Today we’ll explore 7 sales boosting strategies to help you boost your sales and increase your profits in your next live online course launch.
Live launches can be stressful at the best of times.
One of the easiest ways to make live launching less stressful is to reuse what worked well in your last launch. Focusing on small improvements to the parts of your launch funnel that didn’t convert as well as we wanted it to.
Optimizing your launches with these incremental improvements results in more sales, higher profits, and a bigger impact over time.
Let’s explore 7 ways you can increase your sales and profits in your next live launch.
Cultivate Fiercely Devoted Fans: Building a Loyal Following Between Launches
We only need two things to make money online:
An audience and a compelling offer.
One of the first and easiest ways to boost sales during a launch is to focus heavily on building our audience between launches.
To build an audience, we have two important resources at our disposal:
- Energy and time which we use to build our audience organically
- The money we use for ads to build our lists.
A combination of both approaches usually works well. Each has its trade-offs: ads cost money, while organic methods demand more energy and time.
Investing in ads to accelerate our list-building efforts will never be money wasted. As long as your email list is nurtured well between launches.
Sending out weekly emails with top-notch content increases our expertise and builds trust with our audience.
By creating quality weekly content like podcasts, blogs, or videos and emailing this content to our lists, we see steady growth in our live launches year after year.
List building activities combined with a weekly content strategy is the slow way to grow, but it pays off with credibility and lasting connections with leads who convert to course sales when we launch.
You only need two things to make money online -an audience and an offer.
Investing your time and money in growing your audience will make it easier and easier for you to celebrate those big paydays sooner and boost your sales sooner!
Build Anticipation to Skyrocket Participation In Your Launch
What if you can get your audience to be as excited about your launch as a kid on Christmas morning?
You can…
You’re already building your email list…
You’re posting on social media….
You’re blogging, podcasting, or vlogging…
You’re emailing your list…
Now, supercharge your launch game by inviting your audience to join the waitlist for your upcoming launch.
In our work with The Launch Lounge Boutique Agency, we've witnessed six-figure launches with minimal effort, all thanks to robust waitlists.
By adding a waitlist invitation to the thank-you page of your lead magnets, you get to offer rewards for those students who show their early interest by signing up for the waitlist.
Once a lead joins the waitlist, treat them to exclusive email content that adds more value and builds anticipation for what’s to come in your live launch.
For even bigger results, consider running a flash sale to your waitlist before the big live launch for a quick cash injection that can be used to fund your launch ads.
Your audience will feel like it’s Christmas with all the goodness they get and you’ll feel like it’s Christmas when you get your ads for free!
Boost Sales Conversion Rates with a Low-Risk Offer
Ever come across those $27 offers or free books with a $5 shipping fee?
Meet Self-Liquidating Offers (SLOs), sometimes called TinyOffers or MiniOffers.
We're big fans because they let leads make a small purchase with a low commitment before we ask them to make a bigger commitment.
According to Robert Cialdini, the author of the groundbreaking marketing book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion a customer who recently bought something from us, even if it is a small amount like $27 is much more likely to buy from us again and increase their average spend.
Cialdini calls this the Law of Consistency, and it explains why we stay loyal to our favorite brands and keep buying from the same shops we love and trust.
The more recently a purchase was made and the higher the frequency of purchases made, the higher the chances are of future purchases being made, according to Cialdini.
By integrating a low-dollar offer like an SLO during the lead-up to our live launches we can increase the recency and frequency of purchases from our email list which in turn leads to an increase in sales during our launches.
Fair warning: Running ads for an SLO is an advanced move—proceed only if your offers already convert well.
Crafting a Launch-Specific Lead Magnet To Overcome Objections Before They Even Occur
Ever find yourself wanting to buy something but then never really deciding to purchase it until it is too late?
Yeah, so do we.
This could be because we’re not completely convinced that what we are about to buy will meet our needs, or maybe we don’t fully believe we can get results from the product or service – so we put off deciding on buying until it is too late.
We call the thoughts that stop us from ‘buying objections‘.
During the last few days of our cart open period, we definitely want to focus most of our attention on helping as many of our students as possible to make a conscious decision to either buy our courses or not buy our courses because they truly believe that it will not be right for them.
Objections aren't always obvious. When they are, it's probably best to accept the ‘no' from that student and move on.
It's usually not the clear objections that are the enemy of sales, it's apathy and a resistance to making a definitive decision.
If you want those sales boosters, you'll need to get your students off the fence!
A student who does not make a clear and conscious decision because her concerns are not fully addressed creates a bigger marketing challenge for us than a student who can, early on, identify that our course is not a good fit for them and opt out of our launch or promotion.
As marketers, we want to help our students decide if our course is right for them as early in the launch process as possible.
A launch-specific lead magnet goes a long way in helping our students self-select early in the sales process so they can confidently decide to buy or not to buy.
Before your audience is ready for your webinar or challenge, they might need more from you to help them self-select for your launch or program.
The first free lead magnet you offer helps with quick problems, but getting them ready to tackle the bigger issues you solve in your course may need some extra steps in between.
An example of good launch-specific lead magnets could include a collection of your best success stories from past students to help your audience see how your course or membership worked for people just like them.
A quiz can help them self-identify the next best step for them to take if they are going to make progress toward buying the solution your course offers.
Know what your future students need before they’ll be ready to commit to purchasing your course.
Address this objection with a launch-specific lead magnet that makes the decision to buy, or not to buy, easier for them.
Boost Your Live Show-Up Rates to Create Unforgettable Experiences
Few things can be as frustrating as running costly ads for webinars and then losing the leads because our emails ended up in spam!
Sometimes, our leads get busy and don’t see the reminders we post on social media or they forget to put the event in their calendar and they never show up for our webinars.
Boosting live show-up rates during launches is one of the easiest ways to increase our chances of turning leads into sales.
Here are some ideas for increasing your live show-up rates in your next launch:
- Make it personal, try a video series in their inbox after they sign up.
- Ask them to hit reply on your emails so you can dodge spam filters.
- If you’re launching using a 4-part videos series funnel, use ads to drive your leads to the videos on your landing page—don't rely on emails alone.
- Consider introducing a workbook for the webinar, with a special bonus for completed entries.
- Pair people up as soon as they register by creating accountability buddies for a welcoming, supportive experience.
Between when your ideal customer sees the ad or email for your webinar when they are eager to attend and excited to learn more…and the actual day they have to show up juggling life events, you have a window where you get to connect, excite and increase their commitment to showing up live.
How can you use this window effectively so the moment your webinar starts you’re talking to lots of friends, not crickets?
Tapping Into The Power of Urgency and Scarcity – Two Powerful Sales Boosting Strategies
Humans hate missing out!
FOMO is real and can be used successfully to help those on the fence decide faster about buying our courses or memberships.
During a launch, our NO 1 job is to help our future students identify if our course or membership is right for them.
Urgency and scarcity speed up this decision-making process by helping those who are interested in buying our courses actively choose what is best for them and either make the purchase or not.
Fast Action Bonuses during live webinars or limited-time offers during the cart open phase create urgency.
Scarcity is created by limiting seats or opening courses only during specific times.
Exclusive levels in our pricing tables or application-only access to coaching programs add scarcity and boost attractiveness.
Here’s a short list of some of the ways you can create scarcity and urgency in your next launch:
- Live show-up bonus
- Early bird bonus
- Full pay bonus
- Mid-cart bonus
- Disappearing bonus
- Daily bonus
- Car close bonus
- Limited number of seats
- Limited spaces
- Taking deposits for limited spaces or a discount
- Countdown timers
- Cart closing
How can you weave urgency and scarcity into your next launch for maximum impact?
Turning Non-Buyers into Buyers with Strategies That Improve Launch Performance
Just wrapped up a launch and want to squeeze more sales?
When we have a better understanding of why people chose not to purchase during our launch, we can make a different offer to them and better meet their immediate needs.
If money's the hurdle, offer a down-sell. Something smaller, more affordable, to inch them closer to the bigger offer.
Maybe you discover they want more of your time; create a VIP Limited Upgrade option where anyone who pays more gets more access to you and your expertise.
Maybe a different payment plan suits them, smoothing the way to afford your course or membership while enjoying lower monthly repayments.
The best way to know why people on your list did not purchase your course during your launch is to send out a survey to ask them.
Recap: 7 Sales Boosting Strategies To Increase Launch Profits
Now you have at least 7 ways you can make those incremental changes to increase sales in your live online course launches.
Which of these will you implement in your next launch?
- Build a loyal email list and add value with weekly emails between launches.
- Skyrocket live participation in your launch by building anticipation with a waitlist.
- Boost sales conversion rates with a low-risk, low-dollar offer in the lead-up to your launch.
- Overcome objections before they even occur with a launch-specific lead magnet.
- Create unforgettable live experiences by boosting your live show-up rates.
- Tap into the power of urgency and scarcity, your two most powerful sales boosting strategies.
- Turn non-buyers into buyers when you survey your audience and offer them what they want and what they are ready to commit to.