Lessons learnt from launching

This blog post was first published on 31st Jan 2020

This week I wanted to share something a little bit different, something I know is going to help you to grow your business and take it to the next level and its all about launching.

I want to tell you about when I launched my most popular product, Get Legit, (a legal template bundle to help make selling online simple by giving you pre-drafted clauses for refunds, to limit liability and to help you protect yourself when trading online.)

I created it in a way to make it super simple so that entrepreneurs can simply copy and paste parts of the text from the documents and put it live on their site. I highlighted the sections that needed to be personalised in yellow and also included a Drafting Notes Guidance PDF to explain things in a little more detail.

I launched with a legal masterclass all about running your business legitimately. I sent a couple of emails and I showed up on my Instagram stories. I massively exceeded my target sales and every time I picked up my phone on Sunday evening a new order had come in.

I learnt a lot, loved it and had some great feedback so I wanted to share it with you here. Here are my three biggest launch takeaways:

1) Survey your audience - Once I had the idea for my product I asked my community what they thought. I have a fantastic audience over on @lucy_legal and I asked them questions about the pillars of content that they would get in my product. One of the best ways to do this is to use the Poll function. That way you can see who is voting and wants to hear more about what you plan to share. Make a list of those who say they want to hear more so that you can ensure you are following them and engaging with them to find out more about what they want and need.

2) Launch your product via a webinar - I remember watching my first webinar two years ago and thinking how amazing it would be if I could do that too. Even as recently as the start of this year I had no idea how I was going to connect the tech but I used Zoom and it was really simple. By showing up live on video I walked my community through the key content in the product they were buying. I knew from my survey that their key pain points were around when they were legally required to offer a refund and the language around launching a product to comply with consumer legislation. I focused on these points in the webinar and I stayed around for questions afterwards. I kept it short and to the point.

3) Use methods which are true to you - stay visible and cover key content on Stories - I didn’t want to spam my mailing list with tonnes of “cart closing” emails, so I sent two emails. One email was about the replay and the other about the key elements of the product which I covered in my Instagram Stories. For me, showing up on my Instagram Stories felt more authentic. I shared the same content on my Stories, a static grid post and linked that to a blog post. The aim being here that I wanted to get the people from my Stories to my site to the blog where they was a link to purchase. The next day I simply shared the link straight to purchase with the intention of making the process as simple as possible for those who wanted to purchase.

I launched Get Legit on a Friday morning with introductory pricing until midnight on the Sunday. On the Sunday evening every time I looked at my phone there was another email confirming that someone else had purchased my product. It was my most successful launch to date and it was very simple, stress-free and didn’t cost me a penny. I didn’t invest in Ads or pay for anything that I wasn’t already using in my business (I already have a website and mail system). That isn’t to say that Ads wouldn’t have increased my sales it’s just I wanted to keep things simple and not have too many moving parts.

You can purchase Get Legit here and ensure that your business is set up to cover privacy and key legal terms such as disclaimers, refunds and limitation of liability. 

If you have any tips to create a simple profitable launch of an online course or product I would love to hear them in the comments below.

Before you go, if you want tips like the ones I have shared in this post then 'Behind the Business' could be for you. Simply sign up below and you’ll hear from me with tips on running a wildly successful business and legal information to keep you on the right track.