Welcome back to part two of the debrief from the recent PLF-style launch of our new business course. 

If you missed part one covering the background, schedule and sales results, you can read it here.

Today we’ll be sharing STATS! 

Stats, stats, and more stats from behind the scenes of one of our most complex and successful launches. 

I love sharing the REAL numbers and Mark loves pulling together these launch debriefs. 

We're taking you behind the scenes of our marketing campaign so you can find just one thing to improve your next launch - whether it's your first or tenth launch and whatever stage of business you're at.

As I’ve said before, there are people doing much bigger and better launches than us - we make mistakes EVERY launch but we share this to help learn to launch in your own way. 

Now let’s get started with part 2 of our launch debrief… if you like stats, this one is for you! 

40% of sales in 48 hours! 

From past experience and from learning Product Launch Formula from Jeff we know that the final 48 hours often make or break a launch.

This is the time to leave it all on the field, increase our ad spend, and deploy our final strategies to drive sales.

40% (340) of our sales came in the final two days of the launch. Here’s how we made both the 14th and 15th September $200,000 days for us in terms of overall revenue:

1. Announcing a new longer-term payment plan with a $111 per month price point to remove the cost barrier to people joining
2. Using individual sales messages and ads for each Archetype
3. Sending casual video messages to each Archetype about the offer closing and encouraging them to join
4. Driving conversion throughout Close Cart day with regular and varied emails
5. Using the payment plan, testimonials, and the money-back guarantee more prominently in ads and emails
6. Adding a larger, bolder, and red-colored countdown timer to the sales page
7. Investing more time in the Messenger inbox and our sell-by-chat initiative

The priority for the end of the sales period is maximizing the number of people who are still engaged with the launch and getting as many as possible to see the sales page. This gives you the best chance of converting all of the previous good work from your launch. 

This chart shows when people joined - sales started as soon as we began the promotion, then spiked on Webinar day and in the final 48 hours of the launch.

During this launch, we tracked as much data as possible regarding which of the 8 Money Archetypes engaged and when.

We tracked leads, sales, and Archetype breakdown daily and monitored which Archetypes converted most and best.

We saw some patterns in terms of when each Archetype decided to join:

• Mavericks started very strong, with more than half of Maverick sales in the Early Enrolment and Webinar periods.
• Celebrity, Nurturer, and Romantic sales started slowly - these Archetypes sometimes have challenges with spending and money boundaries and may have needed to leave their purchase to the last moment.
• Celebrities and Romantics likely didn't watch the webinar live or stay on the call until the end, so sales from these Archetypes from the call were lower.
• The majority of Nurturers and Connectors purchased in the final 48 hours.
• Mavericks were less likely to join in the final 48 hours because they hate anything that’s too popular and hate feeling like they're going with the crowd. Mavericks are less influenced by FOMO and a deadline.

If you know more about your customer or the type of customers you want to attract, you can tailor your launch and know what to expect in terms of buyer behavior.

Sales by Archetype

The most common Archetypes amongst our leads were Accumulator and Nurturer, accounting for 18% and 17% of our launch leads, respectively.

But we saw some big differences in the Conversion Rate across the Archetypes with Celebrity and Romantic being top performers with conversion rates over 5%.

Accumulators, Rulers, and Nurturers generated the most sales, and despite the high conversion rate, Celebrities had the lowest number of sales.

We were surprised not to see more sales from Alchemists and Mavericks, especially because Mavericks started very strong with early sales.

Which payment option did each Archetype prefer?

• Over three-quarters of Accumulators preferred to pay in full and avoid finance charges.
• Compared to only a third of Celebrities and about 40% of Romantics who paid the larger upfront amount.
• Spreading the cost of enrolment with either the 4Pay or 11Pay option was most popular with the Celebrity, Nurturer, Romantic and Ruler Archetypes.
• The long-term payment plan released in the final 48 hours was also most popular with Celebrities, Nurturers, and Rulers and was a factor in getting these people to join in the final few hours. 

Again, if you’re goal is to attract a certain type of customer, you can choose a payment plan option that will suit them.

Launch Ad Spend

This launch generated in excess of $1.5m AUD in revenue, with $873,000 of this being received upfront during the launch.

Plus we has already sold SMA as part of our Money Breakthrough package in January 2022, when 600+ people bought SMA and Bootcamp together. This meant we had already received income to cover the costs of the launch and upgrading the program and we had to deliver the program anyway. 

So my focus was on leveraging my time that I already had to deliver by nailing this new launch. 

Our expenses are normally around 20% of launch revenue, including ad spend, team, production and web design. But the complexity and production value we wanted for this launch and the level of styling and staging involved meant the cost of this launch were higher.

You do NOT have to spend big to launch - by following the principles in Product Launch Formula you can launch in a simple, quick way that works. This was 8 launches in one and more!  

I’ve got a separate post coming breaking down what we spent in detail, but here’s a look at our biggest expense, which as you’d expect, was advertising.

We spent $117,000 on ads and ad management, which is about 8% of total revenue, but for future launches we’ll aim to spend closer to 10% and increase spending on increasing consumption of the pre-launch content - getting more people to actually watch videos 2-4 of the workshop.

Spending 8-10% of launch revenue on ads is a LOT less than our launches 4-5 years ago when affiliates would receive 40% of revenue as commission. This is one of the main reasons we closed our affiliate program. 

List growth and unsubscribes

One of the main long-term benefits of a launch and investment in lead generation is growing your email list for future launches.

We added 19,000 new leads to our list during this launch (yay!), but a little over 5,000 of these new leads then went on to unsubscribe during the launch (boo!).

This is high but expected with a quiz launch - these 5,000 people most likely just discovered Denise, started the quiz, maybe didn’t complete it, or unsubscribed due to the large volume of launch emails.

Our overall unsubscribe rate was about 10% - which is high, and this sort of unsubscribe level would be unsustainable every month without a major ad spend. This was exaggerated by people who just wanted to take the quiz and get the result e.g. people sharing the quiz with their customers or family. 

Normally we average around 0.5% unsubscribe rate per newsletter email we send (this is pretty low), so given the volume of launch emails and the 4 podcast episodes released during the launch, this overall level of unsubscribes is high but not a disaster.

We do two launches a year and spend the rest of the year list-building and providing valuable free content to build a strong relationship with our list.

We will, however, review the number of emails during the next launch to look for ways to reduce this unsubscribe rate.

The truth is – every time you send an email, you’ll get people leaving your list. And although you’ll want to grab hold of their ankles as they walk away and scream…

WHY ARE YOU LEAVING MEEEEEEEEEE……..?

The best thing for you (and your dignity) is to let them go. It’s not personal.

There are many reasons why someone unsubscribes during a launch…

They are annoyed at the number of emails you’re sending

They don’t want what you’re buying

They are SHOCKED, DISAPPOINTED and even ANGRY that you’re selling them something. Yep - be prepared for some really pissed-off emails.

They’re just not that into you.

Either way, it’s not really your business. It’s totally okay for someone to decide that they’re not a fit for you anymore and declutter your emails out of their inbox.

Also, don’t stress when people don’t read your emails. Our open rates during the launch ranged from 28-40%. When they are ready, people will read your emails and click your links - the stats play out, and even with more than 50% of our list not opening our emails our launch was still a big success.

You can read more about my approach and mindset regarding unsubscribes here.

Refunds

As well as unsubscribes, another thing that’s inevitable about launching and being in business is refunds.

Refunds suck, but there are lots of reasons why someone may request one - it could be you, it could be them or just a money thing.

We try to reduce our refund rate by providing lots of value and support in the first 14-days, by having a clear refund process, and by connecting with everyone who asks for a refund.

But we’re also not triggered or stressed by refunds. They happen, and we give people their money back if their not happy or decide the course is not for them.

We use our refund policy in our marketing as a guarantee and reassurance for people who join, and we don’t fight people over refunds - if you request one during the 14-days, you’ll get your money back.

During this launch, we had 56 refund requests. Once again, this sounds like a lot, and in dollar terms, it is - over $80,000 in money refunded.

But a higher than normal refund rate is to be expected in a launch with a deadline and longer-term payment plan - people often get buyer's remorse or have other financial challenges pop up, which means they request a refund. 

A refund rate of 5-6% is in line with our other launches, so we know what to expect. Of course, I would love to have a 3% or 0% refund rate, but if we didn’t offer the generous refund policy, we may have lower upfront sales.

We also survey people to find out why they want a refund and send a survey to our launch list to find out why they didn’t buy, so that we can work on increasing conversions and lowering refunds next time.

If you have 100 people join your next course launch, expect for 5 refunds, and if you get fewer, than you’re doing great.

Offering two payment plans and a longer-term payment plan for people who could not afford the first option could also have contributed to a higher refund rate.

The refund rate for people who paid in full was 20% lower than for people on payment plans.

We also saw the highest refund rate amongst Accumulators, who often find investing in themselves a challenge and suffer buyer's remorse.

Mavericks also refunded at a higher-than-average rate as the course became more popular, and they likely wanted to rebel against being involved or doing the work.

There’s more!

Honestly, Mark has charts coming out of his ears! There’s a lot more we can share about this launch and everything we’ve learned from over a decade of launching.

Check out the blog for our launch lessons, and we wish you the absolute best as you work towards your next and best launch.

Launching has created a lot of abundance for our family, and it’s so worth it to push past your blocks and resistance.

People need what you offer! YOU CAN DO IT!

xx Denise & Mark

Product Launch Formula

Jeff Walker will next run his annual Live Launch Masterclass and open enrolment for the Product Launch Formula coaching program in August 2024. As a proud alumni and affiliate partner I offer an exclusive bonus if you join PLF through my partner link. Join the waitlist here