I’ve been labeled a go-to “launch copy girl,” the copywriter behind launches for clients with lists of 30K+++ (and smaller lists of 2K!), helping marionette the psychology behind multiple six-figure launches.

(Hear my heart: A launch is a delicate dance of killer Facebook ad targeting [and retargeting], a stud-muffin of an offer, and months of priming an audience for your launch … but the 20,964 words I strategize during a launch campaign can really help get that ball over the goal line. Is copywriting everything in a launch? Certainly not. Is it the sinuous thread holding it all together? 100%.)

And then it was time to launch my own signature program.

What if the launch girl can’t launch her own program? What if she’s a fraud?

What if it flops? What if no one knows what copywriting is, and I don’t explain it well? What if we launch to crickets?

My head spun all week.

 

But as the numbers rolled in Tuesday close to midnight, I had tears in my eyes: we weren’t going to hit the 55 stretch goal I’d set based off analytics, webinar show-up rates, click-thru rates, and all the other things I calculate during launch copywriting.

We were going to hit 110.

Double.

And trust me, my list ain’t at 10K.

Today, I wanted to share with you some learnings of what worked, and what didn’t work, so you can make some tweaks in your own product and service launching and launch copy!

Oh, and don’t miss your freebie ALL about messaging to include during your launch!

 Ashlyn! I thought you just wrote emails and website copy … I didn’t know you knew all the nitty-gritty.” -text to me yesterday

Truth? Somedays I feel like it’s more nitty-gritty than writing. 😉

One of my favorite copywriters says he’s just as much a launch strategist as a copywriter, and that’s so true! Copywriting an email sequence loses its value if the writer doesn’t know the funnel map, and have a say in the mapping.

It’s something I love serving and brainstorming about with my launch copy clients, and went bananas doing this myself!

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 We had a chatbox … and I manned it more than my VA.

 We had a 79% conversion rate on that little AOL Instant Messanger-esque chatbox … and I think a lot of that was because I got to get in there and talk to people. It meant less sleep for a week, but it meant I got to hold students by the hand and help them decide if it was right for them (or not).

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 If you’ve ever given webinars, you know what it’s like to try to man the tech, the chat, and teach your guts out. This launch marked the first time I paid for VA support, and it was worth every bit of the $650 I paid her.

Webinar feedback about the level of teaching affirmed my every fear: this training WAS worth their time (if you know me at all, you know I’m a productivity nerd. StrengthsFinder? Strategy, Learner, Input, Achiever. Aka all the nerd strengths. Education is one of my core values, and I.hate.webinars that are fluff.)

Couldn’t have done that without my VA.

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 Having a tailored checkout page was a lovely way to get conversion copy in front of my new students to put them at ease before spending a chunk of change—I wanted them to be comfortable with their purchase!

So, while Samcart was #worthit … Thinkific (where my course is hosted) wasn’t the easiest integration. Zapier to the rescue, but I’ll be pumped up when they have an official marriage.

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 “Ash! Take 2 weeks off,” my Trouvaille Workshop speaker friends encouraged the day after the launch.

Great idea!

But … with double the volume of support emails, private community messages, tags, new inquiries, and more … that’s surely not happened in the least. Whoops! I completely didn’t prep for that.

I was scared to get my hopes up, but as a businesswoman, I need contingency plans for both directions the launch could have gone, and I didn’t do that.

Dear sweet VA, so glad you’re coming back to help!

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 My AW Brand Excavation™ process is part of the experience I give my Brand Story clients, and a system I teach in Copywriting for Creatives. It’s protected, it’s mine, and I love it. But I didn’t clearly communicate that to new students … thus, I’m backpedaling to do so.

I want to trust every single student that’s ever passed through my program that they’ll uphold the Terms & Conditions and let the 25+ swipe files, templates, cheat sheets, and checklists stay mine, but the truth is, someone one day will try to execute my system on a client for commercial gain one day. I’m working with my favorite attorney to button up protections on my process, but I wish I’d communicated a BIT more to my sweet new students to please cite me should you implement … and if you’re swiping the whole system to implement on your own copywriting or branding clients, well, let’s just say that wouldn’t be so smart.

I’ve learned a LOT about legality lately, and bringing on my girl Christina Scalera this July to educate us a bit more on protecting our small businesses, starting with your first calligraphy or photography contract. Look out for details in your inbox!

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There’s so much information floating around about launches, but it’s always surprising that it doesn’t come back to 3 things more often:

1. Does your audience trust you?
2. Is your offer right?
3. Have you served them well?

Committing to weekly blogs and tons of freebies alongside my services is important to me. I can’t teach what I don’t actually know, and there’s a lot of education out there from people who have dubious credibility.

Stay in your lane, build trust by serving like crazy before a launch, and have your audience’s best interest top of mind. Serve them. Love them. Is it scary to pepper them with emails during a launch? Absolutely. But does it keep you up at night that you know the one tweak they could make to make a life-change, and you’re keeping it to yourself?

Then get that story out, friend.

What other launch questions do you have?