Free Guide: The Ultimate Guide to Launching Your Course

If you have been eyeing to earn more income and scale your business to 10K months then this guide is for you. What I will be teaching you in this guide has allowed my clients to scale their businesses to multiple 5 figure months.

In this post, we’ll be talking all about launching your course, and how to have as profitable a launch as possible!

We’re going to split this into four sections. 

 

Knowing Your Ideal Client

You will struggle to scale if you don’t understand who your ideal clients are and what you can offer them. Understanding your ideal client and their needs would be the best foundation of everything you do in your business.

 

Creating an Irresistible Offer

Your product suite is vital when looking to scale. You need to create offers that your ideal client actually wants to purchase and invest in.

 

Building Authority

You can have the best offers but if you are not building authority online to show you are a go to expert, you will struggle to sell. It is also important to make sure that you are building your authority online and become the go-to expert and gain your ideal client’s trust and attention. 

 

Your Launch Strategy

Stop throwing spaghetti at the walls! You need to have a strategy in place to attract, nurture and convert your ideal clients. Understanding the different stages of launching will help you to do this.

Working through these four categories is the easiest way to make sure you’re as prepared as can be for your launch, and to make it as profitable as possible! So, we’ll start at the beginning. 

Knowing Your Ideal Client

You will struggle to scale if you don’t understand who your ideal clients are and what you can offer them. Understanding your ideal client and their needs is the foundation of everything you do in your business. 

Before your launch and before you put content out there, you need to ensure that your ideal client is not too broad. If your ideal client is too broad, your messaging will not be clear and you will hear crickets.

Let’s look at an example.

A business decides their ideal client is women who want to lose weight. 

This is far too broad. 

There are different types of women who want to lose weight for different reasons and have different problems when it comes to losing weight. The content a new mum who has just had a baby wants to see is completely different to the content a coach who wants to lose 10lb before here retreat wants to see.

So, how do we narrow an audience down? 

Let’s continue with the same example. 

Women who want to lose weight. 

Narrow Audience 1: Working mums in their 9-5 who want to lose weight but struggle with getting to the gym.

Narrow Audience 2: Mums who have just had a baby and want to lose the baby weight.

Narrow Audience 3: Coaches who want to lose 10lb before their retreat in two months.

These three audiences are much more specific and therefore, you are much more likely to actually reach your target audience. 

 

Narrowing your audience is what we call ‘finding your niche.’

 

A niche is a segment of the market. A niche allows you to focus on a specific area of your overall market, like the example above with women who want to lose weight VS a new mum who wants to lose weight after having a baby. For your marketing to be successful, you need to talk to the individual rather than talking to everyone. Having a niche allows this.

 

It allows you to serve your audience better and you are targeting a specific problem for a specific person. Your messaging will be clearer which will attract more of your ideal clients, and your marketing will be more effective as your content will be speaking directly to your ideal client rather than everyone.

 

It also allows you to become an expert in a specific area. When you are seen as an expert you will build more authority online which is when you can charge premium pricing because you have built authority and credibility online. AND the more authority and credibility you have, the more sales you will get. 

 

That’s the what, but what about the how? 

 

How do we niche down? How do we find our ideal client?

 

We’ll begin by looking at the STP model. STP stands for Segment, Target and Position. These are three steps that you can use to narrow your audience down. 

 

Segment

If your ideal client is currently too broad, segment them further according to pain points, problems and goals. For example, women who want to lose weight can be segmented into new mums who want to lose weight after having a baby but lack time or female coaches who want to lose 10lb before their retreat.

 

Target

Once you have these different segments evaluate each one and choose one to target. Which segment is most likely to invest in themselves? Which segment is most profitable and worth targeting? Do you have the experience and skills to solve their problems and get them to their goals?

 

Position

The final step is to determine how you will position your brand and offerings in the mind of your ideal customer. Your elevator pitch is important here. For example, this is mine.

 

I teach coaches, consultants and course creators how to create, launch and sell their programs to hit 5 figure months.

 

In just 20 words I have identified my target audience (‘coaches, consultants and course creators’) stated what exactly it is that I do (‘how to create, launch and sell their programs’) and established authority through previous successes (‘to hit 5 figure months’)

 

After you’ve narrowed down your audience, you can begin researching your ideal client. We call this Market Research.

Market research is important for ensuring your idea is viable. So many people have an idea and throw it out there hoping for the best to only hear crickets. Market research will help you narrow down who to target and whether there is a demand for your idea. It will also give you a good idea if people are spending money for their problem to be solved and to get the results they desire. You want to make sure your ideal clients are spending money and willing to invest in the problem you are solving. When doing your research ask yourself the following questions.

 

Are there any existing offers on the same or a similar topic?

Are these selling well?

Are there any other info products (like eBooks) on the topic?

Are there any people giving paid consultation on the topic?

Are there reviews on the topic?

 

Social media is going to play a big role in your market research. 

 

For example, you can research profiles on Instagram by searching keywords your competition may use in their bio e.g. 'weight loss coach'. 

 

Look at profiles who are targeting your desired niche.

 

What content are they posting?

How are they attracting their ideal client with their messaging?

What have they included in their bio?

Where does the link in their bio lead to?

 

This will allow you to see marketing trends, see what is and is not working for others in your industry and give you ideas on how to stand out in the online space.

 

You can also use Facebook groups in your research.

 

Find relevant Facebook groups used by your ideal clients. Your Instagram research can help you with this. Research what they are posting and questions they are asking to give you an idea on their struggles. Ask questions in these groups to learn more about your ideal client and for market research.

 

If you have an existing audience or existing clients, you can utilise them too. They are the best source of market research. Ask them what they want from you and provide it. You can use Google Forms to create a survey. You want to find out:

 

• Demographics of your ideal client
• Problems they are facing
• Pain points they have
• Goals they want to achieve
• How they are handling their current challenges
• What have they tried to solve their problem
• Would they purchase a course that solves their problems
• What content would they want to see in your offer
• What outcome would they expect from your offer

 

All of these steps will allow you to have a much clearer understanding of who it is exactly that you are trying to target. By doing this research before launching, you have a much higher chance of hitting those 5-figure months consistently, because you’re selling to an audience that you can prove will benefit from your product.

 

Creating An Irresistible Offer

 

Once you have perfected who your ideal client is, you can start creating an irresistible offer to scale your business to 10K months. You need to create an offer your ideal client actually wants to purchase from you rather than assuming what they want. The market research section above can help with this.

 

Your offer should be getting your ideal client from A (their problem) to B (their goal).

 

When creating your offer, ask yourself the following questions.

 

What do your ideal clients need right now?

What are their problems and what are their goals?

What offers can you create to meet these needs?

How can you add value to this offer to increase the price?

 

The next step is pricing your offer. 

 

When scaling your business to 10K months you need to consider what you are selling, at what price and to how many people. For example, if you have a program that is $1000, you need to convert 10 people in a month to hit 10K.

 

It can be difficult to choose a price point for your offer! Use the following to help with this. 

 

1. Price your course based on the value of the content. The more value you are adding into it, the higher the price.

 

2. Consider the length. For example, you will charge a lower price for a 2 hour masterclass compared to a 6 week program. The more time someone has with you, the more you can charge.

 

3. Think about how much credibility and authority you have in your market. The more credibility and authority online the more people will be willing to pay.

 

4. How else would someone learn what you can teach them? How many months or years of trial and error would it take? 

 

Make sure to consider all of the above when pricing your product, but also refer to your market research. If you know your ideal audience well, it’ll be much easier to price your product accordingly. 

Building Authority 

Building authority online helps you position yourself as the go-to expert for the problem you solve and who you solve it for. The more credibility and authority you have online, the more people will trust you and purchase from you at a higher price.  

 

Building this trust will lead to a ready to buy audience who will purchase from you every time you launch. You’ll be able to make more sales just by putting yourself out there and producing the right content. The following is a 5-step example of how you can do this. 

 

1. Choose A Social Media Platform To Build Your Audience
2. Create Consistent Content To Build Authority
3. Educate Your Audience On What Their Problem Is And Why They Need To Solve It
4. Create Hype Around Your Offer
5. Launch Your Offer

 

It’s as simple as that! By consistently showing up on your chosen social media platform, you’ll be able to build your authority as a business owner. Interact with your audience, post consistently and prove your product can solve their problems.

When it comes to creating content for social media, I always refer back to three primary content types. 

 

Educational Content 

Do polls and ask questions to learn what your audience is struggling with.

Create content and do lives to solve these struggles and problems.

If you solve a problem for your audience they will begin to trust you!

 

Stories To Inspire

Share stories to connect with your audience and show your expertise.

Share your experiences including your weaknesses but show how you overcame these - what was the solution?

Your audience will see you have been on the journey they are on and this will allow them to connect with you.

 

Accomplishments To Build Trust

Real results (yours and your clients) will build trust with your audience. 

Trust = Clients

 

You can also look at the Customer Journey and see how it applies to your business. 

The more you understand the journey your ideal clients take before purchasing from you, the better you will be able to build your authority online and the more of your audience you will be able to convert. You need to consider what content you have at each of the below stages of the customer journey.

 

Attract

This is where your ideal clients first become aware of you e.g. via other FB groups. What strategy do you have in place to attract your attention? Does your content encourage your ideal client to want to learn more about you?

 

Education

Once an ideal client has been attracted to you, they will begin to educate themselves about you. For example, by watching your stories, lives or visiting your website. If they like what they see they will begin to follow your content, join your freebie or sign up to your FB group. What content do you have that shows you are an authoritative figure in your industry?

 

Repertoire

This stage is where your ideal client will spend the most amount of time. During this stage, you need to be nurturing your ideal clients with your content to build trust. What freebies do you have that can solve a problem for them? Free webinars, challenges and mini-courses are great for this.

 

Consideration

Once the trust is built, your ideal client will consider purchasing from you. You need to be showing them why they should be purchasing from you with your content. What content do you have that encourages your audience to purchase? Results, testimonials and case studies are important at this stage.

 

Purchase

This is the ultimate stage. Once your ideal client has purchased they are more likely to purchase again. Consider what retention strategies you have in place to retain that client.

 

When you’ve figured out your ideal customer, how to attract them and the journey that your customers will take, the next step is to begin planning your launch!

Launch Strategy 

Let’s talk about launch strategies! You need to have a strategy in place to attract, nurture and convert your ideal clients. Everything you are putting in front of your ideal clients should have a purpose. You can't just create an offer and throw it out there the next day and expect to hit 10K.

 

It is so, so important to understand the different stages of launching as part of your strategy.

 

1. Pre-Launch 
2. Cart Opens
3. Post-Launch 

Pre-Launch Phase

This is the most important phase. At this stage you need to be warming up your audience, building excitement and generating leads. The more you warm up your audience and create hype around your offer, the easier it will be to sell your offer when the cart opens. Your pre-launch is a sneak peak into your full offer. If your pre-launch content is engaging and solving a problem for your audience then they will want to know more about your paid offerings.

 

Cart Opens

At this stage, it is time to sell the course and see a ROI. You need to be educating your audience on what their problem is, why they need to solve it now and why your course is what they should be investing in. Creating urgency and FOMO is important at this stage.

 

Post-Launch

Once the cart has closed, you move into the post-launch phase. During this phase you need to provide those who have purchased with an amazing experience so they continue to purchase, evaluate your launch (what went well, what did not and what can be improved next time) and continue to nurture those who did not purchase and offer them a down-sell.

My favourite way of making sure that each of my launch phases is successful is to run a challenge. 

 

Challenges are one of the best ways to launch and cover all 3 launch phases. Challenges are a 3-5 day live event hosted in a Facebook Group where you help solve part of your audience's problem to build trust.  They are a snippet of your paid course. You then launch your paid course from the challenge. 

 

Start by splitting your launch into 5 weeks.

 

Week One & Two 

The goal is to get as many people as possible into the challenge during these two weeks. The more people you get in, the more people you have to convert. The average conversion rate from a challenge is 1-5%. 

 

Here are 3 ways to promote your challenge: 

 

1) Your social media: Promote your challenge using long posts, short posts, lives, stories and reels. The more you talk about your challenge and educate your audience to why they need it, the more sign ups you will get. 

 

2) Other people's social media: Find collaborations where you can go live in peoples Facebook groups or take over their Instagram stories to provide their audience with value and have a call to action to your challenge. 

 

3) Your audience: Your audience are your best sellers. Create an affiliate scheme and have prizes for the people who invite the most people into the challenge. Provide them with the content to promote the challenge for you to keep the promotion simple for them. 

Week Three

During this week you will do the challenge either in your Facebook group or a pop up Facebook group. This week you want to provide your audience with lots of value and get them super excited about what they are learning. On day 3 you then launch your paid course. Have a challenge only bonus this week to encourage people to sign up to the course before the challenge is over. 

 

TIP: Having a prize for the most engaged person (such as a free spot on your course) encourages people to engage which in turn can help with the reach of your posts and lives. 

Week Four

In week 4 have a free masterclass which leads on from your challenge to re engage your audience. Re-launch your offer from this with a 24 hour bonus. I usually announce the prize winners at the end of the masterclass to encourage people to stay until the end. 

 

You need to be educating your audience on what their problem is, why they need to solve it now and why your course is what they should be investing in. Creating urgency and FOMO is important at this stage. At the end of this week you will close the cart. 

Week Five

Promote a low priced offer in week 5. During your launch you will have created leads that won't purchase into your main offer. Having a down-sell into a low price offer encourages them to at least convert into something. When someone converts once, they are 10 times more likely to convert again.