[Recap] The Real Stats, Numbers, and Strategies Behind my First (5K) Launch!

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LAUNCHING...

for some it's a word they would like to avoid at all costs, but see it as a necessary evil.  For others it's a time of excitement, goals being accomplished, and high energy and excitement.  

FOR ME.... I HAD NO IDEA!  

This is a recap of my very first launch ever! I'm breaking down the exact numbers in terms of my email list, launch sales, total revenue, and the exact plan I used to bring in close to 5K during my first time ever launching a paid course.

It's not the crazy huge revenue numbers that you often see splashed all over the internet, but I hope that it's just the right combination of "WOW! That's a great accomplishment!" and "WOW! That's totally achievable... I could do that!"

My whole goal of sharing this blog post is to encourage you to take action if you've been sitting on the sidelines and don't think you know "how" to launch.  You can totally do this!

HERE'S WHAT I DID ....

Overview

I first made that decision that I was going to launch in February 2016 at the very end of 2015.  So I had just a little time to get things in order.  I started taking deliberate actions with my social media and blog posts at the start of January 2016 that would eventually lead up to my launch, but officially my launch started February 1st and ended February 22nd.

 When all was said and done I had 47 members of my first course class (42 of them paid with price points between $97 to $149, and 5 of them with gifted registration), and achieved a revenue total of $4,589.50. 

My Course

I was launching my course called Pintastic Profit Plan, which is all about building a list, gaining traffic, and securing paying clients through the power of Pinterest + website conversion strategy. Ever since I started this business back in September 2015, my brand has largely been based around teaching Pinterest strategy.  So this course topic was the clear next step for creating a paid product to offer.  

The plan was to differentiate Pintastic Profit Plan from other Pinterest courses, by making it's focus on the conversion strategy behind Pinterest.  In the course, I'd teach how to increase your traffic from Pinterest, but then I take it a step further - how to turn that traffic into email subscribers, raving fans, and eventually paid customers/clients.

Eventually I decided on a 5 module, 14 lesson format, that would be provided through "drip content" over the month of March.  This means that the course members are given access to the next lesson in the course every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of March, until all of the lessons are complete.

My Numbers

Just to give you an idea of where I currently sit in the online space while going through this first launch, here are some of my stats (taken currently, which is a little over a week past the official start of my course):

• Email subscribers: 1,089 - I'm averaging about 10-15 new subscribers per day, unless I'm running a special promotion which would bump it up more. (I use ConvertKit for my email system)

• Twitter followers: 1,279

• Pinterest followers: 1,491

• Instagram followers: 657

List Building

My goal was to have 1K email subscribers when launching, and I did hit that during the middle of my launch. Yay!

Some of the things that I have in place to increase my email list on auto-pilot everyday:

• Pinterest Power 5-Day email course - this is my most popular and highest value "freebie", and the biggest driver of new email subscribers

• 27 point Pinterest checklist - downloaded checklist

• Pinterest must-have tools - a PDF download

• Streamline your Strategy - free email course

• What's your perfect social media platform? - quiz

• Webinar workflow - a timeline checklist

• Social media plan - a downloaded plan

These are all promoted through my website, social media, and blog posts.

To bump up my email list prior to and during my launch, I also did a total of 4 webinars (1 solo and 3 co-hosted), created a free 14-Day #PinProfitChallenge, and offered a questionnaire that would result in one entry being gifted a free spot in my upcoming course.  All of these strategies were VERY important to my list building and revenue generating strategies for my launch, so I'll cover them each in more detail separately! 

Blog Posts

During the months of January and February, I posted 4 very intentional blog posts with a purpose of helping people understand the power of social media and Pinterest, and to drive new readers towards my various list building activities.  

These are the 4 blog posts and the purpose behind each:

1. 5 Reasons you Have more Social Media Follows than $ Profit: I taught why you must make your social media plan intentional and focus on the profitability of the actions that you are taking. Plus I promoted signing up for my #PinProfitChallenge.

2. 3 Top Excuses why you Don't have Time to Post on Social Media: I broke down the objections that I frequently hear when people say that social media takes too much time or isn't worth it, and then provided a solution to each. Plus I promoted signing up for the first of the co-hosted webinars that I did.

3. Recap: How I used a Challenge to create Major Email List Growth: Similar to this current blog post, I broke down exactly how I created my #PinProfitChallenge and the results that I saw from those efforts. Plus I promoted signing up for the second of the co-hosted webinars that I did.

4. Case Study: How I Created Mariah Coz's Largest Traffic Ever with Pinterest: I provided a case study full of numbers, screen shots, and pretty incredible facts about how I grew Mariah Coz of Femtrepreneur.co's Pinterest account into her largest traffic referral source for her business in less than a month. Plus I promoted signing up for my solo webinar.

Website Cover Page

Throughout the month of January and February, I used a cover page for my SquareSpace website that talked about my upcoming Pintastic Profit Plan course, and encouraged people to grab my 27 point Pinterest checklist. The checklist provided a bunch of value in terms of 27 concrete steps that you can take to improve your Pinterest, specifically using it for business purposes.  Plus, it included a follow up page that talked more about who I am, what I do, and a preview of what my Pintastic Profit Plan course is all about.  The main purpose of this checklist was to build my email list, while giving my new subscribers an initial preview of my paid course.

Questionnaire

At the beginning of January, I opened up a "Lady Boss Survey" in which I asked my current list and my social media audience to complete a survey, with one entry winning a spot in my upcoming course.  I asked questions about where they planned to spend their time and money for their business in 2016, as well as specific questions about their Pinterest strategy, or last of it. :)  I emailed my current list about this survey, but also promoted it on my social media, so it was another list building opportunity.  

Webinars

Throughout the month of January and February, I did a total of 4 webinars - 1 solo and 3 joint-webinars (meaning that I co-hosted them with another person).  In each of these webinars we provided a ton of valuable information about online business/blogging strategy, along with Pinterest strategy.  

The names of the 4 webinars were:

• Create a Winning Visual Strategy with Pinterest

• The Pinterest Domination Formula: how to turn Pinterest into a client conversion machine from scratch

• Turn Happy Followers into Repeat Clients

• Monetize your Blog: 7 Tested Steps to a Non-Icky Profit Funnel

After providing a good 30+ minutes of solid content in these webinars, in each we pitched a bundle of my course plus my co-host's offering, along with some special bonuses, offered at a price which was significantly lower compared to purchasing each offering separately.  On my solo webinar I offered my course at a pre-sale price along with bonuses.  Each webinar also had a special "fast action" bonus that was only available for anyone who purchased during the time when the webinar was live.

My solo webinar turned out to be the most successful with 17 total people purchasing! For that webinar I had a total of 174 people register, although I'm not certain how many ended up showing up live.  I did notice that during most of the webinar I had 35-50 people watching at any given time. 

For my joint webinars I bundled with a photography course, an Instagram course, and a membership site, and ended up with 5 sales total from those 3 webinars combined.  So unfortunately they were not quite as successful from a revenue standpoint, but they did allow me to continue to build wonderful relationships with fellow lady bosses!

#PinProfitChallenge

This challenge was a HUGE undertaking, but also a HUGE list building opportunity for me.  I provided a full 14 days of lessons on how to turn your Pinterest into a profitable marketing machine for your business.  I posted social media graphics for each of the 14 days' tips on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.  Then I emailed the full daily lesson to everyone who signed up.  Plus there was a challenge Slack team and a Teachable challenge website where all challenge members have lifetime access to the content.  

Basically I pulled out all the stops for this challenge!  And ended up having 349 people sign up.  This was a big boost for me!  At the end of the challenge, I pitched all of the challenge members to get in on my upcoming course at a pre-sale price.  7 challenge members took me up on the offering! 

Flash Sale

A flash sale was my final strategy that provided a big boost in sales before the close of my launch!  This was a sale where I bundled my course, Mariah Coz's F*ck Yeah Funnels masterclass, an Instagram course, a Canva course, my #PinProfitChallenge ebook, and access to my webinar vault for $129 for only 72 hours.  I promoted this solely to my email list, which resulted in 12 sales. 

Recap

So all in all .... was it stressful at times? YES. Were there things I would do differently in future launches? FOR SURE.  

Am I glad that I jumped in and launched before I had all the answers? ABSOLUTELY!

I'm the type of person who loves planning out a launch cycle.  It was fun for me to figure out how all the moving pieces would fit together.  And my initial plan is definitely not exactly how everything turned out.  I tweaked and added in new ideas as I went.  

So I hope this recap is an inspiration to you that you can absolutely do this even if you don't think you know what you're doing. If you have a launch story that you'd like to share, or any questions about my launch, I'd love to hear them in the comments below!

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