The Six Launch Strategies That Doubled My Sales
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Episode Summary:
In this episode, I break down the six specific strategies I used to DOUBLE my course revenue during my launch last month—and how you can easily implement them for your next launch, too.
After eight years in the online space, I've seen huge shifts, and this launch was all about adapting to what I’m seeing work well right now. This is a practical episode, and I hope this helps you get even better results for your next launch!
Topics and Strategies Discussed:
Emphasizing no-work/done-for-you freebies
Building trust in a more skeptical market with a 30-day guarantee
Offering personal clarity calls to help overcome hesitation
Creating authentic urgency with a shorter launch window
Investing strategically to draw more aligned clients into the program
Using video to stand out with more AI in the online space
Episode Resources:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
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Anna (00:06):
Welcome to the Heart Centered Entrepreneur podcast. I want you to be rich. Yes, I want abundant financial success for your business, but I don't just care about your business making money. I care about you too. I want you to be rich and happiness and the impact you make in your relationships and in how you give back. I'm Anna. I built my six figure business as a side hustle while I was pregnant with my daughter in 2016. Now I've helped dozens of women do the same. I'm here to help you build a profitable heart-centered, fully booked business with the latest tips on sales and visibility with proven mindset hacks and sneak peeks behind the scenes with what's working right now in the online space and in my business, ready to make more money with heart. Let's go.
Anna (00:49):
Hi friends. I'm so excited to talk to you today about how I over doubled my enrollment when it comes to my online course that I've created and some of the practical things, six specific things that I did in order to double enrollment. And this is an interesting conversation 'cause you know, I've been in the online space for like eight years now and I do feel like what is working right now in online marketing has shifted a little bit. And some of what I did in this launch is the same as what I always do, but I also did some new things. And so I hope this is helpful for you if you have a launch coming up, whether it's for your 1 0 1 program or for a course or a group program or a mastermind, just so that you know what's working right now in the online space.
Anna (01:33):
I feel like when it comes to marketing and the good news is you'll find that all of these of course, are heart-centered principles, heart-centered things that feel really aligned sometimes that feel scary to get visible, to sell, to put ourself out there. But I think all six of these you'll be like, oh my goodness. Like that's easy. Okay, so let's dive in. I'm gonna talk about what I'm noticing in the online space and then the specific strategy I did in response to that change in the online space. I did all six of these things. Number one, I don't know if it's my perception, but I feel like people are busier than they used to be. And in the online space, I'm just really noticing that practically when it comes to attending a conversion event of mine, whether it's a webinar or a challenge or whatever, people are just busy, their plates are full.
Anna (02:25):
I mean, I can totally resonate with that. Like as a mama with little kids, right? Like I hesitate to sign up for something even if it's free, because even though it's not costing me money, it's costing me time. And that's precious, right? So I am hesitant to sign up for something if they're like join a 30 day challenge or something like that, right? Or they're like, listen to this four hour webinar, even if it's a webinar and I sign up for it and it's recorded and it's like two hours long. No, it's why my evergreen webinar is 20 minutes long, right? Anyway, so one thing that I did in response to me noticing that people and their schedules were a lot busier is that I emphasized, well actually I did two things. Number one, I've really been making my challenges shorter. I've really been decreasing the number of days, but I also been emphasizing for my challenges, challeng just come to the live and we'll do the work together.
Anna (03:20):
What I used to emphasize in my live marketing challenges is the value of it. This is like a free e-course, which it is, right? You get a video, you get a worksheet, you get all these things, you get all this information. But I find that that's not working as well right now as is a live challenge where all they have to do is sign up and attend the lives and we'll do the work together. And this is really how I run a lot of my programs. Now, my paid programs is on the live coaching call. We will workshop and do things together on my mastermind sessions. If we have extra time at the end, I'll have them do a journal prompt right there, I'll have them do an exercise live, right? And I find that people are just getting busier and we subconsciously know that.
Anna (04:06):
And so if you have a free training coming up, making sure you're emphasizing that all people have to do is show up and you'll do the work, right? Like all they have to do is show up to the webinar. They don't have to prepare themselves, they don't have to. I find a lot of times like I even have to tell, tell my current core students this. Like even if you're behind, even if you didn't watch the video that week, still come to the group call, right? And so I really emphasize this around in my challenge, like just the challenge is the lives. The lives is where the breakthrough happens. And so, and we know from research that people that attend something live with, whether it's a webinar or a challenge, they're two to three times more likely to convert if they're there. So number one, it helps with conversion, but I think it also just even helps someone sign up because they don't feel like, oh goodness, I'm signing up for this challenge.
Anna (04:55):
I'm gonna have five worksheets to do and I don't even have time to do one worksheet. You know? So that was one big shift that I made. I've always loved doing my lives, but I've just found that they have been especially impactful to emphasize that part of the challenge over maybe some of the deliverables. Okay? Another thing that I'm noticing in the online space right now is people have had more bad experiences with coaches or programs than they used to, right? Eight years ago, a lot of times when someone signed up for one of my programs, like I was the first coach they had worked with, I was the first program they had purchased, right? A lot of times after working with me, other people, they would go to another coach and they'd be like, oh my goodness, I didn't know how lucky I had it to have a coach that's so caring and involved as you are, right?
Anna (05:39):
But now I find that because the coaching space has been around for longer, people have done more courses, they've seen more coaches. And so because of that there can be some disillusionment around maybe taking a course or seeing a coach and having eroded self, having eroded trust with coaches and with the industry and with courses. And honestly rightfully so, because some course creators are just out there for the money and don't really care about their clients, right? And so I found that I was having a lot more people bring this up, right? Like, oh, I had this bad experience with a coach and actually it did legit sound like a bad experience. So something I added as a strategy is I added a 30 day support guarantee, which means join the course. And if you find that I'm not showing up for you in the course, like you expect, like I promise to you, then you can have your money back.
Anna (06:30):
And I feel really, really good about that because for me, one of the strongest selling points of my course and programs is, that's the feedback people give me, is that I am present, that I do care, that I do over deliver. So that's the part that I'm like, I have no hesitation about, right? Like people are always surprisingly shocked and if for some reason whatever I'm offering to them still isn't enough, then we're probably not a fit to work together because truly I do give and I show up in the biggest way. But I find that that really helped a lot of people that, you know, maybe they were sold a course and then, you know, I purchased a course before where the coach didn't even finish delivering the program like halfway through she just stopped delivering it, right? And so if you've had a a experience like that, you can see where that would be tricky to trust someone again, okay?
Anna (07:16):
Related. The third thing that I noticed is people also have eroded self trusts and confidence with themselves and taking action. Maybe they purchased a course before and the coach has shown up, but maybe they didn't show up for whatever reason. Maybe they had some mindset blocks or they were busy, but they are like, Anna, what if I sign up for your course and then I don't do it, I don't do the work for me. I gamify my courses and programs a lot. So that's not really a problem. Most of my clients are finishing courses far above the, the standard completion rates just because A, I'm engaged. B, I really simplify my courses and gamify them so that it's fun to do. But what I did as a strategic response to this is I offered a 10 minute clarity call to let people talk through the decision, right?
Anna (08:05):
And so we could get to the bottom of why didn't you take action? Like was it not aligned? Was there were you feeling stuck on something? And I really allowed them 10 minutes of free coaching so that I could actually dive in and get clear on why that last investment didn't work. And then we could get clear on if this is a fit or not. A lot of people are really hesitant to offer sales calls and it's like a big thing in the online space like, oh, I made all these things without a sales call. I like sales calls. Because for me it really helps me make sure the people that are buying my program are a fit. And either a, they are a fit and then we've already had a little head start and I actually have a little context of their life and their business so I can actually coach them better and give them really personal advice or they end up not being a fit.
Anna (08:48):
But then I just quote, wasted 10 minutes of my time instead of wasting a lot more time and energy and resource of them being a ha unhappy client, them not being a fit. And me having to deal with it on the backend, I'd rather know right away 10 minutes is not a waste. It's almost like, you know, if you're looking for your partner and you're going on dates and a date doesn't work out, that wasn't a waste of your time. That was what you needed to do to meet your dream person, right? And so I love offering those 10 minute clarity calls and I found that it's a really good match for people being able to talk through their lack of self-confidence in themselves. Okay? Another strategy that I have done is I find that our space is a lot more info saturated than it used to be, right?
Anna (09:33):
It used to be in the online space that we used to do a lot more like heavy teaching videos, right? A lot more heavy teaching authority content online where we're really giving people knowledge that they didn't know. And that's still helpful to some extent. But you even see, like with reels now, it's much more about like the connection and the personal and our stories and our client stories and the authenticity content, right? So I find that with, with with an online space that's so info saturated. I really worked to, in my launch, bring my story, I did this on a podcast episode. I told some of my story of where my clients are at in the program. I'm selling them, right? I did this and I did like a social media post series where I shared some old pictures from a part of my life where I was going through that thing that they're going through, right?
Anna (10:22):
And I really find that the more info saturated the space, the more we need to lean into our own stories and our client stories. I have a ton of client case studies, testimonials of women that have done this exact method that I teach in my course and shared their stories like wild. And so I feel like the strategic response to an info saturated space like we have now, it's not more information, but more connection, more story, more authenticity, right? Okay. The next thing that I did, I find that in our online space, we have more options than ever when it comes to programs and courses and everything like that. And so two things that I did strategically. Number one, I made a shorter cart close. I used to do about two week cart opens for my courses. Now I do like one and a half or this time I even did one week of official cart open because I think that sometimes we think like the more options people have, the more freedom we need to give them.
Anna (11:25):
But I actually find it the opposite. I think when we give a some sort of incentive. In my mastermind I have this worksheet called buzz urgency and excitement to work with you. And I think, you know, we think that like different sales tactics are icky, but I think creating urgency for our clients making now the reason to buy is actually such a good thing. Whether it's an incentive, like an early bird discount or maybe it's a bonus, like a bonus session or maybe it's a limited number of spaces, it's okay to have genuine authentic urgency because I think it prioritize our clients' buying decision. It doesn't force them to buy if they weren't gonna buy anyway. But if they were already thinking about it. For me, I think about like if I was already thinking about buying that pair of jeans and then there's a sale, I'm like, I'm gonna snap it up now my time.
Anna (12:11):
It's my sign, right? And so I think the more options there are in the online space, the more urgency, the more buzz, the more authentic scarcity we need to create. And so that's why I do a one week did, did a one week card open and it worked really good. It worked really, really well this time. And then also the other nice thing is my excitement only has to be high for a week, right? You whatever comes up, okay, related to this because there's more options in the online space, I think I've also been willing to let my profit margin be lower on my entry level course, right? For me, I have two main programs, my entry level course and my mastermind. And for me, most of my clients that do my entry level course that are actually a good fit for me and my business end up doing the mastermind, right?
Anna (12:58):
It just naturally works that way. 'cause They get a little sample of working with me, they get some results and they're like, oh my gosh, this is great. And so for, I think, you know, as I think about the cost that it costs me to get a client, whether it's my time posting on social media, whether it's a sales call, whether it's paying, I spent some on some Facebook ads, right? Whether it's paying my team to do social media posts for me and schedule emails, I really think about my course as my Costco chicken. What do I mean by that, right? Costco, when they're charging $6 for a rotisserie chicken, they're not making money. They're doing that to get you in the door because they know when you're in the door to buy a Costco chicken, you are leaving with $400 worth of toilet paper a tent when you didn't even really need a tent, right?
Anna (13:43):
Like, I don't know about you, but I spend $400 at Costco and then I'm like, I still need to go to the grocery store, like to get like oregano from the grocery store. <Laugh>. So I think it's realizing like the more options are on the online space, like for me, I'm okay if I don't have a ton of profit margin around my course as long as I'm having a ton of profit margin around other things in my business, whether it's my maths or mind or whatever it is. And so I've been a little bit more willing and aggressive. A big reason why I was able to get 20 members of my course this round is I was just a little bit more aggressive when it came to being willing to spend on Facebook ads, right? Obviously this launch was still very, very profitable, but a little less profitable than eight years ago.
Anna (14:24):
Because I think I was more willing to see like, oh, the goal here is to get people into my world because once they're in my world, people work with me for a long time. The average value of that client is long. And so I think even thinking of things like spending your time on a sales call, you're like, why would I do a 10 minute sales call for a thousand dollars program? But for me, I'm like, this isn't just about the thousand dollars program, it's about the $6,000 program and the $10,000 program, right? And so knowing that it might take a little more work, or a lot of times people are like, it takes the same amount of work to sell a thousand dollars course as it does to sell a $10,000 offer. And it's kind of true, right? But it's remembering that when you're winning the client for that smaller offer, you are likely also winning the client for some of your higher ticket offers on average too.
Anna (15:09):
And so for me, it felt like I really gave this launch my all because I knew the goal was like getting women in the door, getting women a taste of my coaching. And so being willing to spend my time, my money, my energy there, okay? The last one that I did is, I think because our world, we live in a world with a lot more like ai, a lot more chat, GBTA lot more automation, which honestly I love, I just gave my mastermind ladies the AI prompt, an AI prompt this morning, and I love it. I think it's great for drafting initial content, for brainstorming, for manifesting. Like AI has amazing capability. However, AI will never replace coaching. We'll never replace live support. And so because there's so much more AI in our world, I think when we sell our programs, we need to really combat that with a lot of personalization and with a lot of video to be honest.
Anna (16:08):
Because I mean, maybe you can do AI video, but to this point, I don't know how to do that. There's only really, mostly AI is in text, right? So when someone sees a video of you, they know it's you and it's building that you trust outside of a robot, right? And so for me, I have video in, I have an evergreen little webinar, a 20 minute webinar, but I also added this round a little five minute video to my sales page so that if someone was busy or if they had never met me before, they could watch that five minute video on my sales page and get to know me a little bit, right? And so I've just been trying to do that. I also love the tool ro for being able to send personal little one minute video invites if someone's been clicking on your lunch emails.
Anna (16:53):
But I really think video is such the strategic solution to connection in the online space in a world that is just gonna get more and more AI generated. Okay, hopefully this was helpful for you. I know this was a little bit more strategic focused, but I can often do the mindset stuff. But I hope that this is helpful for you emphasizing lives. If you're doing challenges considering a guarantee, considering 10 minutes sales calls, considering a one week card open considering adding more video, I hope that that's helpful for you because really those are the practical things that you can, I, I love telling you like what's working. Like you can copy paste that into your launch and I hope it helps you with conversions. Okay. I would love to hear from you if you have a launch coming up, which of those strategies are you hoping to add in?
Anna (17:41):
And I hope that they're aligned with you. I hope that they're heart-centered and I hope that they're a match. I would love to invite you to a clarity call with me. If you are a heart-centered woman and you're looking to build your happy, boring dream life, create your six figure and beyond business, I have my mastermind called the Sell with Heart mastermind that's opening up for enrollment soon. And a 30 minute clarity call is the perfect way to get to know me, to be able to share your goals. I can give you some strategies and tips right there and you can ask me any questions when it comes to getting my support around creating your six figure or multi six figure heart centered either coaching or service-based business, always using strategies with heart, always using strategies, but you can do on part-time hours, always using strategies that help bring in the most aligned clients. I'll put the link below, but otherwise, I would love to hear from you what strategy you're gonna add in for your next lunch. Hope you have a beautiful rest of the day. And as always, thank you for tuning in.
Anna (18:43):
Thanks for hanging out today. Please hit that subscribe button so you can make sure to stay updated anytime a new episode drops. And I would love for you to join me in my free Facebook community. It's called The Heart-Centered Entrepreneur. We discuss the podcast episodes. I regularly go live and do free trainings, and you may even meet your newest biz bestie so you can join at heart-centered community .com is absolutely free, and I cannot wait to see you in there.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.