When it comes to launching digital products, it’s important to have sales goals AND to evaluate those goals. As business owners, we want to constantly evaluate the demand for what we’re selling. In this episode, I will talk about average conversion rates during launch periods. These conversions are what I hope to see when I launch a new course, a new product, or host a webinar event.

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Before going any further, I want to point out that the main thing I evaluate is my email list. This means that I do not put much emphasis on my conversion rates on Instagram or YouTube. In the online marketing world, it’s pretty standard to focus solely on email list conversions. Email was created as a place to sell to your audience, so it makes sense to base your sales goals on those numbers. 

Follower Count at Time of Launch

There is a common misconception that as your social media audience grows, your sales will grow. As someone who has grown a substantial Instagram following before, I can verify that such is NOT the case.

As your followers increase, you have to ensure they’re the right followers and there for the right reason in order to see actual sales. That’s why I recommend building your email list as your follower count grows! 

My List-Building Experience

I started my own list in 2019 and began to launch digital products. I did not make any money at the time of those launches. I remained focused on client work, but all the while, built my list more and more. After a year of building my list, I launched my first online course and it was an extremely successful launch – learn more about it here!

Converting Instagram followers into customers is not impossible, but it’s much harder to do on socials than on your email list. For this reason, I encourage my students to use Instagram or YouTube as a way to become visible to new audiences and aim to make the most of their sales via their email list.

Learn More about List Building

Inside my course, Inbox to Income, I share more about backend setup, email funnels, and email marketing strategy. We get into the nitty-gritty details of how to make money with your email list. Check it out here!

The Passive Income Minimind

The importance of building your list has been a huge topic in round one of the Passive Income Minimind, which came to a close this month. I want to emphasize that bigger social media followings do not necessarily correlate to more sales. In fact, if your following is large but your email list is small, you might realistically expect to see zero sales. Building your list before launching is a critical first step.

Applications for round two of the minimind are now open and will close on December 19th, 2023. If you want to launch or create digital products or drive more revenue with the products you already have, the minimind was created for you! The program will last nine weeks and will take place from January to March 2024. Click here to apply while spots are still available!

Good, Better, Best Method

To set my conversion goals, I use a “good, better, best” goal-setting model. If you set one goal and fail to meet it, it can feel too defeating. Having a range of good, better, and best helps you to celebrate success while also striving for more. If you fail to meet any of your goals, it might be time to reevaluate your offer.

Good is your baseline, better is very doable, and best is blowing it out of the water!

Launching Products

When I launch a new digital product or course, I examine my total number of subscribers. This month, we hit 25,000 subscribers on our list. For my business I use .5%, 1%, and 3% as my good, better, and best goals for conversion rates. 

If you have a small audience, more of your audience will be engaged than if you have a large audience. As your audience grows, your engagement rate tends to decrease. 

There are times that I build leads specific to a certain offer. In those cases, I hope to see segments of my list convert to 5, 8, or 10% as my good, better and best goals.

My Launch Experience

When I first launched the Reels Mini Course, I had around 10,000 email list subscribers. Most of them joined my list from a reels-related freebie. About 5% of my list converted for that launch because many in my audience were specifically looking for reels content. 

Today, my list has more than doubled. We have reels offers, but, we have offers on several other topics as well. My conversion rate looks more like .5% now, but, because of my overall list growth, I’m still very happy with that.

Keep in mind that lower ticket offers typically have higher conversion rates. More people will jump in at a lower price point than a higher one. Oppositely, higher ticket items have lower conversion rates.

Launching a Webinar Event

Now, I want to share what my conversion rates look like when I host a webinar event. Before launching a new course, I host a free class on the same topic as the course. We offer the replay of the class at any time as a way of driving passive sales.

Conversion rates inside of a webinar can be much higher than those on your email list. The people who show up live are highly engaged and much more likely to make a purchase.

My good, better, best for the number of people who actually show up to the webinar is 20, 30, and 40% of total registrants. Meaning, that if I have 1,000 people registered, I’m looking for 200, 300, or 400 people to show up. 

Out of the people who show up live, I’m looking for 5,8, or 10% to make a purchase during the event. I’ve had as high as 15% purchase from a webinar, but 8-10% is more typical for our events.

Why Webinars Matter

You can see that the webinars are really powerful and have a much higher likelihood of conversion than by selling on your email list alone.

For the webinar replay, our conversion rates look like .5, 1, or 3%. For every 1,000 people who sign up to watch one of our webinar replays, we see five to ten people make a purchase.

Webinar Attendance

Students have asked me how many people I hope to have signed up for the webinar. I do not have an exact answer. The turnout can vary a lot depending on the topic or the current size of my audience. Even when my list was much smaller than it is now, there was not a huge difference in the number of people who registered for my webinars then and the number of people who normally sign up now.

I do not hope for a specific number of registrants but hope to keep it on par with the number of registrants from my previous events.

Organic Marketing

All of these conversion rates are based on organic marketing – meaning, without paying for ads targeting cold audiences. I have run ads to my warm audience before, but overall, we don’t have a built-out paid ad strategy. These conversions are results from the following I have built organically.

Join the Passive Income Minimind

Again, if you have an interest in launching digital products, online courses or moving into the online marketing world of creating digital education, the Passive Income Minimind might be a perfect fit for you!

There are five live calls where we hear from specific students and give feedback. I’m active in the student group chat with voice memos, texts, screenshots, etc. I’ll review documents for your own launches, webinars, outlines, sales emails – anything in that category! You’ll also receive access to my email marketing course, Inbox to Income.

Communication with my minimind students is my TOP priority. Click here if you’d like to learn more!

Hopefully, this helps you approach your own launches & live events. We’ll see you next week at 8 AM!