Creating Your Post Launch Strategy

Post launch only means that your “grand opening” is over. It doesn’t mean that your product is dead. In fact, almost every single autoresponder email and message you created for your launch can be used again, for a similar product launch, or for people who sign up for information about this product under non-launch circumstances.

Listen to Post-Launch Feedback

During and after your launch you’re going to start getting allot of feedback. This feedback can be broken up into three parts.

Pricing – You may get feedback that your prices are too high, the check-out process is too complicated, or you have too many upsells. Numerous issues will pop up in feedback. It’s up to you to determine which have a point and which do not.

Messaging – Some people might complain about your message. They may feel it’s too confusing, misleading, or problematic in some other way. It’s important to listen to this feedback so that you can adjust the issues. Just because you understand it, doesn’t mean others will.

Technical – This is probably one of the most important feedback topics. It may indicate your customers aren’t getting delivery, that there are bugs, integration issues, and so forth. It’s imperative to consider every technical issue immediately and fix it right away. Thankfully, with digital products you can make changes on the fly without any issues.

Keep track of the feedback and send it to the right person to handle that area. If that person is you, consider getting some help with these things. A CEO doesn’t do everything alone. They find appropriate people who are experts in their fields to handle things so that they can keep coming up with ideas and creating more products.

Look at Your Metrics

Now that your launch is over, you should have a lot of numbers to look at. You’ll want to check your conversion rates on ads, social media, blog posts, and so forth. You’ll also want to find out what your conversion rate is on your sales pages. When you combine this with the amount of traffic, you get an answer.

Low Converting Sales Page – If your sales page is getting a lot of traffic but conversions are low for your industry, then the problem is either with poor ad targeting, or poor audience targeting with the sales page. If you’ve mixed up audiences and aren’t consistent your sales page won’t convert as well.

Low Traffic/ Low Click-Through Rates – This often happens simply due to poor messaging. You must use the language that your audience wants to hear. You should appeal to your audience and no one else. Create audience personas to create messaging for to help keep you on track.

Abandoned Carts – If people go all the way through and try to buy but abandon the cart there are a few issues that could be causing that. The price wasn’t clear on the sales page, or the checkout got hung up with too many upsells, cross-sells, or add-ons. Try retargeting the cart abandoners, and if it’s a high number, fix the check-out process.

There are numerous metrics to look at that will help you determine if your launch was a success or not. Remember, if you don’t meet all your goals, it’s not a failure. Remember that you can learn even from a less than perfect launch so that your next launch is even better. Take note of what you’d do differently so that you can do even better next time.

Update the Product as Needed

Post launch is also the time to fix any problems with your product that has come up during the launch that you’ve not fixed already. For example, now that you have made money you can up-level your product or you can create a new product to market to the people who bought this product.

Typos – When someone tells you about a typo, thank them for it. One typo isn’t a big deal, unless your product is about writing. But, what’s super awesome about digital products is you can update a typo on the fly without a problem. Simply fix it and upload the change in the download area.

Inaccuracies – If someone contacted you because you got some of your facts wrong, it’s important for you to do your research to find out if what they say is true. If it is, correct it as soon as you can. Thank the person who sent the information.

Out of Date – If later, some information in the product is out of date, it’s important to fix it so that the product will last longer. You can increase the shelf life of any product by updating it with current information and removing out of date information.

Poor Check Out Experience – If your audience seems to dislike the checkout procedure required with your chosen shopping cart, consider whether you need a new one. If you’re not using something like amember.com, 1shoppingcart.com, or another well-known shopping cart consider upgrading.

Poor Affiliate Sales – If overall sales were due to your own efforts, but you didn’t sell much via your affiliates you’ll have to contact them. Ask them what you can do to help them sell more. Often your best feedback can come from affiliate marketers.

Updating your product after receiving feedback is a great way to wow your audience. If you send a new version to everyone who bought one already and thank them for their feedback, you’ll be shocked at how effective this is to creating loyal customers.

Create a Post Launch Series

This can add to your bottom line in a way that other things can’t. Usually, when people have a launch that has a deadline for the pricing mentioned in the launch, they will either buy right away or they’ll wait until the very last day of the launch to purchase. However, some people will abandon the cart and not purchase. These people want what you are offering but something stopped them.

Assuming you’ve fixed technical issues, it’s probably an emotional issue. You’ll need to address those to encourage people on the fence to finish the purchase. The best way to do this is to create a post-launch series directed toward the cart abandoners.

What you can do is give them a special window into the launch by sending them an email series designed to get them to finish their purchase during the extension. One way is to send them a special offer using Facebook Ads and Retargeting. Then send them to a special sales page that gives them the offer again with a few changes.

For Price Issues

You can give them a payment plan, if you think it’s a money issue. You can appeal to them by giving them the facts again about your product. You can send them to a video sales page full of testimonials, designed to get people on the fence to buy. You may want to provide a bonus item. Another option could be to offer a coupon for a different product or on their next purchase.

Technology Issues

If you got feedback about technology problems, you might go that route instead of price. Extend the enrollment period for an extra 24 hours “due to technical issues.” This is a great way to get people on board who were having issues with making that final decision to pay.

You can also, if everything went very smoothly, create a post-launch series for your buyers. Consider any higher-level products or services that you have. Don’t start sending the emails to your buyers until enough time has passed for them to use your product. Then send a series that starts with Thank You and ends with new offerings that are either complementary or in addition to their purchase. Follow up series after launch are effective because whether to cart abandoners or to buyers they’ve each expressed interest and want what you should offer.