open period . Curious to hear what you guys think .

I know I interviewed Daniel Throssell for Behind the Launch I'm going off of memory here , but I think at one point he was doing like three days and I was like , oh , that sounds dreamy , right , but it just depends . For my launches or even clients , I'm looking at more like six or seven days .

It just depends too Like , is your audience a you know if you're doing four days , is it Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday ? Is your audience you know if you have a bunch of busy moms , are they going to be buying on a Friday afternoon when they're running their kids around ? So I think those are considerations to make as well .

I know that'll be in the show notes as well and that just kind of can help you start to figure out what could your prelaunch content look like .

You can find it at alisonhardycom forward slash 80000 , 80,000 email .

It's called the seven biggest mistakes that course creators are making with Facebook ads that just burn through their money . And it's not fluff , it's not just a list , it's actually me inside of Facebook ad manager showing you the mistakes and the solution for that mistake , and so you can get that in the show notes below or at theartofonlinebusinesscom .

Forward slash mistakes .