How to Create Your Pre-Launch Strategy And Get Your Audience Ready!
Oct 19, 2023
This blog post is all strategy and I am so darn excited.
Over the last couple of weeks I had the honor of hosting our clients in our house and in one weekend (72 hours) we broke down limiting beliefs, built a new vision, built out the actual offer (i.e. how to make money), and then created branding photos and content. Whew. That is a lot.
But here is the ONE thing that kept coming up over and over again. If you want to launch something out into the world, whether it be a product or service, you have to have an audience. Period.
Who is your audience?
An audience could be your friends, co-workers, etc. you already know and have conversations with, OR people that are brand new. But you can't just throw something out in the world and expect people to flock to it. (Although that would be amazing if that would work). I joke that unless you are Kim Kardashian with millions of followers, you need to think about how to share what you are passionate about waaaaaayyyy before you actually sell it.
So in this blog post, I am breaking down my ENTIRE pre-launch strategy. I like to say this is the "real world" launch strategy. One where you are launching a product or service while working full time, with kids in school and 8 million activities, and still wanting to take weekends off. We have used this strategy for the last two years and every time I follow it 100% it works.
My Pre-Launch Strategy
Before we get into the strategy, the first question I always ask my clients is do you have an audience that is ready to buy now? Because if you do, you can skip to the actual launch and not wait. But if you don't, we need to get an audience ready for you. And here is how.
Step 1: Prioritize your personal life.
I had my clients get out a calendar and map out all the amazing things they wanted to do personally. First. If you want to build a life-priorities-based business, you have to do this. Plan a trip, volunteer, create a spa day for yourself. Whatever it is. Map it out. This is the fun part.
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Step 2: Prime your audience.
If you aren't sure if you have an audience or know you don't, give yourself 4-6 weeks to prime them and get them ready. This is the step most people skip. They say, Oh I'll just throw it out there and see what happens, but then tie their entire worth to the launch (which we know we shouldn't do) and get frustrated when no one buys. Sound familiar? So on that lovely calendar of yours, map out 4-6 weeks where the ONE thing you are talking about is the topic that is going to resonate with your audience the most when it comes time to buy your product and service.
Example: You are teaching someone how to create an online course (hint - you may have seen this recently with a really big entrepreneur). For 4-6 weeks prior, the ONLY content you create and share is why you should create an online course. A few ways to do this are...
1) Answer the question: what are your ideal clients' fears?
2) What are their short and long-term goals?
3) What are their excuses?
4) What happens if they don't do this?
Your job is to answer all these questions before you even launch your product or service.
You also want to pay attention to the trends, holidays, or any seasonal activities that might be going on. Black Friday? (We should do a whole post on that one). Christmas in July? Kids back to school? How does that impact your clients' buying behavior?
How to Prime Your Audience
Step 3: Give a sneak peek.
Once you have your pre-launch message clear, start to give a sneak peek. Launch a survey and ask questions about what would help solve their problem. Give a sneak peek at what you are working on. While we all want to be like Taylor Swift right now, most of us can't just surprise our audience and sell billions of records (or insert your product). You have to talk about it before you launch it.
Step 4: Create your content plan
Create a freebie, posts, and emails around all of this. I.e. your content plan. It should set you up as an authority in the space and get your audience excited for what is to come.
If you are still following along, doing all this in 4-6 weeks isn't too bad. Doing all of this in 1-2 weeks starts to get stressful. My goal is to have a stress-free launch where all your content flows easily, attracts the right clients, and makes it an easy yes for them to purchase from you.
Pretty awesome right?
We actually created an entire playbook around this strategy that sits inside our Club and Mastermind. So when you join our community, the whole plan is yours. Including our best-performing content, a full content planning template, and even a launch tech checklist so you know exactly what to do and when.
Just go to www.hollymariehaynes.com/workwithme and pick the right option for you!
The end of the year is prime time for launching. Let's make sure you do it right.
Looking for more on this topic and your High-Level Action items? Check out the Strategy Lab in the Crush the Rush Club!
Resources
- What is working now in entrepreneurship: Get the tips
- The energy you need to 10x your sales! Listen here.
- Interested in more launch strategy tips? Send me a DM.
