Sell your Online Course with Ease | 3 Proven Marketing Strategies 

Determining, your launch strategy is a highly personal choice. Like your digital offer or online course, your strategy needs to be unique, authentic and aligned to your business and community. 

Lately, it seems like every online launch guru is out there sharing their opinions as facts, and if something works for them, they announce it to the world as if it's going to work for someone else universally.

The crappy consequence to this is that if you try to implement said advice & it doesn't align with your unique situation, it can feel like something is wrong with you!

But that my friend couldn't be farther from the truth. 

So to counteract some of the generalized launch advice that is hurled at you on a daily basis, I give you: The Launch It Your Way series. 

This week's topic is Launch Strategy!

So what’s the best way to launch your digital offer?

 •  Webinars?

 • Challenges?

 • Video series?

 • What about evergreen? 

 • What about a webinar followed by a challenge 

 • or challenge a challenge followed by a webinar? 

Truth be told, there are about a kajillion ways you could launch your thing.

So what’s the RIGHT way to launch?

It’s the way that lights you up!

The way you are STOKED to show up for!

The way that allows you to show up to your community cool, calm & confident!

• Hate showing up on camera? Then a webinar or video series might not be the right fit for you.
• Low on energy & short on time? You might not want to go with a 30-day challenge.
• New to launching or no team to help with implementation? Trying to pull off an Amy Portfield-style launch solo will leave you with a big case of burnout.

Every launch strategy has the same essential components at its heart:

• Pre-Launch Promotion -  The period before your launch to build your email list & credibility. The best use of this time is to develop & promote a lead magnet to entice people to join your list & to build a connection with them through weekly emails.

• Sales Event Promotion - Typically, this period starts 7-14 days before your sales event. Your goal is to create awareness around your sales events and drive registrations. 

• Sales Event - This is the period when you are hosting your sales event. At the end of your sales event, opening the cart for your offer is typical. 

• Cart Open Promotion - Marks enrollment opening for your program or course.

• Cart Close Promotion - The 24 hours before closing the doors for your live launch.

But as with all things in life, you can make this basic structure as complex or straightforward as suits you.

There are 3 typical strategies that are usually used for launching digital offers.

Single Sales Event Event Strategy

A single sales event means having one type of sales even to kick off your open enrollment period. This strategy is relatively simple to implement, so I usually recommend this to clients who have proven offers but are new to launching. These typically work best for courses, memberships, coaching programs, or one-off services.

The models that are typically used in a single sales event launch :

• Webinar
• Video Series
• Challenge
• Summit

Pros of this Launch strategy: Live Connection with the audience to help build like, know, and trust factor.

Cons of this Launch strategy: Show up & engagement rate can be a challenge.

Multi-Sales Event Launch Strategy

Multi sales event means that you are using multiple sales event models that flow into each other. Since this strategy is more complex, I recommend not using this strategy for your first launch but instead layering on after you have a proven sales event model. The multi-sales event strategy usually works best for high ticket offers, masterminds, and group coaching where people need to build like know and trust factor with you to feel confident in their investment. 

A typical model can look like this:

• Challenge followed by Webinar
• Video series followed by Webinar or Facebook LIVE

Pros of this model: It is higher-touch more & requires more time to nurture your community.

Cons of this model: A more extended timeline makes it hard to hold your community’s engagement. 

Non-Sales Event Launch Strategy 

A non-sales event model means that there is no sales event to kick off your promotion and that your offer is being promoted through email or social only. This is the least complex model to offer, so I typically recommend using this model to clients who are brand new launching or have a beta offer to test. In addition, Nonsales events work great for low ticket offers or self-liquidating offers. 

Pros of this model: Simple & Low Energy

Cons of this model: Not personal or no live point of connection

Here are some other things to consider when choosing your launch strategy.

• How do you enjoy showing up for your community?
• What does your schedule and launch timeline look like?
• What are your current energy levels like? 
• Do you have the capacity to show up for multiple sales events?
• Which model is most aligned with your topic? Example: Challenges work great for those in the health and wellness space!
• Are you launching a proven offer, or does this need to be a more scaled-down Beta launch? 

The bottom line is to make your launch style work for you & not the other way around. Remember, the main goal of your launch is to launch, so you don’t want to make your strategy so complex that you get bogged down in overwhelm. The key is to align your strategy to where you and your business are currently at & how you enjoy showing up for your community. 

Now that you've selected your launch strategy into an actionable plan?

I actually wrote an entire post about Launch Planning Here that here.

But to a quick overview:

1. Use a tool like Canva to map out the entire customer journey.

2. Once you've got all of the deliverables mapped out. Begin to organize them into a project management tool like Asana and assign due dates & owners.

3. With a launch strategy & project plan in place, you're ready to be executing and bringing your launch to life.  (I recommend using a simple all-in-one course hosting and marketing platform like Kajabi to make this part easy-breezy).

Alright, my friend, that's it for my first Launch It Your Way post! Let me know if this helped you determine your launch strategy for your next launch.