Pre-launch
Eventslisted.com - Traffic generating strategy
Getting into the finer details of how we are planning to generate traffic into our sites. As you all know, getting the right kind of traffic that can actually contribute to the bottom-lines is somewhat tricky to direct. The importance of traffic needn’t be stressed - suffice it to say that without traffic even the best and most innovative applications can wither away. Great applications have the natural potential to create a stir through WOM amongst the targeted users. However, you need to have your basic traffic generating strategies covered, to be able to create the initial buzz. Our strategy is multi-fold:
1- Traffic through SEO
You’re probably sick of hearing about this, but Search Engine Optimization is the one of the most effective ways to get noticed. There are people out there who will find our service incredibly useful for their businesses or life, they just don’t know about it yet. How do you get to them? Right when they are looking to solve a problem in their business on Google or yahoo search. The match-making doesn’t happen magically - your pages need to be visibly present on the search results for them to see you. Search engine marketing is the Holy Grail of long term traffic generation but it should never be your only strategy.
Our plan here is straightforward. We have come up with 800 specifically targeted keyword phrases. Based on the keywords we have researched our target audience may be entering into the search engines when looking for solutions to event planning related matters. We have designed our website in a way that partitions different sections of our site through internal linking strategies and added a robot text file that tell search engine spiders where they can and can-not travel within the domain. This way we have control over the partitioned sections of the site ensuring only the sections we want indexed and optimized by the search engines are.
We then focus on optimizing one section of pages at a time & slowly link these sections as we rank them over a 12 month period that will result in us having 800+ pages specifically designed & optimized to show up in the top page of search results for tens of thousands of targeted visitors within the search engines every week. Each of our pages represents a solution to problems that are represented by one key word phrase per page which enables us to capture a visitors attention within 10 seconds of them landing on it.
This is the average time it takes a new visitor to decide if a page is worth exploring or leaving.
I’m going to dive into the detail of our SEO strategy in a later post.
2- Traffic through Blog content
This is one of the most important channels for driving traffic to our site. We are running three blogs simultaneously under the Event Marketing umbrella. Two of them focus on strategic level thoughts on launching and promoting events. The third blog directs the readers to useful tips, tricks, resources and links for managing and promoting their events.
The focus of the blogs is to create quality content that is useful for everyone who is planning on marketing or launching their events. The blogs link out to our main site, whereas our social media pages link out to our blogs.
We’ll drive traffic to the blogs via those social pages and also by linking and commenting to authority blogs in this domain (or similar domains). The idea is to get noticed by people who will benefit the business.
3- Traffic through Social Media Campaigns
Our Social Media Campaign for launching Events Listed is fairly complex. I’m just going to touch upon it here and add details related to the individual steps to our Social Media Strategies blog for clarifications. We’re building social networks of prospects within different social networking sites (such as Facebook) and syndicating them to interlink. The purpose of these networks is going to be to target specific early adopters and thought-leaders in sub-markets and get them to visit our Blogs. These sub-markets are all those niches that can benefit from using our platform for marketing their events or launches, e.g. Conference planners, club promoters or venues. By enticing them to our blogs we would want them to become regular readers and visitor at the blogs as an introduction to the brand as a way of building credibility for who we are and what we know before inviting them to adopt our website application or services.
We target specific audiences and drive them into posts within one of the three blogs that are most suited to the line we are taking withing any of the campaigns or link bait promotions we will be promoting throughout the social networks we are slowly building.
Our social networking and media campaigns are interlinked with our blog content strategy, in a way that can be best described with a fishing analogy: the social networks being our fishing grounds and our blogs being our fishing nets (sales funnels) - we drive visitors (fish) into the funnel. The funnel is designed to add value to even the most experienced event planners and over time it forms a clearer and more streamlined path (like a fishing-net drag line that creates a tunnel through which the fish are swept into the haul basket and scooped up). Our path leads our visitors into a somewhat disorganized yet interesting series of posts to attract their interest - and then it winds into a structured format that you are just entering at the stage of this post which is going to lead you into receiving cutting edge, invaluable resourced knowledge, insight , tips and tricks that equates to real value at no cost (The Free line). At the same time what we have decided to do for this launch is to build the content around our very own website launch bringing subscribers into our inner circle where we share not only our launch secrets but at the same time our intention is that they become both familiar and affiliated with our brand though out the process; This process leads to our product launch where we intend for a lot of subscribers will migrate onto our new platform for social networking and event marketing without thinking twice.
We attract a lot of early adopters who bring with them a lot of small fish who will never earn us any money as they are unlikely to sell tickets off their event pages. However, the small fish bring with them the big fish.
We monetize the application at the very end of the freeline by charging all the big fish a percentage of ticket and merchandising sales off their event pages.
4- Traffic through Joint Venture launch campaigns
At this formal partnership end, we’ll run JV campaigns on the parallel. If you’re interested in details of these campaigns, we’ll follow a case study of how we do this with one Joint Venture partner in the Social Media Strategies blog. We’ll demonstrate a partnership process with a Sydney backpacker operator that has a list of 18,000 people throughout the world. Next we’ll also approach partner sites and businesses who have customer lists that we can use. We’ll plan and launch a joint venture video launch to drive potential partners into a sales funnel of their own. As we secure partners we will provide list owners a full swipe file of the campaign they should be sending their lists to promote our launch. They will email their lists offering them exclusive value that others can’t avail. We pay a commission to our Joint Venture partners with a share in the revenue earned by us from the customers that came through their lists.
A small tip for joint venture launch campaigns: always tale about whats in it for them with the emphasis on the win-win component. Show proof of forecast benefits for them & be transparent about your gains.
Event tickets - price anchoring techniques
I often come across businesses who set their ticket prices very low to attract bigger crowds. The problem is that their brand, sales, marketing and even the event itself suffers as a consequence. The event tickets price depends on the perceived value to the audience. If the audience is not excited about attending they will not want to pay too much for it - chances are they wont buy the tickets even when they are offered at lower rates. What happens is that the cost of arranging the event becomes more than the revenue earned through the event. Whats the point of going through the hassle if you’re not going to earn big profits. Right?
If you can somehow increase the actual and the perceived value of the event for the audience, you will be able to charge a higher rate for the tickets, which if done right, will in turn sell more tickets as well. It will also allow you to draw more attention to prospective new customers as apposed to ones who have purchased from you before. I have posted before about the cost of a new customer being a one off cost, why not build this cost into new launch campaigns. Increased value that is measured in ticket pricing will also demonstrate traction and excitement around your event to prospective sponsors which will result in your ability to get them to pay a lot to get their brand in front of your audience. So, in essence, the entire success of the event could come down to the perceived value.
Think about the perceived value like this: A glass of water will have a higher perceived value to a thirsty athlete than a person who is not thirsty. So even though the glass of water is the same physically - it has different levels of perceived value to a different audience. Similarly, your targeted audiences need to want to be a part of your event. They need to feel like they belong there. They need to feel a sense of ownership and association with your event. They need to be excited about it all the way up to the event day. The value of your event to them should be incredibly high, so that they become willing and mentally ready to pay high prices to be a part of it.
The way to build perceived value is by hitting the right emotional triggers in the right audience at the right time. By engaging your audience in a conversation about the event, you are going to have more chance to hit these triggers than you would if you hand them a brochure or flier. Its about building a story that has the target visualizing themselves being in the middle of a community of like-minded people who are all enjoying an experience that none of them would want to miss.
Once you have achieved this trigger throughout your conversation you have options. A good example of this process lies in the fact that you are not in a position to introduce a sense of scarcity around your event’s ticket sales until you have your audience wanting to attend. Who cares about limited tickets if you don’t want to go? Price anchoring is a technique that can be applied as a mental trigger to bait the prospects into impulse buying. What happens when people are in a certain mode is that they start searching for a solution that they have already made the decision to purchase. They have researched it & know what they want - and so have embarked on a mission to secure it. They are on a buying frenzy and nothing is going to stop them other than the purchase itself. Well suffice to say, its when people are in this mindset that you want to get in front of them with a final call to action trigger.
Throughout your event prelaunch campaign you work on building the perceived value of your event bearing in mind that perceived value and actual value are in the same family. Throughout this phase you need to engage your audience into a conversation that represents value for them to join, you do this be serving up social proof of value with the help of your existing customer or past event community & enhance this technique through the use of some other social marketing strategies. Once you sell them on the strength of value you can introduce discrete trigger’s like suggestions of scarcity such as an audience member posting comments on a blog about rumors of limited tickets being released to the public. It takes very little to introduce a sense of scarcity once the perceived value is already built.
Sometimes all it takes is a subtle scarcity trigger to send an audience into a buying frenzy where all you need to do is get a ticketing page up on the internet. When a touch of scarcity is combined with a high perceived value you’ll get the early adopters, the effect is almost magical if those early adopters are people-movers and not followers. Once this effect kicks in you can feel it because you go into lock down mode, hiding from everyone who is constantly asking about tickets, requesting favors, access & head starts etc. I like to call it the Event Line & I even named my blogs after it. It’s the line where your event transform from being a vision in your mind to a vision in the minds of your audience. Let’s face it you’re not going to be planning an event that you think won’t be perfect. Right?
Throughout your campaign you can set a value and even a price estimate that will embed numbers in their heads without actually telling them the price. This can be done by comparing your event with other events of a similarly perceived value. These numbers need to be lurking somewhere in the back of their minds, all the while in a generally accepted manner that those numbers will be the price although you have never said so. When you have built that sense of excitement, exclusivity, scarcity, traction and pressure of a world of people rushing to become a part of it (all trigger points that should be planned into your campaign) - open your tickets for sale at a rate which is slightly lower than the number you had planted into the back of their minds (but higher than what you would have generally charged prior to inflating the events perceived value up from its actual value) - If the audience are exposed to a release of tickets going on sale at the right time they will be inclined to purchase them immediately, without further ado. Why wouldn’t they, the event is hot, everyone wants to attend, tickets are scarce & they are actually cheaper than what they had already lead themselves to believe they were going to be.
The impulse buying mode that you have worked them into, will lead to greater ticket sales and larger audiences - that can sell out in hours, days, even weeks before your event. Its got to be better than placing an ad and waiting for one ticket sale at a time.
Active Event marketing
In the prelaunch phases leading up to your event, you cannot let your hype wane just because of wrong strategy implementation. Its easy to build social marketing plans, but requires a lot of energy to make sure they are implemented properly.
With all of the different bookmarking, content sharing, collaborating and social networking websites sprouting up around us, we sometimes get lost about what to do. Just jumping in the game randomly can’t help, so its best to resort to a game plan first. The whole cyclical launch strategies, mental triggers and social media strategies that I talk about are to help you understand the road that you are treading better.
As an event marketer or manager you can choose to hire specialized skills or spend your own time to market your events using these social platforms. Someone from your team needs to be actively involved in the prelaunch process constantly. Simply having a presence in social sites is not enough as that will only get you so far. You need to be in the forefront of conversations and be involved with whats going on. If you have a blog or an event page, make sure it is updated regularly and has the latest information about the event.
All of this activity shouldn’t undermine the quality of your content. You need to offer value to people in order to win their trusts in social networks. Value is offered by quick response times, quality and your availability to help others.
Social marketing efforts spread through word of mouth. Thats why some of the most remarkable web 2.0 campaigns spread virally to thousands of people in a matter of hours if not minutes. So get out there with a plan. Actively engage your audiences.
The Pizza Store Dilemma
How often do you see the same sad story around you? Small businesses struggling hard to survive - short-sighted and unprepared to take risks, unwilling to secure the potential future of their business. I have had pizza in 26 different countries in the world, and yet none of them compares to this tiny corner pizza shop in the Noosa Hinterland, close to where I live. They’re pizza’s are to die for. This is why I feel unnerved to see how their business hasn’t been ’secured’ for long term success.
The couple (lets call them Jack & Jill for the sake of anonymity) took a vacant building a couple of years ago and built the pizza and coffee business from scratch. Despite the mouth watering pizzas, they still aren’t making enough money to buy the property. The property owner is stalling their lease renewal and wants them to leave if they can’t buy the freehold. Recently I found myself thinking about the possible reasons for a business that provides a great product and delivers such a valuable service to it’s customers, is not in a position to buy the freehold of the property it trades out of. Now my only interests other than looking at this as a great case study is to see them pull through - being a loyal customer who benefits from the value their store offers me (i.e. delicious pizza). I have vested interest in the business being a success. If it goes under, I loose a convenient destination for coffee breaks and an easy place to take the kids out for pizza on weekends. There will be no replacement shop if they fail to secure the building freehold which will not only effect the proprietors but will effect the lifestyle of customers who have come to lean on the business as well.
One of the core issues I can see with the business is the owners approach to business, the couple who run the place are chalk and cheese in the way that they view what the business is to a customer and how they translate this into success.
First Jill: Although friendly and personable, she is not open to advice on ideas for securing more revenue or funds to secure the businesses future. She simply phases out if you offer advice. She makes the business atmosphere casual and homely as though the customers are visiting her in her lounge room which is nice (they live behind the shop) but when it comes to money its impossible for her to hide a tight-fisted, short sighted approach to business.
Now I, for one, find the dynamic in this particular business as interesting as any I have seen before. Whats interesting is the fact that her attitude - being so money focussed - has such a contrasting effect on me as her customer than the opposite and equal reaction I have when dealing with her partner Jack’s attitude. She’ll skimp on servings, serve canceled orders to save making a fresh pizza & count every nickel and dime owed to a point where she actually makes me repel against wanting to give her any more money than I have to. Her attitude seems to instill a feeling of wanting to visit the shop less and spend less regardless of how nice it is if she is on duty. Also, if spending anything, it’s as though she makes me want to scrutinize everything she serves. Its almost as if she wills her worst fears upon herself. Being worried about not making enough money results in customers thinking about how much she is taking from them and what they are getting in return. Its a vicious cycle that I would never had contemplated if I wasn’t lucky enough to have been able to watch such contrasting styles in the same business on rotating days.
Jack the partner: A laid back personality compared to Jill with a completely different attitude to business. His attitude is to offer free coffee, give extra servings, and a philosophy that ‘near enough is good enough’ when it comes to the bill. He’d say nice stuff like “that ones on the house if the experience is anything but perfect”. His attitude makes customers feel like no matter what you pay him, you are always getting real value. He makes you feel like he is looking out for you as his customer and this attitude in effect translates into you enjoying the visit more, thus increasing your frequency of visits.
What makes this case study so interesting is the following question it raises. If the business is not generating enough money to buy the building it trades in, although the food and the service it provides is excellent value for money, will it survive? Is the business failings because Jack is giving away to many freebies to customers (although by doing so he entices them to spend more time), shouldn’t this translate into success? Or is it failing because of tight-fisted Jill who extracts every last penny from customers without winning any awards for enticing customers into spending more time in the business each week, even though she can be assured that she has extracted every last cent when customers do visit?
You can probably imagine Jill is always on Jacks back for giving away too much for too little or for being way too generous with the helpings and so on. I often see him hushing and hiding his generosity to avoid conflict. There are no awards for guessing who Jill blames for the business not earning enough money and if she had it her way, Jack would be forced to follow suite with the style in which she employs to govern the business, she sees no value in his style. You do not sense a willingness to compromise between her style and his, when it comes to the methods by which she believes, needs to be employed for profitability.
Now Jack on the other hand would probably subscribe to a view more in tune with a combination of a little tight-fisted scrutiny on Jill’s part giving him the bad cop enforcer behind him to cover positive approach to dealing with customers. Customers first. I sense that if he has the freedom of exercising his style of management without scrutiny that he would have the business pumping in no time.
Now to me, I see myself as a potential $5000 customer of this business because if frequenting the business daily I would spend just under $10 daily as well as the bi-weekly $50 family pizza nights we would enjoy. I am sure thats how jack sees me too which is probably why we are on the same page where he considers me a great customer & I consider myself lucky to have such a great value local hangout at my disposal that is so laid back and comfortable.
Now jack’s philosophy is probably to build more customers just like me that come in every day & his strategy is pretty simple, he gives back to ensure the customer experience is always positive. He seems to know that each customer’s experience is only ever as good as their last.
Now Jill on the other hand can only focus on what giving away a FREE cup of coffee means to her in lost revenue, she cannot get past the value she feels she is already providing for such a small return and she doesn’t feel she owes it to anyone to give them anything for free.
Jill does not see me as a $5000 customer, I sense she sees me as an $8 to $10 customer every time I walk into the shop and in doing so I feel like one, thus I am sure I act like an $8 customer by scrutinizing my change and what I am being charged, though when I am served by Jack I both feel and act like the $5000 customer I am.
Now lets do the analysis on this for arguments sake. I can say with absolute certainty that if Jill ran the business her way and Jack did not exist, the business would become little more than an inconvenience to me as it was before they took over the building. I personally would most probably become a $5 customer on bi weekly frequency as opposed to a $10 a day customer, buying little more than a coffee and the newspaper which would cost me a total of $520 per year. This being the case I would be $4480 per year richer and the business $4480 poorer.
What do I end up with at the end of the year for my extra $4480 if Jack was in charge? I get a sense of community, I have a place to visit when I need to get out of my office or away from the home, a place that feels like a second home. I have a place to take my family for stress-free casual dinners on Sunday nights & a place to meet business associates or friends where the proprietor is always friendly, always makes me feel like $5000 customer who knows my name and what I like to eat and drink. I can even ring him on holidays and ask him to check my pool for me.
Is it worth $4480? Absolutely, but if I didn’t have access to it my life would adapt & any perceived value would evaporate, as it does with most business services - its a want of mine to retain this facility, it’s not a need. There is a difference there.
I guess the lesson here is that money is little more than paper or coin that is effectively worthless. It serves as a currency of exchange between goods and services from one person or group to others. Whats important is not the money but the goods and service being provided to your customers. Business is about perceived value, all a customer ever sees is your intent, the exchanging of money serves little more than to provide a common denominator by which we measure our satisfaction.
If customers feel they are realizing perceived value through any relationship they have with a provider, they will continue to hand over money asked of them without questioning it. The minute a customer questions the perceived value they are receiving they will focus on the money being asked which is the beginning of the end, of a mutually profitable relationship.
I guess the crux of this case study would be to always allow your to business to focus on the perceived value of what customers enjoy from your products or services. Ensure they keep enjoying it whilst finding others who will enjoy the same. Evangelism. Do this and your money will always keep flowing in, focus on the money and you will eventually run out of people willing to keep giving it to you.
Book launch themes
This is an event launch strategies blog - and I try not to go off on other topics. But when I received the third invitation to a book launch this month I just knew I had to write about this. Now although I don’t consider myself an author, I have written & sold e-learning books which has got to count as close. A book launch is an exciting and memorable step in your career as a budding author. You don’t always have to resort to launching in halls and bookstores. By using the internet you will be able to drive more attention to your launch and consequently your book than through any other medium.
Selecting a theme is an important step in planning a book launch and its no different if launching an event, a product or a book. You just need to look at your launch with the same creativity with which you used to pen your book, create your product or visualize your event.
You can have the book lauch around a similar setting to your book. If the book is about a trekking expedition have the launch atop a mountain (or hill). Get the audiences to trek all the way up. If the novel is an adventure, have it in a boat. If its a romance novel pick a beach spot or a romantic hideout.
The idea is to get creative with your launches and turn them into newsworthy events. Don’t just stick to traditional ways of launching anything. Go out of the way to build a theme that would attract your targeted audience, a theme that journalists will write about. The theme itself becomes an important part of the hype building process before your book launch.
Another interesting thing that you can do is get your prospects to design a theme for you - or you can involve them by getting them to fill out surveys or having discussions and online focus groups. If you involve your audiences in the planning process up front at this point, they will feel like they are already a part of your event and will take ownership in making it successful. This being the case they will feel obliged to attend and to spread the word out to their networks. Hey, the more people who attend, the more news worthy, the more press coverage, the more book sales.
So, to sum it up, get your creative juices flowing. Make your book launch as memorable as the book itself or if launching an event the same principle applies. The press are looking for newsworthy stories every day so they get noticed. Its not difficult to create a launch event that gives them something to work with that does not demand you to invest a lot of money.
Steps to your launch communication - Part 2
I talked about how you can warm up your lists before launch using specific emotional triggers in your email campaign. This is an extension to the same post.
The image above sums up the entire interaction process. We’re guiding the prospect through this step by step cyclical process of launching and are using mental triggers to help them make their buy-decision based on impulse or need, or a combination of both.
Throughout the process, remember to have the basic material and content prepared before you begin the prelaunch campaign. However, you can tweak and modify things as you go based on your interactions with them. These interactions are important. You have to keep your prospects involved and engaged throughout the campaign.
Whats the green star in the image? The green star before launch represents the emotional triggers that you will be hitting at through your emails and blog posts. Almost anything that can increase the excitement and can influence their buying decision can be considered a trigger. Generally, at this point you want to make sure that your triggers fall into the following categories:
a- Traction: You need to prove that there is a lot of hype and buzz around the product. Referring to examples of your communication with communities or to the hype adds to social proof. The reader needs to feel that he or she isn’t in it alone.
b- Scarcity: Creating a feeling of scarcity in any way helps people to make their buy-decisions quicker. If they know that the product is going to go off the shelf, or that a bonus is going to finish, or that they can get limited special offers - they will be more inclined to participate in your launch. If you are launching an event, then you can easily play with limited ticket supply.
c- Need: Anything that can make your readers think “I really need this..” is a bang on target. This can be done by addressing their current frustrations and by showing them how things can be different. For your events, they need to want to be part of your event. You want them to start picking their clothes in their minds.
d- Price: Up to this point, if you had built a higher price expectation in their minds, you can launch at a lower price to surpass their expectations. This is always a great way for them to make an impulsive buying decision. This is also great when you can build your events brand around exclusivity.
Steps to your launch communication - Part 1
I’m writing this post after a lot of research and analysis of whats worked for people. It has a lot of influence from the Jeff Walker’s internet marketing philosophies - and we all know how he has contributed to the success of countless businesses. He sold over 1 million dollars worth of course product in a couple of hours last launch and he and his clients do it randomly. So be sure to know that these aren’t necessarily to be followed to the bone - but they are techniques that have worked for many in the internet marketing game and are techniques I have molded to work just was well for launching an event.
After all, whats different about launching a conference, training course, product or website to launching an event online. I believe there is no better business on earth more suited to internet launches by use of social media than event based businesses. Events come with so much human emotion, they are all about socialization and word of mouth is the most effective method for marketing a launch. Social media and the use of the internet as a delivery platform creates exponential opportunities for event marketers.
We’ve talked earlier about setting up your mailing lists and building hype all the way to launch. I often receive emails asking me about specific tactics to use to build hype. I know I have touched on my methods throughout other posts but I thought it time to walk you through a simple example case thats easy to explain. Ill use a product as an example rather than an event to show you how these methods apply to any business. Ive talked in detail about similar tactics for planning and launching events but have never formerly stepped you through the process. I will step this one out, one step at a time and leave you to see how you might best translate the example into your own businesses.
First of all, when you are building your event launch strategy, make a timeline with the exact dates for major mile stones and triggers that must all be thought out before launching. In this example we are launching a simple online “event planner specific calendar application” and will start sending the emails two weeks before launch. You can send out emails in as much frequency as you want depending on your list, I’m just going to discuss the few important ones here.
Email 1 contents: Day 1
This email goes out to your main list that you have already been adding people to. You would want to keep it simple and informal here. Initially break the ice with some comment about how you have been meaning to write for a long time, but never got around to it.
In the second or third paragraphs, very briefly touch into the frustrations that they have which you know your product solves. Don’t mention anything about your product here, but just talk about the frustration as if you have to deal with it as well. They need to be able to relate to you and the frustration. So in this example you would talk about how the all of the calendar apps out there are difficult to sync to to-do lists, or something like that.
You would also subtly want to touch on an aspiration that can give the readers a feel good moment. I wish we could have a event planner specific calendar app that could do this.. and that…
You keep talking along these lines with hooks in each corner of your email. Make sure you have a paragraph near the end that clearly describes how they can benefit from your app. You have to answer the whats in it for me question.
If you want, you can briefly mention that you are working on solving these frustrations for the longest time and are close to introducing the best possible solution to it. The idea is to set some basic level of anticipation upfront, so that they wait for your next email.
Also, you need to engage them at this point. So ask them a question related to their frustrations or needs (e.g. what do you think is the most important thing to have in online calendars for event planners). The idea here is to get them to reply and also to gather information that you can use for your product and launch.
Email 2 contents: Day 4
Get back to them after 3-4 days with an excited email about how the response to the question was overwhelming. What you are doing here, is showing them that all of the other readers on the list are really into this whole thing and are taking these emails seriously (delivering social proof). That is going to make them want to do the same.
Secondly, through this email, you are giving them proof of the importance of this issue to other similar people. This will make them feel like it is important for them as well.
Thirdly, you would want to tap into the frustration a bit more to reiterate it incase they have forgotten
Fourthly, you need to give away stuff that is of value to them for free - so a great thing to do is package up the response that you got into a pdf and tell them here that they can get it for free. OR, you can package your blog-posts on the software industry trends for then into an ebook. OR just about anything of value that you can give away for free. The way to do that would be to give them a link to opt-in for the free copy of that package. You are going to collect these email addresses that have opted in and build another sub list out of it.
These emails are playing on scarcity by showing that a lot of people are interested.
The landing page that this email leads to should reiterate the same core message and have a small and simple opt-in form for them to enter their email addresses.
Email 3 Contents: Day 8
Send out another email here to both the main list and other list that you created from the opt-in forms on the landing page. Make the email interesting. Quote authoritative bodies in the industry (e.g. Techcrunch) to gain authority for your product as well. This a subtle emotional trigger of association that works well.
Repeat another aspect of the frustration. Send them links to the landing page again. Tell them that the compiled package is available for them to download.
You can even address any objections that you think they may have later about your product. You can do this by talking about how things are not the way they should be. Essentially you’d be giving them a feel for the kind of issues your application will solve.
Email 4 Contents: Day 10
With this email you can release a sneak peak video demo of the application. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge expense, but perhaps just a screencast of some of the cool features that you have.
In the email you talk about the issues with the current systems again (the frustrations). Then you make them understand how this application effects their bottomlines and should thus be considered an investment rather than a cost.
Then send out a link to your demo video for them to watch.
Meanwhile on your Blog - Day 11-13
Build the hype on your blog. Reinforce the same messages that you are giving in your emails. Discuss any questions or objections that the readers have.
In the posts, play with the mental trigger of showing them prices that are higher than your actual price so that when you launch, they find the prices lower than what they expected. The way you do it is simply by anchoring higher prices according to the value of the system or of competitive product prices. Don’t commit your own prices yet.
In these posts show that a lot of people are anxious to get their hands on your application, but try to keep playing on scarcity. You want to tell them that you are launching a limited private beta for the calendar app for the first two months.
You want to get them to be part of the people who act first as soon as you launch.
Email 5 Contents: Day 13 (day before launch)
Always send an email a day before launch. Tell them that you are prepping up for launch and everything is going smooth. Tell them how everyone’s excited about being a part of beta and how you hope they will make it to the beta as well.
Make them want to be the first person to sign up.
If you want you can share more videos here or anything to stir up the excitement again right before launch.
Email 6 Contents: Day 14 - D Day
Send them an email with the steps to follow to sign up. Send another email as soon as you launch to notify them that your launch site is live and is taking in sign-ups.
Email 7 Contents: Day 15
Send an email to tell them about the raving crowd you saw. How the numbers have surpassed your expectations. How you are grateful.
This is a sure shot framework that you can use for any product launch. It guides you how to plan your prelaunch content all the way up to your launch day - and how to place specific emotional triggers at the right times.
The steps to a mind blowing launch
Alright, so I apologize in advance for the dramatic title. There are many successful ways to launching your events & your products. In the tech sector we’ve seen all kinds of launches. Some startups launch website products into the market with a big bang just weeks before opening up for beta. Their big bang is based on the coolness of the product itself, or on a great demo video.
If you’re not offering an event that is news worthy or a product that is revolutionary, then I’d suggest more tried and tested ways of marketing your launch.
Product and website launch tactics that have been supported by some of the most influential people in internet marketing can as easily be applied to your event launches. Try them out for your next event launch and see how well you do.
First of all, the success of your launch (read: $$$) depends immensely on how well you have connected with your potential customers in the pre-launch stage. Make sure you time your pre-launch perfectly so that your launch is introduced at a point where the hype reaches its climax. Some additional pointers:
1- Start building your lists way before launch. Get people on your lists. Build relationships with them. If you want, you can build a following on an authority blog about your industry.
2- Use social networking sites to network with people with the aim of getting them onto your lists. These lists are the backbone of your launch, so work on making it as strong as you can. Also, keep the lists and social networks connected and engaged at all times - you would want to have a constant communication going on at all times.
3- This is the best time to gauge your markets response to specific elements of the event. You can either get their opinions, ideas by discussing them firsthand, or get them to fill out surveys. You already want them to be involved in a conversation before you start the pre-launch campaign (typically, in the form of email series + blog posts).
4- Once you have your lists all set up, a pre-launch phase can typically take about 2-3 weeks starting from the initial introduction to “something new is coming up”. The way to calculate the duration is to first see how much pre-launch content you have that you can spread across in an email series. One email should lead to another and help in building your launch story. You can then see how you want to spread it out for the maximum effect.
5- If you have decided on a 6 week long pre-launch campaign, then set a target date for your event launch (e.g. April 15th) and run back 6 weeks for the pre-launch campaign to begin. You would want to have the pre-launch content emails all scheduled up in an auto-responder program to start running on set dates or follow up sequences. Make sure you get the content revised and approved before signing it off (I join my list before anyone else can - so I end up getting each email days before my list does), to avoid errors which are a bad look, although if you correct them publicly - they can also make you seem more human. Make sure your content hits the right emotional triggers at the right times based on their frustrations, aspirations, needs related to your product industry.
6- In the middle of your pre-launch campaign you need to start to build momentum and give them more and more information about your event. A nicely made video intro can be placed in this time-period to get the market talking about something pertaining to the event, or just a little more detail about the event. They need to know what to expect by the time you get close to launch. This is also a great time to answer questions that people have raised about the product through your blog posts.
7- You may also want to give away the price of your tickets a couple of days before your launch. Some people prefer to make it a surprise till the launch date, and thats perfectly OK as well - as long as the surprise isn’t coupled with “that much..?” . If it is much, you need to have subtly built a sense of value during your pre-launch campaign.
8- As the launch date draws nearer you need to have your market sensing scarcity in ticket availability as well as feeling like if they miss this, they could be the only ones. Make it clear to them exactly how to make the purchase a day before the tickets go off ons sale. You want them to be talking about the big launch amongst themselves. You want the authority blogs in that field covering the upcoming launch. You would also want interesting stories within your launch story, to make it in the news. Don’t shy off from these things - allow this excitement to rise.
9- Send emails to your list on launch day. Make it exciting and momentous. Ensure to make it clear just how much demand you’re receiving on ticket sales & inform them that once ticket sales hit a certain number the curtain comes down. Make sure everything is in order and all queries are answered as quickly as possible.
10- Depending on how many days you want to keep the launch open for, make sure you keep sending them an email a day with updates on ticket sales and reminders of your capacity. These emails can also include triggers relating to, early testimonials from purchasers, more insights about the event itself - anything to keep them in the loop. People who haven’t yet made the buy-decision will know just how much time they have left to avail the launch packages. They will play cat and mouse with you and themselves as although people want to buy, they don’t want to be sold to. If uncertain they will wait until the last minute looking for you to give them a reason or an excuse not to buy. Play it cool and hit the right triggers at the right time and they will buy.
11- Show your list social proof that the response to your launch has been dynamic. Point them to your blog where people are commenting. Of course all these strategies are dependent on you having executing the pre-launch effectively, you must have comments in your blog and ticket sales to deploy them. I don’t recommend these tactics if you have no comments in your blog or have made few ticket sales throughout the first day of a launch. People will always want to follow a buzz, its human nature for us not to want to miss out one something that we sense a majority of the tribe (like-minded people) will participate in. You just need to create the buzz and entice early adopters to commit.
12 - You can also hit the final day of a launch by offering major bonuses to all ticket purchasers that you had not previously mentioned. This ploy is two fold in its effect, it leaves ticket holders with a sense of “thats cool”, I already paid for my ticket they didn’t need to give me that, but did. It also serves as a final boost for those sitting on the edge looking for that something extra to buy. Its important that you offer these bonuses to ticket holders and anyone else who buys before a certain time today. Don’t give them a lot of time to think about it, put them under pressure to buy immediately.
13 - Soon after the bonus time period is up - close the gates. I like to put a sign on our ticketing pages that says “Sold Out”. Send a message to your list informing them tickets have sold out and that you are processing all your 3rd party distributor sales before locking the doors permanently. Make it known that depending on your final count on tickets sales that there is a chance more tickets may be made available again, for a brief period. This sets you up for a mini relaunch where you reopen the doors to sell a hand full of tickets your count has confirmed are still available. This relaunch is designed to get all the people who experienced a sense of loss when the doors close last time across the line. Make it clear the second round of tickets will sell out in a short period of time. They wont miss out this time.
13 - After your launch is over, don’t forget about your lists. Keep the conversation going. Make sure you keep your lists warm by launching a post launch campaign thats all about the event, peoples testimonies & the success that it was. Keep your list warm until you are ready to execute a relaunch (e.g. a second event or some T-shirts commemorating the event or a video series of the night as a special offer).
You should always be pre-launching, launching, post launching or re-launching an event of some kind. Its business and the way to build success.
Good luck.
Hitting mental triggers - its all about the perfect timing
In an earlier post I talked about how to hit mental triggers. Today I just want to elaborate a bit on when to hit. See, just like any marketing effort, your emails are messages that are going out to your prospects. If you have been following this blog, you would know the importance of building lists of prospects that can you then target for your launch.
When mapping out your event launch strategies, you need to plan how to build hype and anticipation until it climaxes at launch. You launch just when the curiosity has peaked and Bam! See the fireworks happen.
This is analogous to movies - we’re trained to allow the tension to build within ourselves when we are watching a thriller. A thriller movie wouldn’t work if they just give away the plot in the first ten minutes. Who would want to watch it through then? Similarly, when you are building hype towards your mega launch, make sure you spread out the campaign into weeks of little swallow-able chunks of information at a time. They need to take it in and then come back for more.. and more.. until you launch. Until their tension is released. Until they attend your event. Until they buy your products. Until they get to benefit from whatever it is that you are offering.
So this sequential timeline is one in which you slowly build their trust, give them little bites of information, get them to share their needs, give away free things or content, work on your relationship with them. Here is another great analogy to think about: try meeting a girl (or boy) and propose to her (or him) the same day. How would they react? Well, in most normal cases, I’m guessing they’d freak out and would want to stay the hell away from you. Important things require the effort of building a relationship of trust. Your launches are as important as anything else. So invest the time to plan it well.
A good thing about this is that while you are communicating with your prospects and lists, you can get early feedback and ideas from them. If you want to make it formal you can even ask them to fill out survey forms survey money, otherwise you can measure it from your conversations with them. Another good thing about this timeline is that once you do your initial launch, all subsequent relaunches and other revolving door activities can even be done over weekly (or even shorter) timelines.
You’ll have to plan your email content well and then schedule it up in your auto-responder emails. If you don’t have enough people on your prospect lists, then use social networking sites to find them. You can read our social media marketing strategies here.
Your launches can take anywhere between 2-4 weeks of prelaunch hype leading to a week long massive launch. In your subsequent launches, you can have shorter timelines of 3-8 days using the exact same sales cycle.
Launch Stories - make a perfect blend and serve it hot
Stories have an important role in making a launch a raving success. Your launch story is simply how you present information to your prospects. What are you about? Why should they care? I’ve always wondered why some launch stories hit it big and others just fizzle out like they never even existed.
We all want big successful launches, and it turns out that a lot of it is in our hands. All of this assumes that the product or event that you are about to launch is worth the hype.
I’ve written about how to build your stories here and here. Today, I’m just going to expand on it a bit more. If you are marketing your services or launching products, you need to really know how to tell effective stories. Story telling is an art that you can learn and adopt for your businesses and it helps define complex things into simple words. We come across countless situations where we can benefit from this skill - when you’re in an elevator with a potential business partner, when you get a chance to meet an investor, when you’re pitching to your clients, when you run across an old school friend on a weekend getaway and most importantly, when you are about to launch products or events in the market.
Telling a launch story is about summing everything up nicely and presenting it in a way that can influence your potential clients or audiences to take action. This is done by hitting the right mental triggers to the right people at the right time.
The mental triggers that you choose to hit will depend on your individual products, but we can safely say that the old tested rules of “hero play” still apply. And boy do they work! We, as humans, are attracted to stories of drama, intensity of emotions, shock, winning. We want that adrenaline rush. We want that human to human association. We want that heroism. We want to listen to people who understand where we come from. If you can incorporate these into your story, you’re bound to have a greater impact and response from your targeted audiences.
Make your key message (verbal or email) as informal and relatable to your audiences as possible. Make it like a conversation between two people. Here is a structure (also proposed by Industry leader Jeff Walker) that you can use for your message:
1- start with reiterating the fact that you are just like them. That you have a lot in common. The purpose of this intro is to get the attention of your key targeted audience and make them think “hey this guys just like me..”
2- Then name a few frustrations that you have (related to your launch). E.g. “I’ve been looking around for cool places to hangout, where I can just take my mind off work and network with likeminded people.. but there is just no such place in the entire town…”. This should make them think “yea. I totally get it”.
3- When you’re sure you have that nod, talk about how you aspire for things to be different. You can throw in ideas and thoughts and let their minds wander off. Don’t limit their thoughts to specific examples, let them imagine as much and as far as they can.
4- Finally, when you know that they are excited about how all of this can turn around, present your solution and discuss how it can benefit people like you (i.e. him).
It takes very little time to come up with the good meaningful stories that you can use to turn your business around. So get down to work and get creative. Let me know if you need further inspiration or assistance.
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