How to plan an online launch

Want to know how to plan an online launch? If you’ve been running an online business for a while then you are likely to come across the idea of having an online launch to sell a service, programme, course or product. You might have even seen other online business owners raving about how much money they made in their latest launch. But how do you launch? That is what I’m going to help you with. Keep on reading to find out how to plan an online launch.

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Step 1: Set your launch goals or objectives

To start planning an online launch you need to set your goals or objectives. These should directly feed into your main business goals or objectives.

One of your goals will be sales related which determines the volume of sales you want to make or the value of sales you want to generate. For example, you might set your goal to enrol 100 people into your membership or make £100,000 in sales.

But you can also set other goals for the launch. For example, you could also see your online launch as a key moment in the year where you increase brand awareness. As a result, you might set goals around growth in social media following, the number of new subscribers to your mailing list, the number of people who sign up to access your launch lead magnet or the volume of traffic that visits a specific webpage.

Once you’ve set your goals review them and ensure that they support your overall goals and that the numbers make sense.

For example, if you’ve set the goal of having 500 people attend your masterclass (which in this instance is your main launch lead magnet), but have set your launch sales goal as 1,500 sales then this needs reviewing. You are expecting to make 3x the sales than the number of people attending your masterclass and whilst yes you can make some sales from other marketing activities, you would expect the bulk of your sales to come from people who consumed your launch lead magnet.

Step 2: Set your cart open and cart close dates

A key part of running an online launch is that there is a cart open and a cart close. Before the cart opens people can’t buy and after the cart closes people can’t buy. The only opportunity to buy is within that window. And that window is essentially your launch.

There are two things to consider when setting your cart open and cart close moments. Firstly, you need to set a cart open moment that is far enough in the future for you to be able to successfully plan and prepare for your online launch. Secondly, you need to decide how long your launch window will be. Online it is common to have a launch that is between 5 to 10 days.

You should also check your cart open and close dates to see if they clash with anything significant that might reduce the impact of your launch.

GET YOUR LAUNCH PLAN CREATED IN JUST ONE DAY!

If the thought of making a plan for your launch by yourself is too much I’m here to help. With over a decade of planning online and offline launches, I’m well experienced at quickly creating marketing plans for successful launches.

Book a Strategy Day and you’ll get a whole day with me to make your entire launch plan. You’ll leave confident that you’ve done everything necessary to maximise the impact of your launch and have a plan that you can easily follow.

To find out more about my Strategy Days click here.

To discuss your specific needs and book a Launch Planning Day fill in my contact form here or book a call here.

Step 3: Define Your Ideal Client

A successful launch plan, like any marketing plan, needs to have a clear ideal client. Hopefully, you’ve already done some ideal client work for your business as a whole. But now you need to define your ideal client even further based on the specific service or product you are launching.

The more detailed you are about your ideal client the easier it will make your life when you have to make decisions around marketing messaging and marketing channels.

Also, once you have defined your ideal client you can estimate the number of people who fit your ideal client avatar and already know your business exists and are in your audience/community. This will then help you to gauge the number of new people you want to attract in the pre-launch phase.

Step 4: Create Your Key Messages

Now that you know what you are selling in your launch and who you are selling to it’s time to create the key messages for your launch campaign. These messages will be central to all of the content you create. You will need to have key messages for your pre-launch phase and your launch phase.

Many business owners focus on the messaging of their launch, but not the pre-launch. In many cases, a successful launch is based on the desire that is built up before the cart is open, which is why your pre-launch messaging is so important.

Step 5: Choose Your Marketing Channels

Next, you need to choose the marketing channels you are going to use for your online launch. Since this blog post is specifically focused on online launches I’ll only be discussing online marketing channels. The presumption is that you are not doing a physical launch event or using traditional marketing channels like print advertising. Instead, your options will be:

Email marketing
Social media marketing (TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook etc)
Content marketing (YouTube, podcast or blog)
Digital advertising (social media, pay-per-click or programmatic)
Affiliates
Guest appearances

As you can see there are a lot of options to choose from. In most cases businesses will use the marketing channels that they usually use to market their business. The additions might be to have a plan around guest appearances or you may decide to run an affiliate scheme and work with a number of affiliates.

GET YOUR LAUNCH PLAN CREATED IN JUST ONE DAY!

To find out more about my Strategy Days click here.

To discuss your specific needs and book a Launch Planning Day fill in my contact form here or book a call here.

Step 6: Create Your Online Launch Plan (Including Marketing Timeline)

This is the stage where you bring everything together and create your integrated marketing plan for your online launch. It is essential in launches that everything is working together and timings are really important so having a timeline so you can see everything together is key.

My preference is to create my marketing timeline on a spreadsheet, but you can also use a project-management system like Asana or Trello.

Regardless of the format you use, there are a few things you need to make sure are covered. You should have a daily breakdown so you can look at what is happening on a day-by-day basis. You should have three defined phases: pre-launch, launch and post-launch. And you should have your marketing activity broken down by channel.

Having this level of detail will help ensure not only that your online launch goes smoothly, but you can then work out exactly what needs to be created and by when.

To take your launch plan to the next level you can add deadlines to ensure you know when things need to be created by and in some cases scheduled by. This is important if you have a team and are dividing responsibilities, or if you are a solopreneur who is launching all by yourself. Being organised in advance and getting as much created in advance will help reduce stress during the launch.

That’s it! You now know how to plan an online launch.

Online launches are a popular sales mechanism for online businesses because they can result in a considerable spike in revenue and help support record-breaking sales months. However, whilst a cart might only be open 5 to 10 days there is so much that happens before to ensure that the launch is successful.

Planning your online launch in advance is key and by following the steps outlined in this blog post you’ll be able to plan an online launch for your own business.

Let me know in the comments what your biggest takeaway is.

GET YOUR LAUNCH PLAN CREATED IN JUST ONE DAY!

To find out more about my Strategy Days click here.

To discuss your specific needs and book a Launch Planning Day fill in my contact form here or book a call here.

Know that just having a plan isn’t enough? If you want ongoing training, support and accountability then I have ongoing mentoring programmes. For more information check out my services here.