More often than not, if somebody's launch fails, it's probably because of a
messaging issue. This is what I've noticed, Right most of the time,
it's a messaging issue. It's not a matter of nobody wanting that actual offer,
it's just that they couldn't communicate it in a way that made people realize
this was what they needed and this is something that they should prioritize spending their
money on. Welcome to Imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years,
I read all the books, downloaded all the freebies, and did all the
courses, but it wasn't until I started taking imperfect action that my business had
its first million dollars year. Imperfect Action is about doing things before you're ready,
prioritizing consistent action over perfect action, and moving forward even when you're not
sure you're doing it right. On this show, you can expect mindset advice,
actionable marketing tips and strategies to build a business that brings you more profit,
more freedom, and even more joy. Are you on the list to
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at Steph Taylor dot co forward slash DBB, or at the link in the
show notes. Hey, welcome back to Imperfect Action. This is episode six
hundred and seventy nine. Today, I'm talking about a big mistake that I
notice happening with people who are creating online courses, programs, memberships, basically
any kind of offer that they are then planning to launch out into the world.
Now, the big mistake is spending too much time focusing on the content
of your product and not actually thinking about your launch, or more specifically,
how you're going to sell this product. Now, when I'm talking about the
launch in this context, I'm not talking about the very first time that you
put it out into the world and there's this big champagne and confetti and my
online course is available finally to buy for the very first time. That's not
what I mean by the launch. By the launch, I mean the sales
process, the way that you are selling this offer. And you might launch
the same offer several times in one yet, so the big mistake is spending
way too much time creating the content and not enough time thinking about how you
are going to sell it. Now. Wanting to create the best online course
program membership is great, but unfortunately the best offer, the best product,
it's not going to sell itself. And that's where your strategy comes into it.
It has nothing at all to do with creating the product and what goes
into it, and everything to do with how you are going to get it
into your customer's hands. Right, you could make the best offer, jam
pack it full of value and content, and it would still struggle to sell
itself. Now, this is the big mistake that I see people making is
they spend way too much time creating that course, that program, that membership,
and not enough time actually launching it. Launching it is one of the
ways you can test that idea. It's how you can get that feedback to
then tweak it and pivot it if you need to, And it's how you
get that offer in front of people. It's how you sell it. Now,
most people think that selling and marketing a digital product a course is about
finding people who want what they are selling, and ninety nine percent of the
time this is a backwards strategy that then leads them to wonder, why does
nobody want this? If you are dead silent for eleven months and then poke
your head out of your cave to promote your offer for a month, and
then you disappear again the minute doors close. Your audience isn't going to trust
you, let alone buy from you. Great content is important, Great content
in your offer and your product is important, but they're not going to buy
just because your course content is good. There are so many great courses out
there with no students. There are so many great memberships that are struggling to
scale. There are so many great group programs that they can't fill. But
there are also so many really terrible ones that are selling well just because somebody's
good at marketing and marketing. When I talk about it in this context,
it's not about getting more followers. It's not about having a big audience.
You can have a great product and a big audience and still struggle to sell
your offer if you don't get these things right. So firstly, clarity on
exactly who your offer is for. You may think you know who your offer
is for, but most of the time when I chat to my students about
this, or clients as well in now VIP days, they try and tell
me who their offer is for, and I realize, huh, they're rambling
because they actually don't know who their offer is for, so they're just giving
me like the word vomit version of it. If I ask you who is
your offer for and your response is some kind of broad segment of people business
owners, for example, rather than saying a business owner who is in their
third year of business and runs some kind of service based or if your answer
includes and or it includes or right business owner who runs a service based business
or an e commerce business, that means you don't know who your offer is
for, clearly enough. And two problems with not knowing exactly who your offer
is for. Firstly, your offer is not going to get them the best
result. The best kind of online cause or program is the one that gets
the right people from a to be the quickest possible way. But if you
have a really broad intended buyer for this offer, then it's going to be
really challenging because you might have to add extra content just in case they're in
this situation or just in case they have this problem. And the other problem
is that your messaging won't resonate with them in a way that makes them think,
oh, this was made for me, and instead you might find that
they're questioning, is this for me? Or they won't see the value in
it. Then Number two to audience research. Once you know who your offer
is for, you need to start talking to people who are similar to that
ideal client. Find out what they're struggling with, find out how they are
experiencing the problem that your offer solves, find out what they desire, and
then listen to the language that they use to talk about it. Using the
language or listening to that language is the shortcut to creating messaging that resonates with
the right people and shows them that it's the right choice for them. It's
exactly what they need. It also shows you what you need to include in
your offer and what maybe you don't need to include because they already understand this.
And it also shows you what kind of free content you need to share
in the lead up Two doors open, which leads me to number three.
Free content. So when I talk about free content, I'm talking about social
posts, podcast episodes, if you have a podcast, emails to your list,
everything that you are sharing for free online in that sixty to ninety days
before you actually ask somebody to buy, and all of this content is ideally
bridging what I call the magician's gap, the gap between where your ideal client
is right now and where they need to be to be ready to buy your
particular offer. This content is not going to be how to content. Instead,
you're going to cover that bridge. You're going to bridge that gap in
their knowledge they're understanding right Your audience research will help you to understand where your
audience is at right now, where your ideal client to that right now,
and you, as the expert, also need to start thinking about where do
they need to be to be ready to buy, and then you can bridge
that gap with your free content so that when you sell to them, you've
already brought them on this journey to where they need to be right Your other
free content piece is your launch lead magnet. Now. Back in episode six
hundred and seventy four, I shared an episode on how to develop the right
lead magnet for a particular offer. If you want to listen to that episode,
send me a DM on Instagram. I'm there at steph Taylor dot Co.
Send me the number six seven four, six hundred and seventy four and
I'll send you the automatic link to and listen to that episode directly now.
Next week, I'm also running a free live event for people who are on
the Launch Magic waitlist only. It is capped at one hundred attendees, but
you need to be on the waitlist to score and invite. So if you
send me a DM on Instagram send me the word magic, or if you
visit Steph Taylor dot co slash Magic, you can join the waitlist over there
and you'll get that invite when it goes out. Okay, Number four your
offer messaging. So, in other words, how are you communicating your offer
in a way that makes the right person think this was made for me and
the wrong person realized, oh, this isn't for me. So your messaging
is going to include how you preempt your ideal clients questions and their objections and
how you address those. It's going to include how you communicate the problem that
your offer solves, the solution to their problem, and the transformation that they're
going to have once that problem is solved. It's going to communicate who it's
for, who it's not for. And you could have the best online course,
program, membership, whatever, but if your messaging sucks, it's not
going to sell. And more often than not, if somebody's launch fails,
it's probably because of a messaging issue. This is what I've noticed, right
most of the time, it's a messaging issue. It's not a matter of
nobody wanting that actual offer, it's just that they couldn't communicate it in a
way that made people realize this was what they needed and this is something that
they should prioritize spending their money on. Number five is validation, So testing
that messaging. Once you've got that messaging, test it to see if it
resonates with your ideal client, and potentially even testing the offer, so potentially
launching it, selling it, and then creating it before you've invested all this
time into creating an offer, find out if that's something that people will actually
spend money for. And I know waitlists can be a pretty common form of
validation, but they're not a great form of validation. They're not super strong
because you're not actually asking somebody to commit to twelve weeks of your course or
commit to paying money for it. But instead, if you're asking somebody to
pay for an early bird spot, then that's a much better form of validation.
You know, oh, people are willing to actually hand over their money
and commit the time to doing this. Number six is audience grows and email
list building. Now I regularly chat with people who tell me some version of
I'm disappointed in my launch because only ten people signed up, And then we
do a little bit of digging into the numbers and it turns out that they
only had a hundred people on their email list and their launch actually converted at
ten percent, which is amazing. Rather than waiting for your audience to be
big enough before you launch, start that sixty to ninety day launch process and
grow your audience at the same time, and focus on building your email list.
Because now, once you start to think of launching as something that you
can do over and over again. Each time you launch, you can grow
your audience a little bit more and you can sell more. And once it's
converting, well, then you can invest in paid ads and you can really
double down on growing that audience and then converting them. And then, lastly,
number seven, your launch assets, so your sales page, your cut
open emails, your webinar slides, all of those things. They're not an
afterthought. These are the things that actually help to sell your offer. They
bring together your messaging in a way that helps the right people decide that your
offer is right for them and the wrong people realize that your offer is the
wrong one for them, And it's not just all about sharing those features and
benefits, right. So it's not about saying, oh, we've got ten
zoom calls so that you can ask all of your questions, but it's also
thinking about what are the hesitations that might stop somebody from signing up or what
questions might they have. So if you've got ten zoom calls, some of
the questions to preempt might be what time are the calls? Do I have
to attend them live? Are their recordings? Can I submit my questions ahead
of time? These are all potential questions that will come up for somebody that
can stop them from buying. So there you have it. Those are seven
things that matter more than the content that's inside your product. Yes, create
the most incredible experience for your students. Yes, over deliver, but that's
not what's going to sell, okay, So if you want to actually sell
your offers, you also need to focus on who is that ideal client,
getting really clear on them, doing that audience research, creating epic free content,
getting clear on your offer messaging, validating that messaging, and that offer
building your audience and your email list, and creating strong strategic launch assets.
That is it for today's episode. If you have learned anything from the show
so far, please take the thirty seconds and leave a quick rating and a
review. I really really appreciate everyone who does that. Thanks so much for
listening. Catch you next time.