If you’ve ever felt disappointed in the results you got from a live launch, today’s episode is for you. 

You’ll hear stories about course creators who bawled their eyes out over so much wasted money that could easily have been avoided if they only knew what you’ll know after listening to this episode. 

When you listen you’ll also learn:

• Why ads are cool, but the marketing that supports the ads is where the money is at
• How to know if your audience is ready for a profitable launch
• What to do to guarantee you never waste money on launch ads ever again
• One simple thing you can do after every launch to ensure you know exactly how to improve your results in your next launch. 

Tune in now, and discover the secret to running profitable launch ads that turn your business into your Freedom Empire!

Salome

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Episode Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:41:21

Salome Schillack

Welcome to episode number 178 of The Launch Lounge Podcast. This is the third episode since we're back from our break, and since we have rebranded as the Launch Lounge Podcast from the previously the Shine Show episodes. Today's episode is called ‘What's Working Today to Sell More Courses’, and at the end of this episode, I hope that you will have learned some best practice for your ads and your marketing so you can save money doing only the things we know are working really well today.

00:00:41:26 – 00:01:06:47

Salome Schillack

When you implement what you learn today, you'll see your audiences grow faster and you'll flood your email list with leads that can't wait to buy your online courses. Because I want you to make a bigger impact, and I want you to change more people's lives faster and create an online business that provides you with a way to have more freedom in your life.

00:01:06:52 – 00:01:32:32

Salome Schillack

If you've joined me in any of the previous episodes since we're back this week, I want to thank you. If you've emailed me, if you've left me a voice message, I just want to say I really appreciate it so much. I have listened to every message and read every email and I am genuinely overwhelmed with gratitude for you for letting me spend this time in your ear.

00:01:32:36 – 00:01:44:41

Salome Schillack

I'm getting back into the swing of things. I am getting fitter with hitting record and creating content for you, and it is truly wonderful for me to be back here with you.

00:01:44:41 – 00:02:24:13

Salome Schillack

In the beginning of 2022. Unfortunately, I watched as some of our clients completely lost some of their profitable funnels almost overnight. I had heard of things like this happening before, but kind of like a mythical creature. I thought, oh sure, that will never happen again or that doesn't really exist. Or surely they're exaggerating. I heard people like Russell Brunson and Frank Kern talk about losing entire businesses overnight.

00:02:24:13 – 00:03:00:32

Salome Schillack

Back in the 2000, after Google updated their algorithms and and they realized the cost of only relying on SEO or only relying on Google at that point for the profitability of their businesses. So when Apple came out with their iOS privacy updates again, this Pollyanna, Pollyanna brain of mine kind of went, surely it's not going to be that bad.

00:03:00:37 – 00:03:32:31

Salome Schillack

but a few months into the iOS changes of early 2022 taking place, we saw the meta pixel becoming completely blind and ads really struggling to optimize. I was nowhere near ready to experience the impact this would have on my clients, businesses and on mine. Lucky for me, I have fingers and lots of pies because you know, hastag ADHD.

00:03:32:36 – 00:03:58:53

Salome Schillack

Got to do lots of things at the same time. And I try to mitigate risk in my business as much as I can. But not everybody is as lucky as I am. When the pixel became blind overnight, I saw entire ads funnels that used to be profitable completely tank, and in some cases these funnels were the only things holding some of these businesses in place.

00:03:58:58 – 00:04:40:03

Salome Schillack

So today I want to share with you a bit of what's working right now, and I share it with you because we're coming out from another big algorithm update on Google. And unfortunately, I am hearing again about people losing their businesses. And so what used to be the boogeyman to me became my worst nightmare in 2022 and is now a thing that I do, not just, make off or dismiss as fear mongering.

00:04:40:07 – 00:05:11:18

Salome Schillack

and put my Pollyanna hat on. I actually pay attention to how we can all manage the risk in our businesses so that we safeguard against these giant tech companies, making one little change and wiping our small businesses off the face of the planet. with their changes. So I want to share five things with you that are working well right now.

00:05:11:23 – 00:05:36:57

Salome Schillack

And I want you to know you don't have to pay attention to all five of them. If you take away one thing from today's episode and you make one little change to your business, so that you can manage your risk in your business and make sure you do more of what's working right now and more of the marketing things that work always.

00:05:37:00 – 00:05:38:02

Salome Schillack

I guess that's

00:05:38:02 – 00:06:14:28

Salome Schillack

my passion, really is to teach you things that work always. And, you know how much I love ads, but when ads get hard and when people lose entire businesses because they only relied on ads, I see a responsibility there to tell you that we should not only rely on ads, and we should not only rely on SEO, and we should never only rely on social media, we do need a bit of a a bit of a pick and mix of different, strategies that we use.

00:06:14:28 – 00:06:40:42

Salome Schillack

And we need to make sure that we're building our businesses in our email lists and making sure that we have warm email lists we can sell to. All right. So number one, the first thing that is working well right now, social media at the moment is very much about reaching new audiences and then driving these audiences to our websites.

00:06:40:54 – 00:07:10:01

Salome Schillack

So what is working well on social media is getting in front of new people, creating engagement, creating reach and getting in front of new people. I feel the days are gone where we build communities at the top of our funnels. you know, I feel the days are gone where we, create communities on Facebook, on Instagram, on YouTube.

00:07:10:06 – 00:07:37:19

Salome Schillack

I think it's TikTok came along and it turned us all into short form video consumers, and it turned us all into, like, little consumer monsters, which means that the algorithms have changed in such a way that they are pushing out our content to people who do not follow us more than they're pushing out our content to people who do follow us.

00:07:37:24 – 00:07:59:36

Salome Schillack

And that means it becomes even more important that we create short, engaging content that can go out to new people, but that we capture those people once they have engaged with us on our email lists. Because if they if they're going to hit follow, and then they're going to stop seeing our content, they're going to forget about us.

00:07:59:41 – 00:08:24:22

Salome Schillack

So have this, kind of, mindset shift in your head that you're using social media to do networking for you. You're using social media to go out and, find new people for you. And, you have to have ways for those people to then come and follow you on, in your email list. So, think about all those for you pages.

00:08:24:22 – 00:08:45:21

Salome Schillack

And I feel like my Instagram feed has suddenly become flooded with suggestions for accounts to follow, that I've never seen before. So reaches in engagement is in, but the money is in what you do with them once they see your content. So get them onto your email list,

00:08:45:21 – 00:09:16:05

Salome Schillack

Add call to actions to your socials so that they come and download your lead magnets so that they come and build your blog, or build your podcast and then join your list. So make sure everything you're doing in terms of social media content and in terms of your long form content always points back to some lead magnet or some, freebie that you can give away where they can actually join your email list and then become part of your, ecosystem.

00:09:16:10 – 00:09:40:17

Salome Schillack

You can run simple engagement ads to prevent the organic algorithm from putting your content in front of new people today and showing it to no one else tomorrow. That is literally what the organic, or algorithm is doing right now. We see one day you'll get thousands of engagements on a post, and then literally the next day every single post is dead.

00:09:40:17 – 00:10:02:50

Salome Schillack

And it does not get any engagement and it does not get any reach. And you know what? They can do that because they own the platform. I saw this recently happen, on my own feed where I was running. I an eight week, it was an eight week experiment. Seeing what happens when I run no ads to my organic following.

00:10:02:54 – 00:10:35:17

Salome Schillack

And in the middle of these eight weeks, Instagram announced that they are introducing paid reach or paid engagements. So a way for us to pay them so that they put our content in front of new people and instantly I watched as my reach and my engagement absolutely nosedived. and it just made me feel again, like it is just a losing battle trying to build an organic audience without using engagement ads and list building ads.

00:10:35:17 – 00:11:24:04

Salome Schillack

So number one, focus on using your social media to reach new audiences. But remember, your key purpose is to drive them to your website where they can opt in for your email list. Number two YouTube, mmm, YouTube should be part of your content strategy. I was reach recently reading one of Hubspot's reports. Hubspot brings out these annual reports on the state of social media and the state of the creator content industry, and I love reading these reports because they they send out surveys to their hundreds and, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people and, and survey them to see what is working on social media.

00:11:24:09 – 00:12:02:35

Salome Schillack

And in Hubspot's report, they continuously report on how YouTube is becoming more important. YouTube is becoming better. YouTube with the introduction of shorts, their short form videos, that is meant to be competition to TikTok and to Instagram Reels and they really have solidified themselves in the game of long form and short form video. It also helps that YouTube is the second biggest search engine, which means as people are moving more and more towards searching on social media, YouTube really is coming into its own.

00:12:02:40 – 00:12:32:53

Salome Schillack

The HubSpot report says YouTube offers a higher return on investment for B2C, which is business to consumer, which is what most course creators do. Then Facebook and Instagram, Facebook or Instagram. Now, you know, it's easy to say, well, okay. YouTube offers a higher return on investment for B2C than Facebook and Instagram. so take that with a grain of salt, because remember, Facebook and Instagram are is a really one platform, but multiple platforms.

00:12:32:53 – 00:13:07:03

Salome Schillack

So when you combine Facebook and Instagram together, which you do when you run ads, you get the benefit of both platforms, not just the one. But do take note of YouTube in terms of their, ability to reach your ideal customer. and, and as a search engine, people are searching more and more on socials. I didn't realize it until recently, but TikTok is a fantastic place to do searches to search for things.

00:13:07:08 – 00:13:31:03

Salome Schillack

sometimes when I'm searching on something in Google, the results you get is pretty overwhelming. And, you know, you just get that link preview and then you've got to go and click on it to see what it is. But I have started searching in TikTok and my understanding is even in YouTube, it is doing really well to use social media as your search, platform.

00:13:31:03 – 00:14:03:04

Salome Schillack

So make sure you have the right hashtags. Make sure you have the right keywords. the fact that YouTube offer short form and long form video, and they have the ability to create playlists gives them a leg up. When you think about, playlists, it's not something that works on Facebook. As far as I know at all. At this stage, it is just a waterfall effect and you get whatever comes up in your news feed on Instagram.

00:14:03:04 – 00:14:52:17

Salome Schillack

We have the ability to create highlights from our stories and that would kind of be a play, playlist. but I think when you're in a space of searching for something and you land on a creator's YouTube channel and there are multiple different playlists, you're in a different mindset than you are when you're scrolling through Instagram, where you want to consume things quickly and easily, then you are when you're on YouTube, where you have the option to either consume quickly and easily, and then move into consuming in a more in a, more in a way where you're going to take it in a little bit more and spend a little bit more time

00:14:52:17 – 00:15:00:02

Salome Schillack

on a video. So YouTube, I do feel that they have the the power of engaging us quickly with their

00:15:00:02 – 00:15:06:26

Salome Schillack

short form content and then keeping us engaged with playlists and long form video.

00:15:06:26 – 00:15:40:09

Salome Schillack

I'm even hearing that YouTube ads, or being reported to be seeing a similar return on ad spend for business to consumer campaigns, as Facebook does. This is in the Hubspot report. I am yet to hear about that. Really in real life, I have not seen that in real life. Okay, so number two, number one was I use social media to reach new audiences and then drive those audiences to your website where they can consume with your long-form content and join your email list.

00:15:40:13 – 00:16:12:31

Salome Schillack

Number two is YouTube should be part of your content strategy. Number three is unfortunately, SEO is out right now. Do not spend another minute stressing about SEO. Like I said, people are searching on socials. Make sure you use hashtags that represent something your audience would be searching for. Make sure you use keywords that represents, phrases your audience would be searching for.

00:16:12:36 – 00:16:52:21

Salome Schillack

But consumers are searching on socials more than they are on Google Now, particularly Gen Z. So if your audience is a younger audience, make sure you have those keywords in your socials because they are searching there more than in Google. If your audience are baby Boomers or Gen Xers like me, then Google might still be your friend. But the Google updates from earlier in the year means that literally none of the SEO experts really know exactly what's going on right now, and no one can tell us what to do to make sure our SEO is in right standing.

00:16:52:31 – 00:17:24:56

Salome Schillack

Now, I think some things will always be true using keywords, using, you know, linking back to your own content and other people's content and having other people link back to you, those are the sort of SEO practices that will always benefit you. So continue to do that if you have if you haven't, start doing that. Make sure your one podcast episode links to another one so that when people are on your site, they can easily go from one piece of content to another one.

00:17:25:01 – 00:17:56:08

Salome Schillack

But the most important thing with all of this is create content your audience wants, and then send it to them on your email list. Getting organic traffic is great, but building your list should be the focus of every single page on your website. So that's number three. SEO is out. Number four is we need longer funnels. It's like post pandemic.

00:17:56:13 – 00:18:27:56

Salome Schillack

There's this broken trust. People are weary. It could be economic uncertainty. It could just be this world that we live in right now. I don't know, it could be algorithms. It could be a lot of things. Who knows. And there's no point in speculating. But the truth is we see that people take longer to make buying decisions, and they need more trust, and they need more information, and they need to be warmed up for a longer time.

00:18:28:01 – 00:18:53:42

Salome Schillack

That means our big successful launches, where we run tons of ads to cold audiences overnight and fill our webinars, are video series or email lists. They are in need of a bit of tweaking. People need a longer time to trust you before they buy and they need more touchpoints. So how does this impact your launch funnel and your pre-launch runway?

00:18:53:47 – 00:19:19:44

Salome Schillack

You are going to have to think about what else you have to do to warm your list up before you start promoting your launch. When you think about someone like Amy Porterfield in the past, she used to just run, ads and promote her webinars to her affiliates, and they're the, people coming into her launch would attend a webinar and they would buy her courses.

00:19:19:44 – 00:19:49:57

Salome Schillack

And now in the last two years, she's introduced the bootcamp funnel in front of the webinar, which is a month long. So she is going on a journey with her leads for an entire month before even mentioning a webinar. And that is paying off for her really well. So she has made her funnel longer, and she's building that relationship with people to warm them up more before she starts to sell to them.

00:19:49:57 – 00:20:13:05

Salome Schillack

So longer funnels is number four. If your funnels are not performing the way they used to, maybe you need to ask yourself, what are you not doing in the weeks leading up to your launch? Is that you need to be doing to make your audience warm enough to trust you, and to buy from you? All right, let's recap a little bit.

00:20:13:10 – 00:20:46:55

Salome Schillack

Number one was using social media to reach new audiences, then driving those audiences to your website where they can find more content and opt in for your email list. Number two is using YouTube as part of your content strategy, and starting to use both short and long form video there. Number three is SEO is out, but do focus on keywords in your socials and link back to your content on your blog posts so that you're still doing the things that will always work for SEO.

00:20:47:00 – 00:21:14:06

Salome Schillack

Number four is longer funnels are in because they build more trust in our audience. Need that from us. Number five. Of course you didn't think I was going to have entire episode without mentioning ads. Number five is run more ads. What do I mean by that? Our audiences need to be bigger than ever, and they need to have more time to warm up than ever.

00:21:14:11 – 00:21:55:19

Salome Schillack

I cannot overstate for you the importance of the need for you to have a large audience. Your email lists need to be hitting a thousand 2000, 5000, 10,000 people. It is just not feasible anymore to launch to small audiences. Might be the first or the second time, and there's absolute ways to make money to small audiences. I teach that inside of A-lister you can make money the minute people opt in for your list, but those are going to be low dollar products.

00:21:55:24 – 00:22:18:11

Salome Schillack

And what you really want is you want people to be comfortable with paying whatever your course fee is. So our audiences do need to be bigger than ever, and they need more time to warm up. And when we're trying to do this, relying only on the algorithm, the organic algorithm, it can easily feel like we're walking through mud.

00:22:18:16 – 00:22:46:15

Salome Schillack

So engagement ads are still the bomb. I recently, after my little eight week experiment, turned my engagement ads back on again. And with this new algorithm, with this new push of getting content in front of new audiences, I am seeing lower cost engagement on my engagement ads than I have ever seen. I finally have a few zeros in there,

00:22:46:15 – 00:22:56:21

Salome Schillack

even my students who, or in lifestyle or crafts or coaching environments, niches, they are also seeing fantastic results.

00:22:56:21 – 00:23:19:29

Salome Schillack

So engagement ads are the bomb, and they prevent you from becoming a slave to the organic algorithm. So once you have your engagement ads up, you know that you're reaching new people every single day and you can create quality retargeting audiences for you list building ads and for your launch ads. The other ads that are working really well is list building ads.

00:23:19:29 – 00:23:44:02

Salome Schillack

And I want you to use video image ads or working carousel ads or working. And it's something you need to taste to see which one works best for your audience. But the beauty of video is it just gets pushed out more and it gets pushed out into multiple different places where people can see your ad, can engage with your ad, and then opt in.

00:23:44:06 – 00:24:17:43

Salome Schillack

And finally, as far as ads go, the wider you can make your targeting, the better. The algorithm needs space to go and find people and it will optimize based on the actions people take. But it needs space to find people who are going to take those first few actions. So try open targeting. For example, you can just say women in the US between age 35 and older and, and let your ads run and let the algorithm find people for you.

00:24:17:48 – 00:24:41:57

Salome Schillack

All right. Those are my five things that I wanted to share with you today that are working well at the moment. So let's recap use social for reach and send them to your site for list building. Embrace YouTube, use long form and short form video SEO and ads on YouTube. Number three don't stress too much about SEO on your long form content.

00:24:41:57 – 00:25:12:15

Salome Schillack

Create content your audience wants and do some basic optimization. But do not spend a lifetime trying to figure out what Google's algorithms want at the moment, because nobody knows. Number four create longer funnels and longer runway periods prior to your launch. And number five, start using ads to build your engaged audience faster and use ads to build your list so you can gain traction and get to a profitable launch sooner.

00:25:12:20 – 00:25:39:55

Salome Schillack

And if you're ready to learn how to use ads to skyrocket your email list so you can have a flood of new leads who are warm and ready to buy when you launch, I want you to go to the launch lounge.com forward slash, get my ad up and take our free five day video training. That'll show you exactly how to get started with your list building ads, so you can launch to a warm list every time.

00:25:40:00 – 00:26:01:29

Salome Schillack

Thank you so much for listening tonight. Tomorrow is Friday and on Fridays we are going to walk and talk. On a Friday I take my headphones and I walk into the suburb I live in and across to some other suburbs. You, hear me share about a certain, blue heeler that lives in the same suburb as I do?

00:26:01:34 – 00:26:04:27

Salome Schillack

so you're going to have to listen tomorrow if you want to know who I'm talking about.

00:26:07:10 – 00:26:16:31

Salome Schillack

So come and walk and talk with me tomorrow. And let's chat about some strategies to nail your niche faster. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.