This episode is a launch debrief, going over the mechanics of our launch, what we did to grow our audience before the launch, how we did the actual launch, and then what our results were…or what they weren’t, for that matter. We definitely consider Level Up Live a failure to launch. Then we’ll dive into how we are adjusting program delivery and planning for the future because of the results of this launch.
What happened with this launch?
This launch was the first one that I felt like I did properly according to the templates from programs that I’ve been in or just the way that you’re “supposed” to launch.
We had a build up period, we had some audience growth, we had a waitlist. We had an actual enrollment period with a cart open and a cart closed.
In the past, we’ve been a lot more casual. The cart kind of opened whenever, my sales were a lot more relationship driven, and social selling, like in the DMs and on sales calls.
This time we went that more traditional route with the sales emails. We did a webinar, we did everything that you’re “supposed” to do when you launch. I will be honest, it failed miserably. It was not a good launch, especially for how much work we put into really trying to make it a great experience.
Pre-Launch Planning
We started working on this in May. I’d been thinking about doing some type of launch over the summer since maybe February or March. We launched Level Up for the first time in the summer, and it went really well. I figured maybe that’s a good time of year for a program like this, because the best we’ve ever done was our very first launch. I think some of that might have to do with the pricing, but I’ll get to that maybe a little bit later. In May, we started working on content.
We worked on nurturing our current list through email. I started getting more consistent with sending out Mostly Thursdays. Again, we sent out some other nurture emails that were LinkedIn specific, and were really doing everything we could to warm up our audience.
Growing Our Audience
We had two plans in place for audience growth. First, we participated in the Set to Scale bundle with Emma Louise of The Ambitious Introvert. Over 350 people downloaded LinkedIn for Introverts, our bundle offer, and 9 purchased our upsell to join Thought Leaders Collective. If you’re into math, the conversion rate there was about 2.5%, which I don’t think is too bad, especially because literally none of these people had heard of me before.
We also did a JV webinar with Kelsey from The Aligned Business, and had over 150 sign ups, and I think more than 30 people attended the webinar live and watched all the way through to the end. Our retention rate was really good there, the most that were on at one point was like, 38.
The Launch
Our cart-open period was over the course of two weeks, and I sent about eight emails. We hosted an open house two days before the cart closed. The open house was not very well attended. I think only two people showed up, which was fine. I think that should have been a little bit more indicative to me that the engagement wasn’t really there for the launch and people weren’t as interested as we were going to need them to be to invest in the program.
What made the launch a failure?
There were just so many factors at play that made it really hard to say for sure. For the emails themselves, our open rates were decent. I would say close to 35% to 40%, but the clicks were super low, only hovering around 1% per email, which wound up being like, five or six clicks per email. A lot of those were the same people clicking over and over and ultimately deciding not to purchase. We got more unsubscribes than I would have liked, but overall, it was nothing crazy.
We did the Set to Scale bundle which ended two days before our cart open started. So, those people joined my list and were immediately kind of bombarded by sales content. That’s not something that I felt great about doing. I had to weigh the pros and cons of exposing these people to the launch content now and risking them not being interested or waiting to expose them for the next time I did the launch content. But then I was thinking, what if I didn’t want to do a launch again?
What I Liked
I really liked that we were prepared. We had everything written, we had everything scheduled ahead of time. Even though I was panicking that nobody was buying because I had everything planned out and written and scheduled, I stuck it out and didn’t just give up because I was tired of creating content or I figured it wasn’t going to work out.
Another thing that we did that I liked was give our readers the option to opt out of promo emails. This is something that I’ve seen a lot of people doing lately and it’s something that I’ve always kind of believed in. But this was our first big promo, so this was our first opportunity to do it ourselves. I’m really glad we did because now I know that the people who unsubscribed were just not interested in our content at all. The people who were opting out of the promo were just exercising their choice, and I’m glad that we gave them the space to do that.
The final thing that I liked about this launch that’s a little funny, I think, is…I kind of like that it didn’t work. We played around with the Level Up offer a lot over the past year, and with every change we made, it seemed like we would appeal to someone new, get a couple enrollments, and then it was kind of crickets. The people who have gone through the program, the students that have given me feedback, have loved it. But there was always a reason for someone not to enroll, and it always felt like such a hard sell for me.
I’ve been wondering for a while if maybe the idea of this big comprehensive group style program isn’t the right offer for someone who wants to learn LinkedIn. It sits in a weird middle ground from a price, $1,200, and it’s priced that way because the value is there.
First of all, it’s an amazing program and you can easily make that money back with a single client that you can get within your first couple of weeks really doing the work. But it’s mostly priced there because I didn’t want to create a course that would just sit in people’s course graveyards. But I haven’t really felt good about pricing to make people feel guilty about not participating. I think I would rather create a course or a program that is a price point that is easy to say yes to, thas messaging that gets you excited to dive in and that is clear and actionable enough that you don’t have time to let it sit in your course graveyard. You log in and you’re just sucked into the world of the program, the course, and the content. That’s what I think people need and what I think I am in the position to provide.
I like that this launch didn’t work because it reinforced to me that this style of program at this price point for this purpose isn’t what people want. Now I can feel really good about sunsetting Level Up as a program and moving on to something new or something reimagined.
Failure to Launch: What Went Wrong
Before I talk about what that something new is, I want to talk about some of the things that I think went wrong with this launch (aside from just the product we were launching and some of the things that I didn’t really like about the promo as a whole).
First, I learned that I hate launching. In the grand scheme of things, we still had a pretty chill launch. But the amount of planning and creation and build up and uncertainty that led up to the launch was exhausting. I think even if we had sold out completely and made like zillions of dollars, I would have ended up feeling the same way that I do now, which is just tired. I don’t like launching and I’m going to do my best to avoid doing it again.
Second, we grew our audience too close to the cart open. The Set to Scale bundle tripled our email list, but because of the time that it closed, we didn’t really give our new subscribers time to get to know who Propegy is, why they should trust us, or if Level Up was worth considering.
Finally, if we want to teach a lot of people how to use LinkedIn, I don’t think Level Up is the right way to do it. Finding the person who has the time to dedicate to an eight week program, the money to spend over $1,000 on that program, and the desire to learn about every single topic we cover each week is a big ask. Finding that person who is the perfect fit for us is difficult.
I will say though, I did find that person! At the end of it all, after six weeks of pre launch nurturing, two weeks of cart open, one Set to Scale bundle and one JV webinar, Level Up Live successfully enrolled one whole student.
How We’re Serving Our Enrollee
Pre-Recorded Content
Instead of insisting on pre scheduled live workshops, I’m going to record the educational portion of each workshop and release it at the beginning of each week. The timing will be the same, but they won’t have to show up live in order to access the content. This will remove some of that pressure from both of us to block out the same part of each week, and it’ll give the student the opportunity to work through each workshop at their own pace, complete the homework, and then prepare any questions that they may have.
1:1 Support
Instead of weekly critiques and live Q & A at the end of each workshop, the student will be able to just book a call with me each week to review their work, ask any questions, and work through any tech problems or “how-tos” that they may need for LinkedIn. This isn’t a scalable solution. But because I have one person who chose to commit to this, I want to give them the best experience possible. I think that this one on one self scheduled option will be the best way to do that.
What’s Next for Level Up?
After this round is over, the Propegy team and I will be going through all of our content to create a series of specific and actionable mini-courses or bundles based on the Lead Gen Archetypes. This will allow our audience to pick and choose the parts of LinkedIn lead generation and marketing that you need support with, at a price point that is more digestible for the average business owner.
I’ve always wanted to create accessible content that makes LinkedIn feel easy and fun, so I’m really excited to take the education side of our business into this new direction. I know that lower ticket offers like this are not going to make me a millionaire or help me scale and grow my business, but at the end of the day, I think these are the solutions that are going to help the most people that are looking for this kind of support for LinkedIn.
