For episode six, we’re diving into the Reels Mini Course launch! This was an online course that I launched back in the fall of 2021 and today, I wanted to go through my strategy, numbers, and all of those things related to the launch. I did film a YouTube video about all of this, if you prefer to watch that HERE! Honestly, I’m excited for us to dive into this today because I get so many questions about the process, so without further ado, let’s jump in! 

Marketing and Filming Strategy for Course Launch

#1: My Organic Marketing Strategy

First and foremost, I went into this launch with an almost completely organic marketing strategy. What that means is that I wasn’t paying for marketing or ads outside my own audience. When I did spend money, it was on re-targeting the people who are already in my audience via my email list or Instagram. I was honestly just curious about how I would do with a launch with an organic strategy. At the time of the launch, I already had a few things set up like my YouTube channel, a strong Instagram account/community and my email list, which had about 11,500 subscribers at the time. As a side note, when you’re growing a business on digital products, make sure you really focus on growing your email list! After doing my launch with this organic strategy, I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to a paid one! 

#2: Done is Better than Perfect 

The next thing that was important about my launch was the idea of “done is better than perfect”. Whether you’re growing a team, building products, or just working your business, I think we get caught up in the idea that everything has to be perfectly ready before we let it loose in the world. We want to find the perfect person to do the job or everything has to be totally finalized. But, for this launch, I focused on keeping things in house. I was at a place in my business where I could pour time into the launch. I took on more tasks than I might normally do, including copywriting, video editing, and graphic designs. But, I also knew if I didn’t have everything perfect or all of it all, it was going to be okay. 

So I want to encourage you that you don’t have to have a massive team to launch something in the world. I had other launches where I paid people and invested in them. I was able to take what we’d done together and use that as an outline for my own work this go around. It still makes that initial investment worth it timewise and moneywise – I just knew I wanted to do it alone this time. 

#3: Utilizing the Team I Did Have 

While I worked on the launch and did a lot of tasks on my own that I hadn’t before, I did lean on my existing team, too. I did end up hiring a videographer to help with a few films, even though I have experience with recording my own stuff. That was worth it for the marketing videos I created. I also leaned on my copywriter, Kristina, for content and my video editor, Lily, too. Having them allowed me to hand over some tasks that would have taken me more time and energy during the launch. 

Launch Timeline 

Now that you know more about your strategy, let’s talk about the timeline for pre-launch and launch week. There’s no right or wrong for these timelines, but this is how it worked for me. About six weeks prior to the launch, I sent out a survey asking my audience more about Reels and what they were struggling with. That helped me understand what they were struggling with so that I could create content in the course related to that, but also use it for marketing purposes in emails, social media, and my sales page leading up to the launch. From there, I began to lay out my course content and start filming. 

Filming

This course came out to be about three hours long. I planned to film over about a week, even though the course only came out to be about three hours long. I learned filming my last course (which was much bigger) that cramming too much into a week would leave me feeling sick and my voice raw. So, around week four, I wrapped up filming. It’s when I also started to film the priming content for my course. I mentioned this earlier, but priming content is the idea of creating free valuable content around a certain topic so that when you go to launch something, people will be able to see that you’re an expert in that area. 

So, at week four, I was working on that. These were my YouTube videos – all of them leading up to the launch were about Reels. I also had emails going out and lots of content on Instagram about Reels and tips. Essentially, no matter where someone followed me or learned from me, they were getting free and valuable content about Reels. Around 3 weeks prior to launch, I began to pull beta testers from my audience. In exchange for them filling out an extensive survey for feedback, they get the course for free. So, I gathered a few people from my audience to do so and they had access for about a week so I had time to make adjustments from their feedback. 

Two weeks to launch…

That puts us about two weeks prior to launch. At this point, I wrapped up finishing the course content. I did have a video I refilmed and added more to after receiving their feedback. I also began working on my free Reels class during this time, too. A few days before the public launch, I knew I wanted to hold a free masterclass. People could sign up from my audience to watch live. It was more priming content and at the end of the class, they had the chance to snag my Reels Mini Course at a discount. I like doing this during a launch period, because then I can place the whole process on evergreen and have the ability to replay and continue to sell the product. 

That brings us to Friday Oct. 22, which is the day we actually did the class. On Saturday, the free replay expired so the bonus also expired. On Sunday, there wasn’t really anything happening in relation to the launch. Then on Monday, everything went to the email list and public with a 50% off bonus. I had a few product bonuses, and honestly, probably won’t do that again. Throughout the next week, we began sending out a bunch of emails. This meant my sale was running from Monday to Friday.  At that point, we shut down the cart and the initial launch sale was over. 

Launch Statistics 

The last time I shared a course launch, everyone was really interested in the statistics so I wanted to share them for this Mini Course launch. At the start of my launch, I had 11,500 subscribers to my email list. About 8,200 of them had been added through some sort of Reels related content (Reels ideas, cover photo templates, etc.). Because of that, I leaned heavily into my email list when marketing for this launch. We wound up with 1,258 webinar registrations for the free Reels class. From that, I made 77 sales. That means 6.1% of the people who signed up bought the course. Starting Friday and ending the following Saturday, the total number of sales was 250. That came to $40,092 in sales. I made $1,566 in upsells during that week too – those were bonus products they had to pay for at checkout. 

While it’s great to share what I made, I want to also share what I spent. I believe in being transparent. It’s great to hear about these five or six figure launches, but without the expenses, you don’t have the whole picture. For this launch, I paid:  $500 to my Videographer, $300 to my Video editor, $300 in Facebook ads to my existing audience, $100 to my virtual assistant and $999 to WebinarJam. This came out to $2,199. 

What I’m Proud Of… 

There was a lot I was proud about relating to this launch. One of the things I was thrilled about was realizing that done is better than perfect. I actually spent fewer hours on this launch compared to my previous one and the profit margin on this launch was much better. Additionally, I spent more time doing things myself instead of hiring out. I’m really proud of that – and it gives me a lot of confidence to know what I can do for the next time! It also reminded me that when I DO hire out, I’ll feel even better about that investment. I was also really excited to see that my emails encouraged an uptick in sales every single time one went out. 

Another thing that worked well was turning our live class into a replay. I got so many emails over that  weekend because people didn’t get to tune in and so we created a waitlist for the replay. That was a great place to direct them to, so that once the webinar became a replay, they could access it. In the future, I would make that a priority so there isn’t a lag between the class and the replay.  I would also make sure I had set up WebinarJam earlier than the day before next time, too. It was stressful to do the morning of the class. 

What I’d Do Differently…

One thing I would do differently is to have someone else on my team to help with more of hte launch prep. I have that now, and it will be nice for future launches to have an extra set of hands to help. Finally, the last thing I would do differently is to not use existing products as bonuses. Because a lot of my audience has already invested in me, we got a lot of questions about discounts since they already owned the product I was offering. We had a lot of questions about discounts and refunds, which was a surprise. While I understand where the questions were coming from, it was a bit frustrating. We don’t see that kind of request in a lot of other types of businesses, but I do understand what they’re asking. It was too confusing and it didn’t feel good to see that many issues arise. 

I hope that this course launch recap helps you as you prepare for your own launch! If you’re listening and you have ideas about what to talk about next, please send in your requests! I really do want to know what you want to hear about in future episodes. Email me at [email protected] with your questions!! I can’t wait to hear from you!