Transcript
Sigrun Gudjonsdottir:
You're listening to the Sigrun Show, episode number 430. In this episode, I talk about how to sell between launches or nine simple promotion strategies that sell.
I love launching, and I love to teach my clients how to launch, but you cannot launch all the time. You would get exhausted and it would exhaust your email list too. So how can you sell between launches? In this episode, I share with you nine simple promotion strategies that sell.
Before we dive in, do you want to learn how to launch and also learn how to sell between launches? In my 12-month group coaching program, Momentum, you get the coaching, accountability and support you need to take your business to 10 K and 20 K months and beyond. You'll create scalable programs to leverage your time, learn how to launch so you can sell more in less time. And also, how to sell between launches. You'll find the show notes of this episode at sigrun.com/430 and a link to more information about Momentum.
I love launching, but you cannot launch all the time. It will exhaust me and my team and people would unsubscribe from my email list and not want to hear from me anymore. So you need to find a good way to sell between launches in a way that doesn't exhaust you or your email list. But let's talk first about launching and why you should do it in the first place.
Launching doesn't just sell. It doesn't just sell a lot in little time. It also builds your brand. It makes people notice you. And the funny thing about launching when I launch one program, I'm actually able to sell many other things that are actually not on promotion at the same time, because launching attracts a lot of people to your brand. They become aware of you and even they are not interested in the program that you're actually selling, they start to check you out and your website and start to buy other things from you. So I highly recommend that you launch from time to time, but not all the time.
When we do launches, it is a big marketing campaign and my team is full on and we do Facebook ads and we work with affiliates. So when a lot of people sign up for our launch list, as we call it, there are people that buy and there are also a lot of people that don't think this program is a fit for them. And maybe they didn't check out the website, so they don't know what is on offer. And therefore it is wise to do what we call our upsell or a downsell after launch. I still consider that a part of launching, but I wanted to mention it because I am going to talk about nine promotional strategies and not mention downsells and upsells.
But actually when you do a launch, you can be selling in the launch runway and you can be selling right after your launch because people are warmed up and they are in the mood to buy, they just didn't want to buy the thing that you were selling. Typically, we just do upsells now, but I've done downsells in the past. And I do recommend that to my clients, depending on what they're selling, what else they have on offer. Overall, when you are a beginner to launches and you have a small email list, you typically launch more often because launches are a fantastic way to build your email list. Once your launches get the bigger you start to actually launch less because as I said, it does exhaust you and your team and your email list. And you want to find a way to make your launches bigger so you ultimately can do less of them.
So for instance, we launch twice a year, our signature program, SOMBA Kickstart where people learn to create their first or next online course. They also build their email list and they make sales in the upsell. We could be selling this four times a year because the program is 10 weeks, but that doesn't really make sense. It would again, exhaust me and my team, our affiliates and our email list. So we do two big launches a year. And I have a lot of friends that have actually started to do one big launch a year. Everyone has to find the rhythm in it and what fits them. But as I said, you cannot be launching all the time. So what do you do? Once you have figured out your launch calendar and figured out if you want to launch twice or three times or four times or six times a year, what do you do between those launches to still make some sales?
The first thing you need to consider is that you have a program that people can buy any time. That is kind of the prerequisite for the promotional strategies that I'm going to talk about. So one way is to have a program that people can join anytime and is constantly running. For instance, our Momentum group coaching program is what I call an evergreen program. People can join anytime. From time to time, we still have specific promotions. We might have price going up, or we have a bonus call or something going on, there's a reason for people to join, but typically you can just join any time you want. You can join this week, next week, or next month. The program is typically open. People reach out to us, join an information call, webinar or something, and then they book a discovery call. And if it's a fit, they can join the program.
Another way you could do this is to have something that doesn't require you to be there. It could be a cheaper program that doesn't have any coaching calls, maybe not even a Q&A call. I'm not a fan of those programs because I do believe it needs human interaction so that you get results, but you might want to design a program that people can buy any time, whether or not you're there and are doing some Q&A calls or group coaching calls like we do in Momentum. So that's kind of the prerequisite for the strategies that I'm going to mention now.
There is, of course, the possibilities to pre-sell a program that starts at a specific time, but we use that a little bit less. When we're launching and we realize people want something completely different and we are not doing that program until after three months, sometimes we actually do behind the doors, an offer for people to buy upfront and just wait three months. And sometimes we don't. You just have to decide whether it complicates your business or if this is okay an alignment what you want to do. So let's dive into the nine promotional strategies that are guaranteed to sell.
Okay. So the first one is the PS promo. I am sure you have seen those emails where at the end of the email, there is a PS. Everybody reads their PS. That's so funny, even though it's at the very end of the email, people scroll to the bottom and then read your PS. And I'm sure you've seen these emails. And it says something like this, here's an example: “When you're ready to grow your online business, here are three ways I can help you.” And then you mention those three ways. In my example, it would be like, “Follow me on Instagram and DM your biggest business challenge. And I'll give you a tip on what to do. Second, get access to all 100 SOMBA masterclasses to start your online business journey. They're on offer this weekend for 199, click here.” Now, this is an example. You can't actually buy the SOMBA masterclasses. You would have to join the SOMBA membership for that.
And the third example, “Step up and scale your online business to 10 K and 20 K months inside our SOMBA Momentum group coaching program. Book your free call here.” Now you can actually go to the show notes and click on a link to find out more about Momentum. But here is just a quick example. This was the PS promo. I want you to watch a newsletter that you might subscribe to, if you see this and start to try it out. It doesn't cost you anything to add a quick PS and let people know. Typically in the PS promo, you will have a link to something for free, a link to something that doesn't cost a lot. And then it still might be a program that is in the thousands. So you want to give people different opportunities on the way they can take the next steps with you.
The second promotional strategy you could use is the video promo. You create a short video around a pressing problem that you know your audience has, and you send the video out to your email list. And only those who click to watch the video, get an offer. So, as an example, I would create a video on how to sell between launches. I email my list. Then I've created this new video and I tag those who click on the link to watch the video. The next day, I follow up with an offer that shouldn't come as a surprise to those who watched the video, for instance, an online course on how to sell between launches with all the templates and copies. I of course, do not have this program yet, but it's just an example.
The promo typically is three to four days and the rest of the email list does not get any emails because they did not click on the link to watch the video. And therefore you shouldn't see any extra unsubscribes. You do not exhaust your list. And this is a very simple launch to do. It basically costs you just one video and a couple of emails, and you wouldn't even do any social media on this. Brilliant, right?
The third example of a promotional strategy to sell between launches is social selling. You can post on your personal profile and on your business profile and invite the right people to send you a direct message. This is one of the best ways to promote without launching. As an example, I am thinking about offering a five-day retreat in Iceland. Before I go off and create the sales page and everything, I could just upload a couple of images to my profile or my business page on Facebook and I write a description of the retreat. And then I say, “PM me if you're interested to find out more.” I might even be able to sell out a retreat, it wouldn't surprise me, without actually going into creating a sales page and an email sequence.
Typically, a post like this is 200 to 300 words, because you want to describe the thing you are promoting in a lot of detail and of course, in a way that makes people excited and they will comment, they will like, they will share. And the right people will send you a PM. Now there will be some people that just say, “Hey, what's the price?” And yes, these are typical buyers, the people who are thinking about the price right away, but the people who write to you, “I'm interested. I want to know more, tell me more.” You will start a conversation with them back and forth. And depending on what you're selling, you either invite them to a discover call or you drop the payment link right into the chat you're having.
This has worked for us really well also in launches. It's kind of a extra strategy that we did. And I covered this in my recent episode, on my latest seven-figure launch, that in the launch itself, I invited people to DM us to tell us that they were at the launch with us in the launch training, and we could start a conversation and these people are more likely to buy. It is just like having met someone or almost having someone on a discovery call with you when you can start a conversation in a direct message. So that is how you can do social selling and you can sell almost anything, anything from a low price package of $100 up to 20,000, $50,000 package of a coaching package or a retreat or whatever you're selling. So social selling is a great strategy to do in between launches.
The next one is the nine-word email. The nine-word email was developed by a guy called Dean Jackson, a successful real estate entrepreneur, an online marketeer in an effort to re-engage lost prospects. Jackson's claim was that a subject line with just the recipient name and a body with one line, originally the nine words question is all that you need to engage. So, as an example, actually, I received an email like this, this morning. That was funny because I'm like, oh, you're using the strategy that I'm going to talk about in my podcast. So the subject line would just be my name. So if someone is emailing me, it says, “Sigrun,” and there's literally an email in my inbox right now that is just like this.
So it says Sigrun in the subject line. And then in the email body, “Are you still looking,” and then whatever you are offering, whatever your business is about. So in my case, “Are you still looking to grow your online business?” And then you sign off. And some people leave a lot of space below this question. So you almost forget that this is an email from a newsletter. Some people might think that is a bit devious, but I think that's kind of cool. It's smart. You're trying to get engagement. You're trying to get people to reply to you. There's no link. There's no image. There's nothing. It's like an email from a friend, “Are you still looking,” for whatever that is.
So word of caution, this strategy is to reengage people who have already shown interest in something. It is not a good strategy to sell to brand new people. So it's better that you reserve this as the original intention was to reengage people that you think are potential lost prospects. But yeah, I see this used a lot. And I am sometimes on the verge of replying to these emails and then I realize, oh, that's a newsletter. And I still might reply if that offering, or if I'm interested in working with that person has been on my mind and I kind of forgot. This is an opportunity to get people back.
The fifth promotional strategy is a mini launch. Instead of going into full-blown launch, we sometimes offer paid workshop. And then only the people who joined the paid workshop are presented with an offer. This promotion has all the elements of a launch, except it's much shorter and much easier to do. It's easy on our email list. It's easy on the team. And of course, it also produces a smaller launch list, so you cannot do this if you're expecting massive results. There's always going to be less people that sign up for a paid workshop than would sign up for a free workshop.
A recent example, we did a paid workshop and we had 210 people paid. And then we invited our paying clients because I didn't want them to have to pay again. And then we had about 250 paying clients, and this resulted in a great launch for us. I call it a mini launch because you cannot have a seven-figure launch with this method, well, unless your email list is huge in the first place. But typically this is a great way to have a launch that is in between other launches. So this is the method, how we launch SOMBA Accelerator, our launch program.
As I told you before, we have two launches a year, two big launches a year that are public and people will notice. And then we're selling our SOMBA Kickstart program where people learn how to create an online course, build their email list and make some sales in an upsell. Then in between our Kickstart programs, we run another program called SOMBA Accelerator, which is our launch flagship program, where we teach people how to launch obviously and make sales. And since we don't want to do four big launches a year, we have opted for a simpler strategy to sell our second 10-week program.
And this is something you can do if you have a different, maybe less expensive or even more expensive program, you might want to do a paid workshop and do what we call a mini launch. Typically, the cart is open as long as we do four other launches. And if we notice that we have a smaller list, we actually reduce the open cart days, maybe to three or four or five days instead of a typical seven to eight days that we have in our bigger launches. But yeah, try it out, a mini launch.
The sixth promotional strategy is affiliate marketing. This means that you are an affiliate for somebody else. So you make money, you do of course, some heavy lifting on the marketing side, but you do not have to do the work. So one of the best ways to sell between launches is to affiliate for someone else, and either it's a small promotion, which of course leads to small results or a proper launch where you can expect to potentially make six figures by promoting someone else's product, but then you have to step into it like a proper launch. So it is still heavy on you and your team and your email list, but you can design it in a way that is still lighter than your bigger launches.
Therefore, we only do one big affiliate launch a year. It fits perfectly between our other launches and that's for Selena Soo, and maybe you've noticed this recently, we were promoting her PR and media program. And the first time we did it, it felt a bit heavy on us, on the team, but now we have created all our assets and now we just need to tweak and improve. And it feels a lot lighter the last time we did it and we had more sales, almost double amount of sales. And that was down to actually coming up with an amazing bonus. So it wasn't so much about which emails we send out or how we promote. I think our best improvement in the affiliate marketing was coming up with an amazing bonus. Therefore, people were so eager to buy from us.
The seventh promotional strategy is offer on your thank you page of your freebie. So people sign up for something free, a free gift. And then on your thank you page, there is an offer. This is typically called a tripwire. It is a small offer and it could lead into something more expensive as a follow-up, but this works brilliantly for us. For instance, once a year, we do 12 days of masterclasses. They are for free, and we run them between December 25th and January 5th. And if people sign up, let's say December 10th, because that's when we start our email marketing and our Facebook ads, they would have to wait. They would have to wait 15 days for those masterclasses.
Therefore, a brilliant offer is on the thank you page to get instant access to all masterclasses. And actually, they can get an extra bonus masterclass that is only available to people who buy, so that even if the offer is maybe less exciting, once the masterclasses are available, you are getting an extra masterclass that is still worth the price of the tripwire. We played with a price between 47 and 97. 47 is a sweet spot, we were still able to sell a lot for 97. And we played also with having 47, if you decide right away and 97, if you decide later. And that actually does the trick as well.
If you haven't used tripwire, I actually find this one of the best things to get started in making some sales. Now you're not going to be able to get some massive revenue from this. This typically pays for our Facebook ads, and that's how you can look at this promotional strategy. You can have it on all the time. You might want to turn it off in a launch if it conflicts with what you're selling or you leave it on all the time. We only do this for 12 days of masterclasses and otherwise, we don't do this.
The eighth promotional strategy I want to share with you is automated webinar funnel, which I'm sure you've heard about and you might have actually signed up for a few of those. If you have an online course that you have launched successfully and you've done a webinar for it, and you've done it multiple times and the webinar gets better, better, and you were able to actually sell on the webinar, not just in the emails afterwards and the course is, let's say $1,000 or less, it could also be more, but let's say it's around $1,000, it is a sweet spot to start to think about automating this. And of course, the online course needs to be evergreen, like I mentioned earlier in this episode. People need to be able to join any time. You can do that by taking a eight-week course and then doing a monthly Q&A or coaching call instead of a weekly. And this has worked brilliantly for many of my friends. We do not have an automated webinar funnel, but we help our clients in our Momentum group coaching program set up such funnels and they are working wonderfully for our clients.
The last one I want to talk about is very popular at the moment. It is the pocket product funnel, or let's say tiny offer, whatever you want to call it, the self-liquidating offer. Instead of a freebie or a free webinar, you sell first, a small product, maybe it's 27, 37, 47. Typically, it does not cost more than 47. And it's clear right away in your Facebook ad that this is the price. It even says in the title or in the subject line or the headline of the Facebook ad that this is a product you have to pay for.
But it's so exciting. It's typically some sort of a template bundle, something that actually feels like it's worth $1,000, but people are just paying 27, 37 or 47 for it. Very, very popular at the moment. And we are also teaching our clients how to do that. And I did an interview recently with [Ali Bjork 00:24:05]. She is one of those people that teaches also how to do a tiny offer. But this has been so common now that actually a lot of people can teach this. And we are also helping our clients create this in our Momentum group coaching program.
So final words on selling between launches. You should always be seeding. When you run a business, you do not just launch and then you're busy running your program. As soon as you've finished one launch, you are preparing for the next one and you're seeding what's coming next. You should be constantly selling. I have found a lot of entrepreneurs, especially women only think of launching once they run out of money or once a program is finished. That's a bit late. You should be constantly thinking about your next sales promotion. It is basically your job as a business owner, as the entrepreneur to make sure sales are coming in consistently in your business. If that's not happening, you need to get some help. And that's what we focus on in the Momentum group coaching program.
But here were the nine promotional strategies. I would love to hear from you when you try them out. So DM me on Instagram once you've tried one of those strategies out and let me know how it worked for you. Give me the code word “promotion”, because then I know that you actually listened to this episode and you're trying out one of the strategies. And then my team can let me know that you send me a DM and I can check it out and reply to you. I'm looking forward to hear from you.
You'll find the show notes of this episode at sigrun.com/430, plus a link with more information about Momentum, where you can learn to launch and also learn how to sell between launches. Thank you for listening to the Sigrun Show. See you in the next episode.